Some of you will recall Penelope’s encounter with the Naked Man over a month ago.* By way of an update, Penelope and the Naked Man continue to share grilled cheese and pinot grigio from time to time.
Despite exemplary character traits such as opening doors, pulling out chairs and placing ice cubes in his white wine,* the Naked Man is a self-proclaimed philistine, a Naked Philistine.
How does a brash Ivy League brat who gets a high from deconstructionism and other literary theories date a philistine?
Dating a philistine means Penelope needs to find someone else with whom to see Swan Lake at City Center (which, as you well know, runs through November 7th). Why? Because all male dancers are gay and no heterosexual man wants to watch gay men flaunt their packages in sheer tights midtown on the West side, or so the Naked Philistine posits.
Dating a philistine means Proustian analogies are to be avoided and no mention of a madeleine should be made, even a trite reference used to describe some maudlin flash of nostalgia. Literary references should be limited to the NY Post and The Drudge Report. If it ain’t in one of those publications, then it’s not worth talking about (and who cares if you end a sentence with a preposition anyway).
What intrigues me though is why the Naked Philistine so adamantly and proudly claims the philistine title. Was this so I would be surprised and seduced by his sense of literary modesty when he quoted Shakespeare to me while downing sirloin at Smith & Wollensky? And by the way, does a true philistine even know the word philistine?!
Was this so I would be stripped (figuratively, please) of any respect associated with having achieved, at least on paper, an education and be made to understand that a girl who works at Hooters is on a level playing field with me from the perspective of the Naked Philistine? Actually, she's probably on a higher plane than I am, because at least she knows how to market herself, which may be critical from the Naked Philistine's perspective—the ability to translate talent into cash or some other equally laudable commodity.
What's the great shame with liking books and art, if not preferring them most of the time to the drudge of corporate achievement? Is it that it can’t be quantified (except, of course, by certain hedge fund managers who frequent Christies and Sothebys)?* Perhaps naively, I thought the best in life could not be quantified: a warm smile on a gray day, a well-timed hug, a joke that jolts you from a depressive torpor.
The Naked Philistine devours newspapers, as many as possible, every morning, often as early as 4:50am. Maybe he chooses this uncivilized hour in an effort to hide his thirst for knowledge and his fascination with politics from the light of day.
Who knows why he holds the arts in such disdain. Maybe he scorns the false superiority of those who aspire to “intellect.” But that’s conflating two important notions. Enjoying the arts is radically different from pretending to some form of artistic expertise and judging others for a supposed lack of it, both of which Penelope abhors.
As disappointed as Penelope is that the Naked Philistine doesn't want to see Swan Lake (“ballet no way,” he said—at least he rhymed), she remains open to what she can learn from the Naked Philistine on topics and techniques of which she is completely ignorant. Maybe it’s all part of the opposites attract or complement each other theory.
In any event, at least for the present, and based on an application of a broad selection of psycho-social-emotional theories, Penelope has decided that philistinism is not in fact a tragic flaw (with apologies to the reference to Greek dramaturgy). He may well have fatal flaws—maybe she will discover one tonight—but this is not the one.
Notes
*See “Beware the Naked Man,” http://penelopefrost.blogspot.com/2010/10/beware-naked-man.html
*I respect people who thumb their noses at extraneous etiquette. There are so many good reasons to put ice in your white wine, not the least of which is that I can drink as slowly as I like and it will remain chilled.
*Although some dispute whether hedge fund managers drive the prices at auctions houses, hedge fund managers Kenneth Griffin and Steven Cohen have been among the top 10 art buyers in the last year. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a91lHt5PmIQ8&refer=muse
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