Fire and Flapdoodle

“Oh, scabrous day! Callooh! Callay!” *

I always chortle* with joy upon discovering new words, don’t you? Hear me out, please.

Maybe it’s a sign of high intelligence or maybe it’s undiagnosed adult-onset ADHD but my habit of reading more than one book at a time seems increasingly irreversible, although I have yet to unlock the skill level of my friend who can read a print book and listen to a different audiobook simultaneously.

This summer my brain has been hanging out with Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, Jenny Lawson, Anne Lamott, Maira Kalman, and Delia Ephron. Before you accuse me of blatant misandry, I should say that I’ve also been reading some Tom Hanks and David Sedaris, and—I’m slightly embarrassed to note—Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Mind you, I have no real interest in Michael Wolff, Trump, et al, but I do have an impulse control problem when I see a New York Times op-ed titled “Everyone in Trump World Knows He’s an Idiot” (Michelle Goldberg, 01/04/18). True enough, but I had to slow my roll at the beginning of her third paragraph which reads: “Wolff’s scabrous book comes out on Friday.” The briefest of Google searches revealed the distasteful reasons behind my ignorance of the term “scabrous.” Maybe that’s a word you use on the regular but it was new to me.

Now it’s Labor Day weekend, Fire and Fury has deservedly plummeted from its January best-seller status, and Michael Wolff has pretty much vanished following his underwhelming television book tour. It was all kinds of fun to watch Fred Armisen’s blistering SNL portrayals, I have to admit.

Eight months post-release, picking up my copy of Fire and Fury is like reading an old People magazine in the dentist’s office waiting room. All the insider gossip Wolff and his publisher hyped just doesn’t deliver a punch anymore. We are bombarded every day with the overwhelming incompetence of the “president” and his lack of intellect/cognitive ability. We’re tired of all the winning. It’s not funny. We know he is surrounded by indescribably unfit people. Duh. At least Omarosa’s Unhinged copycat book tour was mercifully brief and her sales numbers took a precipitous turn in short order.

***

I confess that I totally fell for the Fire and Fury “liberal catnip” Jonathan Martin so aptly described in his January 8, 2018 Times book review. I also confess that I did not read the book review until after I’d started reading the book. Moreover, I should allow that to claim I “finished” the book really means I did a LOT of skimming—a cringeworthy reminder of the response many of my former high school English students must have felt as they were forced to comply with the dreaded Summer Reading Assignment.

Once upon a time, in a department-wide attempt to mitigate the ickiest parts of the reading requirement, the English faculty decided that incoming freshmen should be assigned a memoir or biography of their choosing; in turn, I crafted what I considered to be a clever and engaging oral (easy) assessment for my classes: Each student would tell the class about his/her selected title, including its subject, their reason for choosing, and the most unexpected thing they learned about the person.

Everything went along pretty well, with most students telling us about famous athletes, pop stars, adventurers and entrepreneurs, except for one kid: Jacob Berdichevsky. He had read a LONG biography of the long-dead Golda Meir. His reason: “It was the only one in our house.” I immediately gave him full credit for the assignment based on his reticent courage and for having survived the blank stares and utter disinterest of his classmates. Reading and talking about what you’ve read shouldn’t be a painful experience. Ever.

***

In that same vein of compassion/acceptance and in order to rationalize my investment of time, money, and cognitive real estate, I find it helpful to acknowledge that I have gleaned a handful of largely useless things from my slog through Fire and Fury.

1. Michael Wolff really loves to flex his vocabulary and I love collecting new words, Yiddish or otherwise. It’s nice to be reminded of adjectives like “benighted” and “hortatory,” although they (among others) seem a tad fancy for this tabloid-ish text. References to “gossip squibs” and phrases like “rambled and fumphered” sent me racing for the dictionary and that’s my favorite way to do cardio, so, bonus!

2. GOP super donor/Bannon backer Robert Mercer has a Steinway grand on his yacht and prefers to sit and play the piano for hours rather than interact with his human guests. Who needs people skills when you have a squillion dollars and can afford to buy all the politicians you want? I do want to know what he plays, though. Show tunes? Jerry Lee Lewis? Yanni? So many options.

3. Many of the most dangerous people Wolff writes about have already exited the White House—some of whom are on their way to court, like Flynn, Bannon, and Manafort. We must take our small comforts where we find them, right?

***

On top of the embarrassment I’m schlepping around in my head for buying, reading, and writing about Fire and Fury, there is the problem of getting rid of a book I no longer want. I confess that I am physically incapable of putting a book in the trash. I cannot deal with the guilt that comes with putting a book in the recycle bin. I guess that makes me a book hoarder and, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll pile on the accompanying shame and guilt about that, too. Maybe I should call myself a Super Compulsive Book Protector instead and pretend I have a magical cape that hides all the books I’ve bought but haven’t read yet.

I’m happy to report that a disposal solution was waiting literally around the corner from my house via the neighborhood Little Free Library. It’s staked out right next to the neighborhood Little Free Dog Poop bags so it’s hard to miss. What a relief to nestle Mr. Wolff’s title alongside lots of worn Nora Roberts paperbacks and several other non-threatening offerings (Little Visits with God devotionals, anyone?). I’m comfortable calling it a win-win-win for the dog walkers, the seekers of free books, and the people who can’t throw away books.

*with apologies to Lewis Carroll for my “Jabberwocky” scabrous-rhymes-with-frabjous reflex, even though he was kind of a photography creeper and quite possibly a pedophile. Go ask Alice. [your groan here]