The Scene: glassed-in "lunch area" of office tower lobby, a sunny day, mid-day.
The Player: single girl in purple sweater, grey skirt, black leather knee boots.
The Meal: leftover tater-tot hotdish in tupperware, recently re-heated in the office microwave, eaten with plastic fork.
The Activity: reading
Nicholson Baker's The Fermata, the single girl's first (and only, she thinks) book where sex is explicitly in the forefront, about a 35-year-old (male) office worker who can stop time by snapping his fingers and occasionally uses it to undress his fellow (female) humans, bought somewhat by accident in 1994, titillating then for its gratuitous minutiae about vibrator styles, in 2011 less a turn-on and moreso appreciated for the skills of an author who can write gratuitous minutiae about vibrator styles and make it fascinating to someone not using a vibrator at the moment, especially someone re-reading it in a public space for the first time, over hotdish remainders, with her fellow office workers at the next tables clueless to its content, somehow enjoying most of all that she can and that they are.
Day 14 of 28: 2.25 miles
February Total: 28.15
2011 Total: 78.16
4 comments:
@Karin. Had the same experience in a coffee shop about ten years ago when reading for the first time "The Naked Lunch" by Burroughs. One person stopped by and asked if it were a foodie book. I said yes, in a way.:-)
Enjoy.
-----squigkato
@squigkato. Something about reading something so explicit so innocently feels very Victorianish.
Thanks for the recommendation. If you liked that, you'd like Baker's stuff .... far out like Burroughs, but with a sense of humor.
@Karin. Thank you. Will try to hunt down, possibly in a clearance sale at a Borders store up my way.
-----squigkato
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