There Goes the Neighborhood: It's Getting Highbrow Around Here

Once upon a time in Brooklyn, if you encountered a wiry middle-aged man with beady eyes who was spewing forth addled nonsense, chances were pretty good that he was homeless or on his way to the methadone clinic.  Maybe he'd even be rummaging around in your garbage for aluminum cans.  Now, more likely than not, that man is author Martin Amis, and he's just paid $2.5 million for the brownstone next door to you:

I don't know why someone who's just moves into what I would imagine is a very beautiful house looks so abjectly miserable, nor do I have the slightest idea what any of this means:

“Out there, it’s Arcadian,” he said. “It’s prelapsarian. It’s like living in the ’50s.”

Wait, is he talking about Brooklyn?  How the hell is it like living in the '50s here?  And, like, is that other stuff good or not?

“Best address I’ve ever had,” he said. “It’s a good spondee. Strong. Place. You can’t stress one or the other. Two big stresses.”

I still have no idea.  What is a "spondee?"  Isn't that a drink from 7-11?  I guess it's true what they say, though--you just can't get a decently spondaic address in Brooklyn anymore for less than $2 million.

Actually, I'm not sure I understood a single thing he said in that article.  Granted, I realize my lack of understanding mostly just reveals the limitations of my intellect and my non-Bardian education.  Still, all I know is that, as I read it, I felt like I was watching "Ask Manson:"




I guess at a certain point, if you're lucky, your life becomes so rarefied that people just pretend to understand you and then look up every word you said on their iPhones when you excuse yourself to the bathroom.  You also get to say things like this:

“I’ve sort of hung out with a few thugs all my life,” he said later. “I love thugs. I’m keen on them.”

Right, I'm sure Mr. Amis will be spending lots of time making friends at the nearest housing project.  Maybe he'll even give a reading there.  I imagine he'll be very well received.  "More 'London Fields,' or Ima fucking kill you!"

Meanwhile, back in England, a reader received the following flyer in his mailbox:

Astute readers will recognize the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork Bret:

Who has, in his typically preternatural way, transported himself to the front of a pack of climbing cyclists--as well as obtained lucrative sponsorship from White and Sons realty:

It was good of the race organization to overlook both his trade team jersey in what I assume is the World Championships, as well as his use of aerobars in a mass-start event.   Then again, who would dare call out the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork Bret for a rule violation?  That would be like asking Martin Amis what he's talking about. 


Speaking of incoherent older men, another reader has forwarded me this, and I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny or not:

I mean, I guess it's supposed to be satire, but it mostly sounds like he put too much rum in his spondee:

Steroid-crazed cyclists—with their maniacal veering in and out of traffic, up and down sidewalks, and into lanes clearly designated "Pedestrians Only"—threaten joggers in Chicago, picnickers in San Francisco, sunbathers in Los Angeles and even retired nuns lollygagging along the banks of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia. They turn a casual midday Manhattan stroll into a terrifying gauntlet; they turn a postprandial constitutional along Boston's Charles River into pure hell. You have to go back to the time of Genghis Khan to find mounted marauders more bloodthirsty, more treacherous and more pitiless than American bicyclists.

I also don't think he's ever seen a recumbent rider in his life:

Even rail-thin, 60-something women demonically pedaling their recumbent bikes home in time to hear "Fresh Air" are on steroids.

Where are these demonically-pedaling women on recumbents?  I don't think I've ever seen a woman on a recumbent--apart from this woman of course:

I'm sure many people will rush to correct me, but based entirely on my own anecdotal evidence, recumbents are mostly something that men like to dork out on, like ham radios and Martin Amis novels.

Speaking of recumbent riders, I saw quite a few of them (all men) this past weekend, and it's a very good thing I had plenty of lovely scenery to admire when I turned to avert my eyes:

I also took a picture of my bicycle, because "upright" cyclists are gigantic dorks too, which is why when surrounded by natural beauty they just stare stupidly at their bicycles.

Though I guess it's better than this:

But only slightly.