Ain't That What Real Men Do?

N.Y. Times

I read the article.  They blame a lot of things, but they never mention that reading used to be sexy.  When I was young, cocktail parties were full of machismo literary types.  

"My god, man. . . you haven't read that?!?"

You'd look around to see if any of the woman had heard the indictment.  Then you'd parry with something even more obscure and hipper.  

"You've seen the new article in the Partisan on Nelson Algren, haven't you?"

Etc.  

Now "real men do podcast."  Me, not the Times.  Women aren't attracted to readers now.  Bohemian is out.  Steroids and money are in.  

This guy would be considered "gay" today.  So much for literary machismo.  

But there is something else that has killed reading.  

Texting.  I mean, it's reading, but it is not literary.  LMAO!  Why would you want to spend your time reading, anyway, when you can watch a movie or a series with vampires in it?  

Dude.  Reading's for Incels. 

O.K.  I'm over riffing.  I was really just trying to figure out a way to use the snap I took at the Cafe Strange yesterday.  I wasn't reading, either.  

I was writing.  

"What?" you might ask.  "What were you writing?"

Letters to women who no longer love me.  Lamentations and declarations.  Isn't that always the case?  But these were letters that will never be sent among the thousands of letters locked up in my many, many journals.  

It's a good thing nobody reads.  

Maybe it was drugs.  You can read with a cocktail, but not when you are stoned.  Oh . . . don't try to argue.  You may think you can, but you can't remember what you read.  At least I can't.  

Maybe it was the banning of cigarettes that did it.  People looked so cool reading when they smoked, legs crossed high, cigarette between the middle and ring fingers, a little spiral of smoke rising slowly into the air.  

Amazon killed brick and mortar book stores.  That might be partly to blame.  

I don't read half as much as I used to.  

I think people read mostly self-help books now.  

Blame Oprah.  

That's all I have today.  I'm done.  The day has broken bright and blue.  What should I do?  Shall I go hunting or shall I go fishing?  

Ain't that what literary men do?