Ump-ump-umpteen

[imomus]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this recent exchange on alt.fan.momus:

xyzedd: The sad thing is that Momus is one of the few "pop" artists over 30 who has become yet more original and inventive as he grows older; most of them run out of ideas or run their ideas into the ground by the time they get their first gray hair.

Roshan: Sometimes when my friends are talking about how horrible it will be to be middle-aged, I usually just point to people like Momus and say that I can't wait. I mean, imagine all the books you'll have read, people you'll know!



Roshan, it is great, but sometimes I feel like when people ask my age, instead of the real answer (44, m**********r!) I should just say umpteen.

Comments

[gillen.livejournal.com]

What a bizarre thing for him to wish... not to read books, but to have read them. It's like wishing to have eaten a delicious dinner. By the time you reach the point that you have been anticipating, what one would normally consider the pleasure of the activity is past. Unless one takes a greater pleasure simply from noting the completion of pleasurable things... perhaps Roshan is a compulsive collector? ::smirk::

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

But sometimes you want to acquire massive quantities of data in a more efficient manually reading words on paper. Not all reading is undertaken purely for the pleasure of enjoying the words.

[yanatonage.livejournal.com]

I actually am a compulsive collector..but do you think bibliophiles are just tacticle fetishists or are they information fetishists as well? I don't think it's too much to want to enjoy both the means and the ends. I mean, I really enjoy 'having had' an orgasm, as well as the act itself.

-Roshan

tactile fetishist vs information fetishist

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

I think bibliophiles are both: if they were merely information fetishists they (I mean, we) could just get our fix at the library, instead of exercising our compulsion to purchase the books; anyone who is *merely* a tactile fetishist of books, and does not *read* them, is probably an interior decorator who picks the books because the spines match the wallpaper and doesn't deserve to be called a bibliophile.

That said, I love the way brand new books smell, too. I love the way good-quality paper has a certain weight in your hand. I love the way very old books leave a shadow of crumblings of themselves when you pick them up off a table. I love Routledge and Kodansha and Tuttle.

I dig your name, too, by the way, Roshan-the-red-lotus. I almost named a cat that once. Seriously.