And now that I have confessed my admiration for his verbal skills, I shall parry and riposte his latest blog post in which I, gentle reader, was categorized as... (deep breath) a hat guy. Yes. I was astonished too. Well, not really, but let us pretend that it was me in that cafe he was describing and go with it because it's funnier that way.
That's me in the corner with the fedora, or on the sofa by the fireplace in the wool driving cap. Scribbling madly in a notebook or frowning at the screen of my laptop, hat alternately perched atop my noggin or twirling in my hands as I contemplate the next scene of my novel.
Man do I hate the fact that those blasted Kennedy boys with their oh-so-perfect coifs made it de rigueur for American men to stop wearing hats. It's not an affectation, damn it! I want something on my head! I want to cover my hair rather than spend all my time fussing with it, trying to meet the expectations of a society drunk on the fumes of Bryllcreme and blinded by the Brilliantine!
I don't do it to stand out, not really. It's just that the time I spend glancing in the mirror before going out to get the fedora tilted just so, or the driving cap at just the right angle is less than the time I would spend trying to get the mop on my head to do anything other than whatever the hell it wants to do that day. I know the hat makes me look like a dandy, but in sooth, it's the least vain option afforded me by this confounded society of ours.
And there's the safety aspect as well. Yes, wearing a hat is safer, not only for me, gentle reader, but for you as well. Some mornings that thickness of felt is all that keeps the mop in check, imprisons it against the day when it seizes control and rampages through the city.
It's for your protection really. A public service that I wear this hat in defiance of Kennedy and cafe archetype. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Pages to Type is a blog about books, writing and literary culture (with the occasional digression into coffee and the care and feeding of giant robots).