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the funny phobias of James Lileks

Everything depresses him. Airplanes, bras (yes!), Taxes, plumbers, hangovers, marriage, baldness, editors, elevators, death, cars, movies, coffee, and God in all that ? In “Notes of a nervous man” (1991), James Lileks, columnist for the “Saint Paul Pioneer Press”, future bald Christian Episcopalian, aligns his phobias (he is both agora and claustrophobic, which is a kind of accomplishment. ), contemplate the world and find, not without reason, that life is hard (and his body is soft. Mine too. I sympathize).

The guy has signed books that have always been part of my personal library: “The Gallery of regrettable foods” (which I reported here in January 2016), “Interiors desecrations: hideous homes from the Horrible 70s” and “Mommy knows worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice”. He is therefore a low-end specialist, an explorer of the bowl bottoms. In short, highly recommendable.

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It all starts when Lileks realizes that the word « mortgage » means: « Pay until you die » (and after). He wants to buy a house, tired of living in an apartment, a place where the neighbor indulges in a maddening sex life or empties machine gun magazines at night (all the neighbors do that). He’s getting married, James Lileks. To give his wife a present, he is looking for some pretty lingerie. Good idea, except that 1 °) the sizes are incomprehensible (« a 3 is not worth two 6s, for example, and a B, C or D probably indicates grade level or fiber rate in the menu ») and 2 °) he feels guilty, in the women’s underwear store, with all these men shopping with their jackets on their arms (one wonders why).

The house bought, the trouble begins. The plumbing is clogging (the previous owner probably threw the leftovers of his quick-setting cassoulet in the plumbing), Christmas preparations are a hassle (you have to buy a high-end Frazier tree, but Lileks is embarrassed by the idea of a superior breed übertannenbaum), the local barber seems to think he is being paid $ 25 to tell you about his vacation in Mexico City (have you ever met a dumb barber? They have to take a chat exam, with diploma, it is in the CV, compulsory).

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“Airports are morgues with tax free shops”

As for the publishers, that’s another problem. Once the contract is signed, they demand that we write a book (that’s right, what, they’re annoying). The book delivered, it becomes complicated: there are correctors (undoubtedly affiliated with the International Comma Tracking Bureau) who ask questions on every line, and who destroy the slightest subtle joke. If you write: « Often, I live seven kilometers from Paradise » (it’s an ironic, stylish, Proustian-like thing), they check. And note:

« Paradis is twelve kilometers from your house, via the departmental 361. Or is it Paradis Discount, near Bourricot-les-Boules, on the Costa Patata? “

Another painful moment: the plane trip. « Airports, for me, are morgues with tax free shops », Lileks said. Installed in a DC-10 with headphones to listen to Mahler, he notices that the plane begins to dive (just as the violin attacks “The tragic death” in the 4th symphony), takes refuge in the toilet, panicked ( but is that where he wants his remains to be found?) and hears a shock followed by screeching. It is the end ? The final end? We call it landing.

Yes, nothing is easy. Adam waited five hours for Eve to come out of the garden (it took a long time to find the right leaves to dress in), political correctness is everywhere (how far do we have to respect the most basic of life? to think that Beethoven is more important than the mold in my Roquefort?), you now have to take a bridging loan to buy a pack of cigarettes, apartment deodorants destroy the ozone layer and give you skin cancer , Jehovah’s Witnesses in the street ask you: « Are you ready to meet your Creator? “. If God created the universe, why has he been silent ever since? A guy who plants his wife after childbirth is legally responsible, and can be sued. There, the Big Boss fathered God Jr, then left. He might make an appearance every now and then, though. Ah, one last piece of advice from Lileks: the chalice that we pass from hand to hand during mass. It would be nice to add a little salt on the rim, a lemon zest and a small parasol.

“Should think about it”, the book of more or less useful inventions intended to make your life easierNotes of a Nervous Man, par James Lileks, Pocket Books, 1991.

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