Dick Gordon did a Connection show yesterday on personal ads in the NYRB and the LRB. Those are certainly the two publications to do: everyone is always tittilated to learn (?) that “intellectuals” have active sex lives, even consider the literate mind something of a kick. The LRB by contrast has the best personals ever, anywhere: “LRB readers. You are all just English lecturers who like Bjork. Get over it, then make love to me. Each and every damn one of you. Man, 98, Berks. Box no. 02/09” (click here, scroll down). It reminded me of something RSC actors talked about when they were in residence at Oberlin: as Brits they were all over the verbal skills, Shakespeare’s meter and all that, but what they were drawn to and impressed by was the American instinct for physicality on the stage. What Americans lacked in reverence for the word they more than made up for in the passion of the body and everything that physical language could express outside the text. When the LRB editor was asked about his personals, he went so far as to say that aside from the tart skepticism, fantastic metaphor and brash humor, he got the impression that the verbal kick was an end in itself. Many of these ad writers, who write up to 800 words in often lively short fictions, and sport playful alternative egos and personas as erotic play, find fulfillment through writing, not expecting or pursuing any physical contact. It was left unsaid, but it was endearingly clear, that where LRB lonely hearts write more for writing itself, the NYRB personal writers write to get snogged.
rock culture approximately
