get your ridicule here
Random line from an otherwise quite interesting Eric Asimov article about wine: “People are unlikely to be ridiculed for buying $300 jeans that are washed, bleached and beaten over rocks instead of $60 jeans that will last a decade.” They are? I can introduce Mr. Asimov to people who would be quite eager to ridicule someone for buying $60 jeans instead of the fifteen-buck Wranglers readily available at Target or Wal-Mart. If they failed to ridicule someone for buying $300 jeans that would be because they don’t know that there are $300 jeans. I always enjoy these made-in-Manhattan moments when I’m reading the Times.
Mmm.
Don’t Manhattan-dwellers have to go to NJ or LI to find a Target or Wal-Mart?
As Mr. Asimov says, context. Which of course is what you are saying too.
Contingency is all (for the earthbound).
Btw, Professor Jacobs, may I take it you favor CW, the Inkling?
— felix culpa · May 12, 12:06 AM · #
Oh, yes—I could introduce him to my 87-year-old Grandma. She could also give him an earful about not buying Fords if he doesn’t own one.
— Joules · May 12, 12:54 AM · #
Felix, there’s actually a K-Mart right off the 6 train downtown. And there’s a Target in Brooklyn maybe 20 minutes in from Manhattan.
— Peter Suderman · May 12, 03:02 AM · #
And what would the ridicule look like for buying an iphone?
dw
— dw · May 12, 01:44 PM · #
felix, I have mixed feelings about CW. But All Hallows’ Eve is an extraordinary book.
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 03:18 PM · #
dw, some things are worth the ridicule they inspire.
— Alan Jacobs · May 12, 03:18 PM · #
Prof. Jacobs;
Understood.
Nonetheless, when I was first introduced to Williams (AHE in fact, by the atheist head of the sculpture department in 1968) I wasn’t sure he could be trusted, and when I asked J.I. Packer, who I turned to for wise counsel in those days, he responded with remarkable enthusiasm.
He said he could find no fault in Williams, while granting that he (CW) was unconventional (oh yes) and that he (JIP) found the poetry beyond his grasp.
Hey, Auden had trouble with it at first too.
Myself, I love it.
I’d be much interested in your reservations.
Over at Obsidian Wings, where I feel like family, there was a burst of conversation about Williams, and some of my favorite commenters came out with praise for him. Being as how he’s been a lodestone for me lo these many years, but necessarily a private pleasure, little known as he has been, it was deeply delightful.
Also, back in the day, bonded with Tom Howard through mutual delight in CW.
— felix culpa · May 12, 04:03 PM · #