Indulgence

About once a month I stop by my local Starbucks on Jack Hawkins Parkway for my one and only indulgence in life. There I have a caramel frap (as the employees say), a plain heated bagel (You can choose between lightly warmed and medium warmed. I prefer the latter), AND I read the actual paper and ink New York Times. That’s because they sell it there. I make it a point to leave the paper there for the next person, doing my part to promote literacy in my town.

It’s an indulgence now to leisurely read a newspaper in the original paper form the way God meant for a newspaper to be read. Take your time, turn the pages, see things you would not see online. This is because you can easily go through a newspaper front to back whereas online you naturally skip around and you will likely miss something. I will flip through the Arts section in paper but seldom online. Except for the classifieds (I ain’t looking for a job in New York), I turn every page.

Then there’s the tactile pleasure of fondling paper, flipping pages back and forth, folding and unfolding, SMELLING the paper and print. The pleasure of print, even in this age of digital information, will never leave me.

The NY Times is STILL the newspaper of record. I read it online each day. Wouldn’t miss it. Once you get used to reading it online, you don’t take the time or the daily expense to read the real thing each day.

Talking about seeing things you might not see otherwise online: The last time I was Starbucking, reading the paper Times, I saw this article in the Arts section about a singer/songwriter stage named St. Vincent, real name Annie Clark. She named herself after the final destination of the poet Dylan Thomas. So far so good. But-----

She says in the article, “I like things that are unsettling or a little bit creepy."

In her latest album she says she’s tried to combine the purity of Disney with things that are bloody, gory, and disgusting. Oh, my.

The article prints this excerpt from one of her songs:

We’re sleeping underneath the bed
To scare the monsters out
With our dear daddy’s Smith & Wesson
We’ve got to teach them all a lesson.

There is a picture of her with the article. This 26-yr. old looks so sweet and demure. But then she writes lyrics like this. The article talks about her intensity and how she intimidates people. She IS creepy if you ask me. Maybe she’s talented. Maybe she’s harmless, but I wonder. As Tolstoy might put it, every creep is creepy in his own way.