Nom de Plume

About a year ago, Steve found 3 or 4 of those old U.S. state drinking glasses and thought they’d be fun to collect. Tacky as they are, I don’t mind them; in fact, I enjoy serving people wine in them. It’s more fun to ask which state they want to be instead of which little wine anklet they want–and it’s a LOT more fun to watch their noses turn up.

In any case, his mother just sent us another batch of them–her third shipment if I recall correctly. We opened the package, and marveled at how racist Tennessee was.

Not, of course, that this should have been a huge shocker. But then, Steve looked a little closer. “Is that what I think it is?”

I peered at the glass …

So tell me, Dear Reader, are we high or is that actually a KKK hat? And is the figure standing next to it what I think it is?

I read all these reviews of Little Children a while ago. One person described it scathingly funny, another said she couldn’t stop laughing. Great, I thought, another heartrending comic materpiece like Franzen’s The Corrections. Put it on my to read list, and picked it up at the library day before yesterday.

Only I didn’t think it was so funny.

Oh, not that it was bad; it wasn’t. It was pretty good even. But while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it the scathing indictment on modern American domestic life it was rumored to be. I just found it sad.

It centers around a two couples in a suburban town. Sarah, previously a militant feminist, has somehow become a mother in a traditional relationship. Her husband is obsessed with an online porn star. Then there are Kathy and Todd, he a stay-at-home dad trying to pass the bar for the third time and she a documentary film maker waiting until he can start bringing home the big bucks. Sarah and Todd embark on an affair. There are peripheral stories as well: the child molester who just moved to town and the retired cop who thinks its his duty to harass him.

All in all, as I said, it was pretty good. Not as good as other novels about domestic life written from a man’s POV, such as Chang-Rae Lee’s The Aerialist, or even Robert Inman’s Captain Saturday–but good nonetheless.

Just not terribly memorable.

However, it does prove to me that the current male authors who are most revered by the Literary Powers That Be usually write something that is termed one of three things: 1) “gritty and real”; 2) “a satiric indictment of modern (insert adjective here) life”; or 3) “a political tour de force.”

I admire bicyclists. I really do. Especially those on Lake Washington Boulevard. After all, it takes courage to don flamboyant Spandex and then appear in public.

Case in point: Two days ago, Steve and I were driving home and there was a guy in yellow shorts. And no, we’re not talking about a pair of shorts that happened to be a muted yellow. We’re talking bright, almost neon, yellow Spandex shorts with advertisements across the rear. And the matching biking shirt.

It was painful. It also topped the list as the worst workout outfit I’ve ever seen.

Spandex is bad enough. No one looks good in it. Particularly men. Frankly, I have zero interest in bulging anatomical parts. But okay, I can see how Spandex is more comfortable, allows more movement, and so on.

But what I really don’t understand is why people pay for Spandex that has someone else’s advertisements splashed all over it. Look, I’ve seen these people careening all over the road, trying not to get hit by oncoming cars. Hell, I’ve tried not to hit them. And I can tell you one thing: They’re not wearing those little outfits because they’re being sponsored.

No, indeedy.

So while I will defend anyone’s right to wear bright yellow biking outfits, I think it inadvisable. Unless, of course, you like being ridiculed on someone’s blog.