If you're sitting next to someone reading Ayn Rand, you'll probably have to get up eventually, because damned if he's going to give his seat to an old person.
I have often found myself sitting next to guys circling items in semi-automatic weapon catalogues. It's extra-disarming when they look up from their intense study to smile and wave at babies.
AWB has it right. My old copy of Cooper on Handguns gets me personal space if I don't smile.
I have often found myself sitting next to guys circling items in semi-automatic weapon catalogues.
Um, how many times, exactly, is "often"?
The books that really imply "this person is crazy" are low-hanging fruit. But there are some books that signal the potential of being trapped into ostentatious or really lame and/or horrible conversation. Those are worthy seat-changers: Atlas Shrugged, The Anarchist Cookbook, The Bell Curve, The Secret (or other "self-help" fad of the moment), Neil Strauss' The Game, The Da Vinci Code (or worse, Holy Blood, Holy Grail), Who Moved My Cheese? (or other management-guru fad of the moment), Vine Deloria's Red Earth, White Lies, Martin Bernal's Black Athena, et cetera.
Red Earth, White Lies
Isn't that the one Snarkout was saying he liked the other day?
What I want to know is why some marketing genius decided that the way to sell Sony's e-book was with pictures of it displaying a page from The Da Vinci Code. I'd put up with a certain amount to reclaim some of the space currently devoted to bookshelves, but that's a little much.
trapped into ostentatious or really lame and/or horrible conversation
The Bible
I was a little self-conscious one morning on the streetcar on my way to court, reading Werner Spitz's Medicolegal Investigation of Death (Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime)...some nasty pictures in there.
The fucking Tipping Point. Or Blink, for that matter. Blech.
I guess the Turner Diaries might do it. Or other white-supremacist-type literature; depending on what kind of vibes the reader was giving off. Probably not though, I historically have not had much of a strong negative reaction to what my seatmate is reading.
13: yeah, I could give a shit. For the sake of argument, though: any creationist book would probably have me scoutiing an exit.
The congressman from Modesto, you mean?
Tipping Point doesn't bother me so much, AWB, but I agree that Blink is disturbing.
11: Oh God, that book. I think I might have mentioned this before, but I flipped through it when I was ten or so; my mom was studying for her boards in forensic pathology, and it was around all the time. Some of those pictures I will never forget.
8 - I did? I don't think I've ever heard of it, although it is the sort of crank science I might enjoy in small doses.
16. The crackpot allegorist. The New Yorker had a great profile of him recently.
20 -- I was making a silly joke about how I read "Red Earth, White Lies" and momentarily thought two novels by Pamuk were under discussion.
Gotcha. It worked better in the original Turkish.
That applies to either your joke or Red Earth, White Lies, I guess.
trapped into ostentatious or really lame and/or horrible conversation
Racists aren't going to talk about racism with a stranger, unless you meet each other at the local rifle range at 2 in the morning. But religious people certainly bloody well are going to talk about religion with a stranger. In fact, the Bible and the Book of Mormon would probably be the only books that would provoke this reaction in me, although it would depend on the general gestalt of the person.
(NOTE: I am not sure what "gestalt" means because I've only encountered it in birdwatching books)
my category of "religion" also including cult manifestos such as Dianetics or the works of Carlos Castaneda. Merely platitudinous faux-religious works like those of Coelho and Gibran do not produce the zzeal of the converted in their readers.
Anything with the words "Five Steps To..." in the title.
Dianetics. FTM, anything by L. Ron. Anything by Werner Erhard or his minions. Anything with the word "gospel" or "self-realisation" in the title.
[However, if I saw someone reading Christopher Moore, I would sit down next to them immediately.]
I once spent some time in the Saint Elizabeth's Hospital emergency room reading Practical Demonkeeping. It was only somewhat later that I figured out why I'd been getting the death-stares.
28: I dunno, if I saw anybody reading some of the old EST literature, I'd be pretty damn interested in what they were on about.
I'm sure I wouldn't move my seat, but I'd send my shittiest vibes to someone reading Orson Scott Card near me. Arty guys on the L train reading their own notes in a moleskine aren't my favorite flavor, either.
AWB, I'm curious about the Gladwell hate.
It seems appropriate to judge someone based on the fact that they're reading Blink.
What's wrong with Blink? You people are the worst highbrow elitist snobs, directing your snobbery not at the dregs of our culture but at well-intentioned middlebrow aspirations toward highbrowery.
32 can seem appropriate whether or not you have an opinion on Blink.
32 also works no matter which way you choose to judge them. The important thing is not to second-guess it.
You people are the worst highbrow elitist snobs, directing your snobbery not at the dregs of our culture but at well-intentioned middlebrow aspirations toward highbrowery.
Eh, there's some truth to this.
Eh, so what?
10 gets it right. But I gotta defend the Mormons here, because the other day PK and I were getting ice cream and these two young women wearing badges identifying them as being with the LDS walked in. I immediately averted my eyes, but PK, not knowing any better, started talking to them. Which made me realize that I was being rude and Setting a Bad Example for him, so I started engaging. They really were quite pleasant, and only after several minutes of small talk did they ask if I knew about the LDS.
I have to thank JM here for teaching me the term jackmormon, because I was able to respond oh yes, I know some folks who are Mormons, but they're mostly jackmormons. Dunno whether it was that or just the same politeness they'd demonstrated to that point, but they just said well, would you like to hear more about our church, I said no thank you, and they said, well, if you ever have any questions, don't hesitate to ask someone, and that was that.
It actually made me feel like maybe I should be less hostile to missionaries, at least the young ones. Poor girls couldn't have been 18 yet, and it's gotta be damn hard to wander around strange cities being met with the cold shoulder by every person you come across.
I occasionally will see a textbook NYC-liberal looking guy reading Ann Coulter, and want to ask him why he's giving her money.
31: I think 33 sums it up nicely. Gladwell seems to appeal to the kind of people who've read and thought enough to think complexly about problems, but don't want to because it might lead to actual critical self-reflection, and he gives them an excuse not to.
And I've just heard way too many super-bourgeois types rave about how they were just thinking too much about things, that the simplicity Gladwell has given them is bliss.
Speaking of setting bad examples: I walk by an elementary school everyday and always jaywalk to cross the street to my block. Usually I'm walking by long after school hours and there's almost no traffic, but a couple of days ago I went by in the middle of the morning and a group of kids was lined up on the sidewalk while the teacher explained to them what a crosswalk was. I was very tempted to jaywalk like usual, but no, I went all the way down to the crosswalk, looked both ways, and crossed.
Well, Gladwell appeals to me. Also Barry Schwartz's "The Paradox of Choice".
What would you recommend for a similar book that could "lead to actual critical self-reflection"? Please, no books of philosophy by philosophers.
Gladwell does hide complexity, but he has a real gift for telling interesting stories about mundane things.
Or, you know, they're like me and haven't heard of the book at all, and thought the cover looked interesting in a book store. Or maybe a friend recommended it.
No, I haven't read or bought the book, but I considered it the other day. I bought Gawande's book of medical essays from the New Yorker, b/c I always like him, and McEwan's Saturday b/c ditto, and this, which is awesome by the way and you should all read it even though it's also really upsetting.
41: Awwwwwwwwwwwww, eb. On behalf of mommies everywhere, I thank you most humbly.
45 P.S.: I highly recommend that story next time you're trying to impress a cute girl.
Blink really sucks. A genuinely bad book that made The Tipping Point less compelling.
Crap. You have no idea how disappointed I was to hit Amazon and learn that Practical Demonkeeping was fiction.
It's probably a mistake to confess to all these mistakes I make reading the comments, but whatever.
41: Awwwwwwwwwwwww, eb. On behalf of mommies everywhere, I thank you most humbly.
Translation: no sex.
I haven't read Blink, but did read Tipping Point. His articles are a lot better than his books.
42: I guess the opposite of Gladwell to me is something like history, not philosophy. Learning about, e.g., the history of colonial violence and the slave trade in the Caribbean has made me think about the long past of what Zizek talks about with the marketing of consumer products, which requires them to be drained of all possible unpleasurable associations. Products like sugar, coffee, tea, and tropical fruits have, historically, been marketed by eliminating all traces of the (foreign, underpaid) labor that produces them. The traces of this are all over everything from seventeenth-century poetry to current TV ad campaigns. But that happens to tickle my own personal interests.
Maybe what bothers me about Gladwell is the lack of specificity, which lends him to being applied to so many different phenomena that it decreases the value of all specialized and historical knowledge. If I want to know about something I don't already know about, I try to find someone who does. Gladwell makes it possible for anyone (within a Gladwellian community) to run their mouths off about stuff they know nothing about. That seems problematic to me.
I assume you've read Sweetness and Power, AWB? (I haven't, but it's been highly recommended.)
I'd sit far, far away from anyone reading a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, because that's pretty much a guarantee that they don't actually have one.
I was reading this in the ER, when my doctor wandered in and asked what it was about. Awkward.
how disappointed I was to hit Amazon and learn that Practical Demonkeeping was fiction.
I can loan you my copy.
56: From the Publisher's Review review there: "Anyone who laughs at the mere mention of vaginas and penises may find Handler's book almost as much fun as getting drunk and waking up in some stranger's bed."
I can't tell whether the reviewer thinks it's funny or doesn't.
I am not sure what "gestalt" means because I've only encountered it in birdwatching books
"Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing gestalt"?
I have passed through airport security on different occasions carrying this and this. In retrospect, it's a miracle I'm still at large.
Wow, you guys are tough. I liked both Gladwell books, and I can't understand the vehement dislike.
You jerks can't make me feel bad about enjoying popular non-fiction.
The gladwell books are business books. Gladwell makes a boatload speaking to companies. They are also well written business books. I am super-bourgeois so I like them a lot.
I do like the fact that short non-fiction books are more popular now. I am amazed that people used to read 896 page biographies of someone nobody ever heard of.
http://www.amazon.com/Bright-Shining-Lie-America-Vietnam/dp/0679724141
58: Sounds like the reviewer was not a fan. It does take a certain childish and prurient sense of humor to fully appreciate, which is why most Unfogged commenters will find it right up their alley.
There's some good stuff in Blink. For example, the research that appears to support the idea that how much and how well doctors listen to (and talk with) their patients is the difference between their getting sued and not. If the difference between a malpractice suit and no suit is an extra three minutes, some actual listening skills, and understanding how tone of voice affects patients, isn't that something that every doctor should know? Isn't getting just that idea across to a wider audience worth the price of admission?
On the other hand, Blink does not deliver on its implicit promise. It does not discuss how to tell (or really even how to think about) when expert knowledge applies, when rapid cognition works and when it doesn't, when to trust intuition.
On the other other hand, the staggering arrogance of 39 takes a little more than a few seconds to sink in.
Well, it's not exactly a book, but there's a local entertainment paper you can pick up for free in Tampa area restaurants and bars. Every week they publish a swell hard crossword puzzle in it, and I sometimes while away my lunch hour by working it out. The puzzle takes up half a page, divided by a vertical line. So I extract that page and fold it over so the only thing showing on my side is the puzzle.
However, they always publish this puzzle on one of the last pages in the paper, amidst their luridly illustrated advertisements for sensual massage shops, swinger's clubs, gay chat lines and sex toy stores.
So as I'm walking out of the restaurant, carrying my folded page and staring intently at the crossword-puzzle side whilst puzzling out what a middle eastern monetary unit is or who composed "Rule, Brittania," other folks in the restaurant see me strolling past holding up high a brightly colored 5-1/2″ x 17″ banner displaying "FULL BODY MASSAGE (404) 555-1212," a shirtless dude with a Captain's hat talking into a telephone, and a woman staring all cold and mean into the camera, wearing a black negligee and thigh-high patent-leather boots as she holds up a dildo and a cat-o-nine-tails.