Read Online Lapham Rising by Roger Rosenblatt - Free Book Online
Authors: Roger Rosenblatt
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grins.
Perfect, is it not? The biggest house with the biggest everything, including a contraption that can alter the very air so it will conform to Lapham’s standards and contribute to Lapham’s comfort. How long before everyone out here wants a Tilles Blowhard of his very own? Can you not see it—all the emerald enclaves of the East End, one vast estate after the other, each securely equipped with the most powerful air conditioner ever built. On the patulous lawns, where once lolled Calders and Henry Moores, will squat the Blowhards. For who could be without one? Gaah. None of the denizens of Gin Lane in Southampton, certainly, or of Lake Agawam. Not a single home on Ocean Avenue in Bridgehampton, or on Sagg Main in Sagaponack, or on Lee Avenue or Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton, that’s for sure. Nary a soul on newly rising Quogue Street, you can bet your bottom dollar. These estate sections that now gleam so demurely in the kingdom of the southern jaw, which already constitute the most desirableclusters of jewels in the most desirable universe, would never forfeit their chance to be cooler than ever.
The Tilles Corporation, Blowhard Division, will be hard pressed to meet the demand, but it rises to the challenge, because this phenomenon is no mere novelty, no fly-by-night cordless phone or waffle toaster or set of kitchen knives from Bavaria. The Blowhard represents a full-scale revolution in living. Soon it will be offered in colors: basic black—or Ice Ebony, if one is to be precise—will always remain a favorite, needless to say, but Frigid Aquamarine will put in a strong showing, as will Norse Coconut and Freeze Fuchsia. And Alaska Eggshell may one day turn out to be the most popular in the line. At parties, guests will survey their host’s property and remark, “You’ve got the Eggshell. Lucky bastard.”
But I know what you’re thinking. What if all the Blowhards in all the estate sections in the Hamptons go off at the same time, and do it more than once a day, as is likely in late July, when the sun tends to make authoritative statements of its own? Will the decibel level—equivalent to that produced by ten thousand volcanoes erupting simultaneously—finally, when it blasts the buds from the bushes, shakes the ospreys from their nests, and geisers porgies and flounder out of the sea, be deemed too much to bear? Will the Blowhard (anti-ecology, “so yesterday”) be discarded? Don’t be silly. Theproprietors will cope. They will wear earmuffs in July, in August even—whatever it takes. For the noise of the Blowhards will be a sign, like Edison’s first incandescent lamps strung in an orange grove of lights along his New Jersey driveway, that the values of progress are in place and all is right with the world. Why, man, it will drown out the world’s lesser, cheaper, more common noises! It will be the noise!
And dwelling thus in the bliss of a just-so temperature—even as the tumblers quake and tinkle, and the tea lights flicker and die—to whom will each and every Blowhard possessor trace his Fahrenheit Elysium? “You know, Lapham had the first one of these, the very first. You’ve met Lapham, haven’t you? He has that super place in Quogue. A bit of a Blowhard himself—ha ha ha—but one hell of a guy!”
Dave, who is under the mistaken impression that I am more interested in cause than in effect, once again tries to explain to me exactly how revolutionary the Blowhard is. But I have already tuned him out.
“Do you get it now?” I ask Hector, who is still trembling from the AAAAAAWWWWWWEEEEE. “Self-consciousness leads to illegitimate superiority, which leads to materialism, recklessness, and the ruin of others.”
“What?”
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
“Yes. My ears are a lot more sensitive than yours.”
“Not since this morning.” Against my better judgment, I take pity on him and ruffle the top of his head. “What I am telling you, my holy-rolling friend, is that
Perfect, is it not? The biggest house with the biggest everything, including a contraption that can alter the very air so it will conform to Lapham’s standards and contribute to Lapham’s comfort. How long before everyone out here wants a Tilles Blowhard of his very own? Can you not see it—all the emerald enclaves of the East End, one vast estate after the other, each securely equipped with the most powerful air conditioner ever built. On the patulous lawns, where once lolled Calders and Henry Moores, will squat the Blowhards. For who could be without one? Gaah. None of the denizens of Gin Lane in Southampton, certainly, or of Lake Agawam. Not a single home on Ocean Avenue in Bridgehampton, or on Sagg Main in Sagaponack, or on Lee Avenue or Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton, that’s for sure. Nary a soul on newly rising Quogue Street, you can bet your bottom dollar. These estate sections that now gleam so demurely in the kingdom of the southern jaw, which already constitute the most desirableclusters of jewels in the most desirable universe, would never forfeit their chance to be cooler than ever.
The Tilles Corporation, Blowhard Division, will be hard pressed to meet the demand, but it rises to the challenge, because this phenomenon is no mere novelty, no fly-by-night cordless phone or waffle toaster or set of kitchen knives from Bavaria. The Blowhard represents a full-scale revolution in living. Soon it will be offered in colors: basic black—or Ice Ebony, if one is to be precise—will always remain a favorite, needless to say, but Frigid Aquamarine will put in a strong showing, as will Norse Coconut and Freeze Fuchsia. And Alaska Eggshell may one day turn out to be the most popular in the line. At parties, guests will survey their host’s property and remark, “You’ve got the Eggshell. Lucky bastard.”
But I know what you’re thinking. What if all the Blowhards in all the estate sections in the Hamptons go off at the same time, and do it more than once a day, as is likely in late July, when the sun tends to make authoritative statements of its own? Will the decibel level—equivalent to that produced by ten thousand volcanoes erupting simultaneously—finally, when it blasts the buds from the bushes, shakes the ospreys from their nests, and geisers porgies and flounder out of the sea, be deemed too much to bear? Will the Blowhard (anti-ecology, “so yesterday”) be discarded? Don’t be silly. Theproprietors will cope. They will wear earmuffs in July, in August even—whatever it takes. For the noise of the Blowhards will be a sign, like Edison’s first incandescent lamps strung in an orange grove of lights along his New Jersey driveway, that the values of progress are in place and all is right with the world. Why, man, it will drown out the world’s lesser, cheaper, more common noises! It will be the noise!
And dwelling thus in the bliss of a just-so temperature—even as the tumblers quake and tinkle, and the tea lights flicker and die—to whom will each and every Blowhard possessor trace his Fahrenheit Elysium? “You know, Lapham had the first one of these, the very first. You’ve met Lapham, haven’t you? He has that super place in Quogue. A bit of a Blowhard himself—ha ha ha—but one hell of a guy!”
Dave, who is under the mistaken impression that I am more interested in cause than in effect, once again tries to explain to me exactly how revolutionary the Blowhard is. But I have already tuned him out.
“Do you get it now?” I ask Hector, who is still trembling from the AAAAAAWWWWWWEEEEE. “Self-consciousness leads to illegitimate superiority, which leads to materialism, recklessness, and the ruin of others.”
“What?”
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
“Yes. My ears are a lot more sensitive than yours.”
“Not since this morning.” Against my better judgment, I take pity on him and ruffle the top of his head. “What I am telling you, my holy-rolling friend, is that
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