Thursday, December 11, 2008
Book Sex
'The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or song lyrics. Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's autobiography or Shakespeare.' People, it seems, lie about what they have read to impress others with whom they plan to 'bump uglies' as Turk puts it in Scrubs. News websites? Why's that a turn-on? Shakespeare - fair enough, but the word's just mood music really. I suppose the Mandela shows you are nice and feeling. I haven't read it, obviously. The crucial sexual aspect is, sadly, left out of this rather ponderous discussion of great books in which the Encyclopaedia Britannica has tried to interest me. Pity. I would have liked to know how far Schopenhauer will get you. But a point is being missed here. What would be most attractive is not the worthy, boastful reader, but rather the discovery that your lover has read the same fantastically obscure book as you. 'What you too have read Julian Jaynes' The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind! Take me now!'
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Let me tell you, Schopenhauer will take you pretty far. Add some Dante and Milton to the mix and you may as well change your name to Ron Jeremy and hire a film crew to follow you about.
ReplyDeleteI suspect they were speaking to Labour gels. Clarkson reckons they are better. Mind you, Con girls know according to G Greer that the best thing behind the ears is the ankles.
ReplyDeleteDamn you Appleyard - I was going to do this one - now I have nothing,, nothing I tell you...
ReplyDeleteWe all got into this reading lark in an effort to impress the girls didn't we? Happily we discovered it has other incidental pleasures...
You know it's getting desperate when the sexiest thing about you is the book you're pretending to read.
ReplyDeleteBook choice is a loooooong way down the list of reasons people will get jiggy wid you.
Well, according to Dante it worked for Paolo with Francesca.
ReplyDeleteReading aloud from healthy bank statements works a treat, ask Bernie.
ReplyDeleteWishful thinking, Dante. Like intelligent sperm.
ReplyDeleteDante worked for me, Brit - but i tend to meet odd women.
ReplyDelete"I would have liked to know how far Schopenhauer will get you."
ReplyDeleteNot far. I barely know anyone who's read Schopenhauer apart from me. It's all Nietzsche, Sartre and Marx.
You should have listened to Ira Gershwin:
ReplyDeleteWhat joys untasted
My nights were sour
Spent with Schopenhauer
Nige and Bryan:
ReplyDeleteI'm surprise both of you missed this one. Tough luck, I got there first.
What is a turnoff is when guys DON"T read. Or read only Mad magazine or Penthouse. My husband and I nearly broke up early on when I asked him to give me a book that meant a lot to him and I would do the same: I gave him Borges' "Labyrinths" and he gave me Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
ReplyDeleteHappily, it turned out he had also read plenty of Tolstoy ("War and Peace" *twice*) and all the other heavy hitters, but he liked the light wit and ideas of Adams. BTW, I hate "Hitchhikers' Guide." Just seems deeply silly to me and not all that well written. Am I missing something?
@Susan B.
ReplyDeleteYes
You're missing the fact that it is deeply silly, Susan - ie. it is silly but in a deep way.
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of British things, you can't scrutinise the book too much, Susan - it then seems to be contemptible nonsense. If you don't demand anything of it, however, and just let it be whatever odd thing it is, it is quite excellent.
ReplyDelete