Ugly Si Newhouse and Empty Chang
June 3, 2009
So where were you anony-critic? I waited patiently at Melissa's Deli, keeping my promise. Hours I stood in the Goya aisle, ticking off their product list: Vienna sausages, sliced beets, cilantro cooking base, squid, vegetales mixtos. I ate Devildogs and Honey Buns, washed down Zingers with Jarritos, and flipped through the latest Vocero de Puerto Rico in anticipation of our showdown.
But nothing. Were you home smoking metholated ganja? Tweezing your nose hair? Clearly you don't like to mixtos it up. For you literature is like the hollowed out books The Container Store sells for $39.99 (illustrated above). "Book vaults" you hide your precious keys, store your cash, safeguard your pinky rings, maybe even entomb your copy of Take Five. Because, hell, who would break open a book to READ it? You sure wouldn't. Least of all for our man, Mano.
I picture your library like the ransacked book department of the bankrupted Virgin record store on Union Square (seen to the right), cheap histories of hair bands lying atop anthologies of Maxim Magazine articles. Do you REALLY think you have the time or depth to stick with Mano? You mistake the reverse pagination for accomplishment--thinking you completed 583 pages when you are still only on page 1.
Yesterday I got a call from a certain Ugly G. (I prefer not to reveal his full name--the poor man has been exploited enough in his life), who just wanted to share his passion: to fill the cable access airwaves with his videos of women undressing. He's been around a lot longer than C-SPAN's Book TV and claims more viewers (9 million). Here was a person dedicated to his craft, serious about his mission, focused on his goals. Who am I to judge a man in a robot costume asking fellow New Yorkers to unrobe? Hunter Thompson took one look at him and said "Gonzo!" Tom Wolfe parades in front of his cameras when he needs publicity. Even Barbara Bush not so casually drops his name when she wants to drive people to her memoirs (she is a savvy one, old Barb--knowing how to maximize key word searches online).
Anyway, anony-critic, Mr. G. has read Take Five backwards and forwards and up and down. He was impressed by my undertaking and praised my efforts. There's a real patriot! The authentic article. Would Si Newhouse be wrong? He is so in awe of Ugly G. that he sicced James Wolcott on UG in the latest Vanity Fair just to drive up the circulation.
I await your answer, sir. The Goya aisle is quickly being depleted.
--Peter Miller
1 Comments:
The feelings that this post kicked up in me? Only felt 'em once before. Hitchhiking. There's always that crucial moment when the driver pulls over and offers you a ride: the moment when you ask yourself: does this guy really want to take me to where I need to go? Or does he want to pull over at a Pump-n-Munch and give me a handjob?
Reading this most recent post, all I heard in my mind was the half-predatory, half-bored voice of a man telling me to get in the car. Hmm. Lessee. I don't know yet. What I DO know is that I have a hard time believing that you were waiting for me at the Melissa Deli, much less that you actually bought anything there. Aren't you more of a Mazzat man, Mr. Miller, nibbling fine Mediterranean tapas over a bottle of white wine, belching quietly into one hand as you mechanically signal with the other for still more tapas, still more wine, still more recognition that you are an epicure, a member of the New York cognoscenti, a Reader of Great Books, a Man with Important Friends in Publishing and Pornography Whose Names Must Be Truncated to Hide the Fact that a) They Are Not Real People, or b) That They Are Not Really Your Friends?
My bookshelf is in fine fettle, Maxim and all. I keep my bong and my didgeridoo and religious icons on top of it. And I really doubt that Mano would find fault with someone who reads popular magazines, or whose bookshelf occasionally lapses toward entropy... In fact, I think he'd be more inclined to identify with that person, even be that person.
What do you think? Shall we talk about this at Mazzat tonight, by candle-light and Turkish beats gently piped? And while we do, what do you think the chances are that Mano will be setting up a tent or stoking a trash fire on the north side of Degraw as the rain begins to fall? Or will he be seated across from you at the restaurant, wondering how you manage to talk so much game and eat and drink at the same time?
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