“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.”
-- Ernest Hemingway
One of the consolations of my current condition is the ability to read, think and write. From childhood to today reading has opened doors for me, supplied knowledge and engaged my curiosity. I can't imagine being without it.
Every week I devour The New Yorker cover-to-cover. Lately I'm waist-deep in Tom Wolfe's oeuvre. It's fun to encounter new words (like "shambolic", "boulevardier" and "houri"). I'm also tickled by clever sentences such as: "It would be as risky as trying to beat a burning fuse to the dynamite"; "...the peculiar male compulsion to display knowledge"; and "Moral bitterness is a basic technique for endowing the idiot with dignity."
What do you like to read?
Modern life is insipid. Unless you make independent effort, life's banality will bore you into stupor. That's why I search for eccentricity and whimsy anywhere I can find them. They make life exciting.
The Volkswagen Beetle, acclaimed as "a people's car," was introduced in 1938. VW's idea was to provide folks with cheap basic transportation. Eliminating frills and unnecessary expense enabled budget consumers to get on the road. It also, unintentionally, allowed arrant oddballs to create custom cars at very low cost.
I, for instance, inherited a 1966 VW Bug as my first automobile. I learned on it, grinded gears while mastering "the stick" and drove the car to high school. With teenage exuberance and quirky artistic vision I converted the Bug into the strangest vehicle in my town. I stapled white shag carpeting to the interior walls and roof, removed the entire muffler system and installed "straight pipes," painted racing stripes (actually a decal), boasted racing-style "mag wheels" and tires, replaced the plain knob on the stick-shift with a black billiard eight-ball, and mounted loud, uncovered speakers to boost stereo volume. My proudest achievement was to add a risible car-horn that moo-ed like a cow. Seriously, it moo-ed. The horn had a lever you pulled to RELEASE THE MOO. I thought that was the wildest idea ever. True éclat. Needless to say I was the only kid in town with one.
MOO!! "Ralph's here."
One feature I didn't add -- only because I wasn't aware of its existence -- was a coffee-maker. In 1959 -- I SWEAR TO GOD YOU CAN CHECK ME ON THIS -- Volkswagen offered the option of a coffee-maker mounted on the dashboard (Hertella Auto Kaffeemachine). Drivers could harness car electricity to brew a cup of Joe. Matching porcelain coffee cups had magnets in their base to stay attached to metal holders while driving. In case you don't believe me, here's a photograph of the device. I invite skeptics to do their own research and confirm this.
"Would you like cream or sugar with that?" :)
I just solved TWO problems. Dos. Zwei. Deux.
I surveyed science, philosophy and literature, searching for intriguing pools into which I could dive. In the past I didn't have leisure time for recondite writing, now I'm ready to take a plunge. But what should I read?
I sampled prominent writers, luminaries like David Foster Wallace, Albert Camus and Anthony Burgess. None grabbed me. Few have the right blend of perspicacious content and stylistic brio.
Long ago an author impressed me with his bestselling novel, "Bonfire Of The Vanities." That book captures the zeitgeist of New York in the 1980s. Tom Wolfe, who wrote mostly non-fiction, intensifies his creative writing with reportage on salient topics like class, social status and history. That appeals to me.
During Wolfe's 88 years on Earth he published 18 books and many magazine articles. The books include titles you'll recognize: they were turned into movies: e.g., "The Right Stuff." I've begun exploring Wolfe's books on my new Kindle. I love their flavor. They're both delicious and filling. I just decided to devour Wolfe's entire oeuvre by the end of the year. I hope I don't get fat. :)
Tom Wolfe, as everyone knows, was a "boulevardier", a sophisticated man-about-town who socialized at fashionable places. I learned that fun word from his 2004 novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." The book is a trenchant description of life on elite college campuses. The story and characters remind me of my four years at Hamilton College, a prestigious private college in bucolic upstate New York.
Founded in 1793, Hamilton College has an endowment of $1.3 billion. The school offers exceptional academic education. It also provides social opportunities for drunkenness, debauchery and class struggle. A sizable contingent of my class were pampered rich kids -- the kind born on third base who mistakenly believe they hit a triple. Hamilton was my first exposure to lazy, louche offspring.
During my time in college I often -- deliberately -- affronted moneyed classmates. My favorite weapon was a blue-collar work-shirt from my summer job at Roadside Auto Parts. The shirt (literally dark blue) had my first name stitched above the shirt pocket. The garment shocked ovine snobs. They couldn't believe anyone at a fancy private school would admit, let alone celebrate working class roots. Haughty snobs themselves love to conspicuously flaunt their families' wealth by wearing coded florid clothes, like LL Bean duck-boots, two polo shirts worn on top of each other, and lime-green shorts. And you can set a clock to their constant mention of tony prep-schools, designed to display supposed superiority. One student, son of a famous Hollywood mogul, drove a red convertible MG around campus with the top down. IN WINTER. At 10 mph.
Exposure to hoity-toity classmates taught me that class pretension is insignificant. True value is found in our individuality, in what ancient philosophers call our "haecceitas" (this-ness). Worth doesn't flow from family wealth.
Privileged children often get into good colleges by "legacy admission": i.e., through Daddy's prior attendance and generous donations. Rich kids spend time there partying and patronizing harder-working students. The group feels little pressure to achieve because they know their futures will be greased by Daddy's business contacts. I, on the other hand, am a son of immigrants who didn't attend college. I had to strive to earn grades good enough to open the heavy admissions door at a selective institution. And I had to do that while working multiple part-time jobs to afford private school's higher tuition.
Subjects like this are exactly what Tom Wolfe probes with mordant wit. His gimlet-eye teaches and I'm laughing every day at his piquant barbs.
So what's the second problem I solved? I know what to be for Halloween. Tom Wolfe has a recognized persona: white suit and soigné hat. That outfit is in my wheelhouse.
