wasn’t all from New York. Look at what a cross section of the population tuned in to the Prairie Home Companion. Snob appeal? He hoped that it was promoting a sense of mutual amusement, a sense of camaraderie, rather than being something taken up by an elitist minority. The mail suggested …
She asked if she could see some of the mail later.
Of course.
If he preferred to talk in the office or whether he would have time for lunch.
Fine, if she had time herself for lunch.
Surely he must be aware that the magazine was seen as a rather cultish …
Oh, because people were devoted to something, he would not jump to the conclusion that they were a cult. Perhaps, too, she was overestimating the influence and even importance of the magazine, which was only natural because of the nature of her assignment: when she had to take it out of context, that always focused a lot of attention on something, whereas …
Johnny Carson didn’t bother to put it in context, when he referred to it in his monologue the other night. Something like that elevated the person or thing mentioned to …
And did
she
think of
herself
as cultish for watching the
Tonight
show?
Well, that was hardly something only the cognoscenti knew about, after all these years.
Still: couldn’t she see
Country Daze
as something that united people, instead of—as she implied—something divisive?
Could he describe himself as a counterculture Johnny Carson, then?
He wouldn’t be happy with that. He wasn’t a public figure, and that was as it should be.
Didn’t he think that as the magazine circulated more, he was going to have to deal with personal fame?
No no no; movie actors were glamorous, not writers and editors.
Clark Kent.
That was so clearly a figure of masculine authority that it was rather irrelevant that he had been a mild-mannered reporter. What that was
really
about was macho defensiveness, a maintenance of the status quo by showing that even the meepiest, most inconsequential man can dash …
He excused himself, and changed into more formal attire (jeans) for lunch.
If he couldn’t have predicted that the magazine would be such a success, maybe his sense of a large, homogeneous group of Americans wasn’t as sure as he said.
Luck was a factor. It was certainly less of a gamble than Pet Rocks or Trivial Pursuit. He realized he was taking a gamble and he hoped that it would work; this success was just very gratifying.
But he did feel that he had his finger on the pulse …
Well—since he had mentioned Trivial Pursuit, was it really the case that those guys, sitting around brainstorming in a bar, thought that they were brilliant sensors of what people wanted at just that moment? Didn’t they just decide that taking a long shot would be worth the gamble?
He had an Amstel Light. She had a glass of white wine. They were sitting at a sidewalk café with red tablecloths and uncomfortable chairs. Her knee kept hitting his by mistake.
Was it true that Garry Trudeau was doing the comic strip, under a pseudonym?
No. Cameron Petrus did it.
Quite a few people loved that strip. They liked the fact that the main character always had such a bad time that he dropped dead in the last frame. Wasn’t this a serious social comment, disguised …
Have to ask Cameron.
But taken all together: the inevitable death in Petrus’ column, the unhelpful, off-the-wall advice given by Cindi Coeur to people with problems, the—what would you call it?—fantasy fiction in which people killed IRS agents and their landlords … Did he really think that the people who liked those things were just having a lighthearted laugh, or wasn’t it possible that people actually felt alienated and angry, and that out of their despair …
She’d be talking to people about their reaction to the magazine. What she found out would be telling, of course.
But people weren’t good at psychoanalyzing themselves.
He ordered spinach ravioli. She ordered an avocado stuffed with
She asked if she could see some of the mail later.
Of course.
If he preferred to talk in the office or whether he would have time for lunch.
Fine, if she had time herself for lunch.
Surely he must be aware that the magazine was seen as a rather cultish …
Oh, because people were devoted to something, he would not jump to the conclusion that they were a cult. Perhaps, too, she was overestimating the influence and even importance of the magazine, which was only natural because of the nature of her assignment: when she had to take it out of context, that always focused a lot of attention on something, whereas …
Johnny Carson didn’t bother to put it in context, when he referred to it in his monologue the other night. Something like that elevated the person or thing mentioned to …
And did
she
think of
herself
as cultish for watching the
Tonight
show?
Well, that was hardly something only the cognoscenti knew about, after all these years.
Still: couldn’t she see
Country Daze
as something that united people, instead of—as she implied—something divisive?
Could he describe himself as a counterculture Johnny Carson, then?
He wouldn’t be happy with that. He wasn’t a public figure, and that was as it should be.
Didn’t he think that as the magazine circulated more, he was going to have to deal with personal fame?
No no no; movie actors were glamorous, not writers and editors.
Clark Kent.
That was so clearly a figure of masculine authority that it was rather irrelevant that he had been a mild-mannered reporter. What that was
really
about was macho defensiveness, a maintenance of the status quo by showing that even the meepiest, most inconsequential man can dash …
He excused himself, and changed into more formal attire (jeans) for lunch.
If he couldn’t have predicted that the magazine would be such a success, maybe his sense of a large, homogeneous group of Americans wasn’t as sure as he said.
Luck was a factor. It was certainly less of a gamble than Pet Rocks or Trivial Pursuit. He realized he was taking a gamble and he hoped that it would work; this success was just very gratifying.
But he did feel that he had his finger on the pulse …
Well—since he had mentioned Trivial Pursuit, was it really the case that those guys, sitting around brainstorming in a bar, thought that they were brilliant sensors of what people wanted at just that moment? Didn’t they just decide that taking a long shot would be worth the gamble?
He had an Amstel Light. She had a glass of white wine. They were sitting at a sidewalk café with red tablecloths and uncomfortable chairs. Her knee kept hitting his by mistake.
Was it true that Garry Trudeau was doing the comic strip, under a pseudonym?
No. Cameron Petrus did it.
Quite a few people loved that strip. They liked the fact that the main character always had such a bad time that he dropped dead in the last frame. Wasn’t this a serious social comment, disguised …
Have to ask Cameron.
But taken all together: the inevitable death in Petrus’ column, the unhelpful, off-the-wall advice given by Cindi Coeur to people with problems, the—what would you call it?—fantasy fiction in which people killed IRS agents and their landlords … Did he really think that the people who liked those things were just having a lighthearted laugh, or wasn’t it possible that people actually felt alienated and angry, and that out of their despair …
She’d be talking to people about their reaction to the magazine. What she found out would be telling, of course.
But people weren’t good at psychoanalyzing themselves.
He ordered spinach ravioli. She ordered an avocado stuffed with
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