The Anger of Compassion

Ten Things I Love About America

Pejman Yousefzadeh linked to Daniel Finkelstein's list of ten things he loves about America, and I thought I'd make a similar effort -- but I decided to put a bit of a twist on it, see if I could make the list uniquely me. So I thought I'd go with some items that I don't see mentioned every day, or are somewhat offbeat or otherwise uniquely appealing to me. So there's no New York City here, and no California beaches, no Bill of Rights or Corvettes, no mention of jazz or rock and roll.*

In no particular order:

1. iPods and other such devices Your playing device, media, and music library all in one portable device. That's just way cool. My French, Russian, Arabic, and Norwegian language lessons are all on my iPod Mini. So is Maria Callas, and so is Joshua Bell.

2. blogs No comment.

3. Gene Wolfe I'm rereading The Book of the New Sun, and enjoying it as much as I did the first time, in the early Reagan years. Imagine a world about a million years in the future, and things don't...er, work quite so well. Your protagonist is a young man named Severian, a journeyman of The Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence. In other words, he's a torturer. And he gets fired. Find out why.

4. hamburgers Best. Food. Ever.

5. Mel Bay Publications Do you play the guitar? Mel Bay doesn't produce the only learning materials for the instrument, nor the only good ones. But they're comprehensive as hell, and they produce quality materials.

6. Tony Llama boots and New Balance running shoes Gotta get around. May as well enjoy doing it, and look good, too.

7. Schick Injectors and Gillette Super Speeds I know what I said about Coke and Pepsi, above, but damn it...these little things are mid-century Americana. They sold for about a buck apiece, back in the day, and they're classics now. And they deserve their status as classics: single-blade shaving is the way to go, and vintage Injectors and Super Speeds are great places to start. You may decide you'll stick with them.

8. Men's Wearhouse suits and Allen Edmonds shoes Let me repeat what I wrote, above, about looking good. Forget your trial lawyers with their thousand-dollar suits: most American millionaires wear suits in the $300-$400 range. Quality stuff here.

9. John D. MacDonald and Raymond Chandler This is mid-century Americana, as much as the Schicks and the Gillettes. Chandler defined the noir story and remains probably the best writer of the hard-boiled school of mysteries. Try his 1950 essay, "The Simple Art of Murder," for a feel of what his detective, Philip Marlowe, is like. MacDonald practically invented the paperback original (most of his are now out of print, unfortunately) and, with his Travis McGee series, created his own knight errant to rival Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Start with The Big Sleep (Chandler) and The Deep Blue Good-by (MacDonald). You'll want more.

10. West Texas Shaving Company Great shaves. I like our bay rum-scented soap, and writing the promotional copy, and talking to customers. I look forward to testing our lime soap, too, and offering it on the market. Web presence coming soon.

America is both Atlantic and Pacific (and Gulf of Mexico, and Sea of Cortez, and Great Lakes), Coke and Pepsi (and Seven-Up and Dr. Pepper and Fresca), Gibson and Fender (and Martin and Rickenbacker and Epiphone), and there's something that millions of people like about all of the above. Let's hear it for the pursuit of happiness.

I'll play tag with this one, too. I tag:

1. The Happy Curmudgeon
2. Alexandra
3. Charles Hill
4. Gus Van Horn
5. Diana Hsieh
6. Ian Hamet
7. Roger L. Simon
8. Eric Scheie

* By the way, I'm glad Americans invented jazz. Anyone else would have fucked it up.

Posted by Craig Ceely at December 19, 2006 09:30 AM