Audrey Rouget: What Jane Austen novels have you read?
Tom Townsend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary
criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the
critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it
really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
From "Metropolitan."
By COY ASKEW
Ahssa! Staff Writer
http://iaefr.blogspot.com
So, you live in a moderately large city in the United States and you
are in the bathroom, deciding how far to shave your legs before
attending one of Jennifer 8 Lee's perfectly delightful cocktail parties
(she's gone on the road with them now, due to demand and all) -- "Saint
or Sinner, tonight?" you think.
You know that a lot of over-educated, trust-fund babies (bobos) are
going to descend late into the evening high off their gourd (shouldn't
have done that second line of coke, I supposed) and they'll be babbling
about Harvard or their latest piece in Salon or their cartoon in The
New Yorker.
How do prepare?
Never fear, your very own "failed writer" Coy Askew is here for YOU!
Right now, people like that are talking about a book called "Blink."
It's by the same fellow who wrote the equally bobo book "The Tipping
Point." (Bobos as a group think a lot like middle aged women at a
Longaberger representative convention. Once they get something in their
head, there is virtually no stopping.)
Another word for a bobo, in this context, is "opinion maker."
They're the people who live in Southern California and New York City
who Tell You What To Think. I'm not calling them "the media elite" (I
consider myself a member of the media at least tangentially so I'm
going easy on them) because it's not about that, it's about annoying
people who have more power than you and me simply because they're
wealthly and better educated (and usually better looking and have a lot
more friends) and out of touch with reality. I will even make the
definition of "bobo"even broader -- people who had friends in high
school, who sat at the "cool table" and were just enough more wealthy
than you that they only talked to you when they took pity on you.
They are also the type of people that Wonkette, Gawker and Defamer make
fun of all the time. (What makes you so special that you know how bobos
think and yet you're not one? Oh...that's right...you're poor...didn't
go to a Ivy League school and you're not well adjusted enough.And you
would never join a club that would have you, regardless--Soju)
They also went to a Ivy League school not because they're smart but
because they have connections. Bobos, as I see them, are also are
clueless about How The World Really Works and write long, breezy
magazine articles (for Wired, The New Yorker and The Atlantic to name a
few.) that always somehow manage to endup turned into books that are
padded with breathless blather based on pointless anecdotes about how
Little Apu living in an poor Indian village will one day crush Silicon
Valley using a stick of gum, a paperclip, two coke bottles and a
wireless broadband connection. (Aren't you thinking of MacGyver? --
Soju.)
Anyway.
The gist of the book is this -- the decisions you make in the blink of
an eye are more often than not right. This book came to mind this
afternoon while we were watching 13 Days about the Cuban missile crisis
in 1962. JFK had little information and had to make a lot of decisions
really quick and damn if he didn't do the right thing in retrospect.
In fact, elaborate on that paragraph (and look up a few reviews on the
book for good measure) during your flirty, hair tossing conversations
and your night will be complete. You might even land your very own "Mr.
Big."
This is such a bobo idea because it takes an obvious idea (Hell, I can
remember my first grade teacher telling me that "Usually your first
answer is right,") and turning into to some earth shattering concept
that businesspeople are willing to spend $500US to hear about at a
one-day "business reengineering" convention.
p.s.
The reason I have some insight into how bobos think is I read a lot and
can make connections that are obvious. Sometimes, I'm wrong and I look
like a crackpot. Sometimes, I'm right, and I am very pleased with
myself.
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