little girl reading to her dog in his dogbed underneath the penitent eye of a strikingly, high Lamar Sorrento painting, eclipsed by the Sun of a chandelier
In This American Life episode 309 (Cat and Mouse) is a bizarre telling of one man's 18-year quest for the perfect couch.
The story marries marital and material aspirations, illustrates in miniature the role of consumer objects as social agents, the social nature of consumption and desire, and the immateriality of real and imagined objects of personal experience.
I have for years known it to offer the ultimate example of humanistic ethnography.
Last year I had the opportunity to attend a concert by This American Life's creator/rock star, Ira Glass (a furtively obese, oleaginous man with the stage presence of an housebound Olivier), where he rallied and defenestrated chaotic ruminations on his serial radio-unloosing, like a too-sober Donald Trump or Lenny Bruce, overdressed with a multiplicity of lawsuits to defend before the cool bathroom tiles and silence.
me being very serious about this being my favorite 8-minute podcast clip in the last many years @ThisAmerLife ...
It's been well over a decade, so why can't Eric, who is in many other respects a measured and reasonable person, select a simple piece of furniture?
David Segal attempts to explain why the man can't just buy himself a couch, already.
David works at The New York Times. (8 minutes)