It seems fitting, after a posting about a book about parking, to comment on how much Miss Edith enjoyed a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. It was by Joseph B. White, entitled “An Ecotopian View of Fuel Economy.” Mr. White describes how Portland Oregon faces the truth about fuel economy and the American way of life. Now, Portland, as a city, is very smug about its “green” attitude toward everything, but they have some valid points. The city’s idea, for decades, has been that sprawl is basically a bad idea for a zillion reasons, and that everyone would do well to live densely and take public transportation. This is totally within Miss Edith’s zone. Miss Edith, as a non-driver, is a serious and dedicated pedestrian and user of public transportation. Notarius drives, and we own a car, but the car sees much less use than you would expect. Both of us feel that a life spent in a car is sort of…silly… if it’s not necessary. And we’ve designed our lives thus far so that neither of us has driven to work. Some day that may change, I admit, but for all these years, it’s been true and it’s worked. Living in the suburbs has little appeal for us.

We like that we can walk home from work and on the way easily pick up the dry cleaning, or some groceries for dinner, or a box of bandages to replace the empty one that’s been sitting in the medicine chest for a few weeks. We can walk to literally dozens and dozens of good restaurants from our house, should we decide that we don’t want to cook. When we visit friends who live in suburbia, we marvel at their wanting to be there; you can’t walk anywhere in particular, partly because half the time there are no sidewalks, but also because even if you went for a walk… how long would you be walking before you hit your destination? You have, as we see it, all the inconvenience of living in a rural area with none of the advantages of rural life (no visible neighbors; quiet; etc. etc.). Miss Edith has never pined for the rural life, as you can imagine, but she respects it a lot more than the average suburban life. It is what it is, you know? If you’re gonna live in the middle of nowhere, Do It. Suburbia strikes me as a midpoint that doesn’t really make sense.

Mr. White writes:
“In Suburbia, the nation where so many Americans live, homes and businesses are usually segregated. That segregation is viewed as desirable, even though it can turn a routine shopping trip into a 20-minute drive. The Ecotopian urbanite, by contrast, accepts that within walking distance of home there could be: a world-class bookstore, three coffee shops, a liquor mart, a grocery store, an art gallery, a service station, a chummy neighborhood restaurant, a concert hall, a designer furniture outlet and a sex-toy shop…. In this Ecotopian lifestyle, the car becomes an occasional means of escape to adventure, not a daily commuting appliance.”

Exactly, my friends.

I had never before realized so acutely that I was a type that had a name. Miss Edith isn’t known for her love of the environment – I’m not against trees, per se, but I don’t feel a real need to be near any; that’s why I live in the city, I’ve always said – but the idea that someone like me counts as a form of environmentalist is literally awesome. Apparently I live an Ecotopian lifestyle. Miss Edith, with her hats and many pairs of shoes (a pedestrian is hard on shoes) and dozens of messenger and tote bags (because you have to have things with you, and if you’re walking, you can’t use your car as a mobile purse), turns out to be an Ecotopian. Good god almighty.

I hope that people perusing Miss Edith will go read that WSJ article. It strikes me as an important article because it states so clearly something that few people are willing to talk about honestly. If people want to “help the environment” and “conserve energy” and “cut fuel costs” what they need to do is not buy electric cars and drive them 30 miles a day or whatever… they need to fundamentally alter the manner in which they live. Density in living situations is not necessarily a bad thing, my friends. Cities have gorgeous parks – I live within walking distance of at least four truly beautiful parks, not that I care, because they have trees, but Notarius cares and I do sometimes get taken out for a walk by him – and cities have housing that allow one to be comfortable in ways you never even thought of before, I bet. There are so many joys, small daily joys, to city life. I wish that people sitting in their cars listen to the traffic reports could understand why we live the way we do….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118252449374944908.html

Miss Edith Does Not Have an MBA or Driver's License But Reads "Tepper Isn't Going Out" Anyway

Miss Edith, as a woman of the world (or at least, of her own world), has experienced a number of workplace environments. Yes: Miss Edith has even worked at a fancy women’s shoe boutique, selling ludicrously overpriced little slices of leather to ladies who lunch. Miss Edith did this for two weeks, saw her paycheck, and immediately quit. But she can honestly say she’s worked as a shoe saleswoman.

And Miss Edith has basically been in rather specialized forms of sales ever since. Most of all, it is Miss Edith’s experience that she sells herself; it is the persona of Miss Edith that seems to generate sales of the items at hand. Sales is about personality in ways that people do not always understand or realize. It’s about how conveying a certain kind of personality at specific moments. Miss Edith does not have an MBA (can you fucking imagine if she did? That would be unreal) but she’s been known to reel in customers like they were little silly fishies in a cool New Hampshire lake. She often thinks about this and has gone so far as to opine that MBA courses could do well to offer courses on Miss Edith. Certainly, with all the time they’re not using to study ethics, they could do worse than to study Miss Edith…

But she digresses.

The life of Miss Edith, Literary Vendeuse, seldom overlaps with her actual literary life, in the sense that she tends to not read so many books about sales or marketing. It’s been known to happen, though. A few years back I read some work by Paco Underhill, and actually found it rather interesting. I’ve read Thomas Frank’s The Conquest of Cool. I have even read books by MBA types for MBA types, about sales, about business language, about increasing customer service. Frankly, it’s amazing to me that Miss Edith has actually spent time reading this shit – and, overwhelmingly, it is shit. But when one sells for a living, sometimes, one must read books one does not find actually entertaining. Not that I didn’t enjoy Paco Underhill – I don’t want to sound like I’m insulting him; I found his works light but interesting – Miss Edith doesn’t have any quibbles with Paco Underhill. But overwhelmingly, these books for business types are dreck to the nth degree.

A recent jaunt to the local library on a fine weekday afternoon led me to borrow six different books. There were two YA novels; two lit’ry fiction type of things, both on the light side; a recent book about women’s economic position in the U.S. today, and a work on the demise of the English language. The first title I began to read was Calvin Trillin’s popular novel of a few years back, Tepper Isn’t Going Out. I’ve long admired Trillin’s food writing, and may be the only person under the age of 50 who actually owns a copy of Floater. I read his recently-published-in-book-form tribute to his wife, Alice, when it was originally printed in The New Yorker, and was swept away by it like everyone else. (Miss Edith isn’t entirely hard-hearted, you know.) Basically, it doesn’t get much better than Calvin Trillin – so it was high time I read Tepper.

Tepper Isn’t Going Out is a novel about parking, a subject I don’t think about much because I don’t drive. But what I didn’t expect is that it’s also a book about sales – about lead generation. Are there other novels that discuss the nuts-and-boltsy aspect of the business world like this? I cannot name any. Has anyone any titles to offer?

If you do, please let Miss Edith know; she’s really most curious to read fiction that talks about the boring side of business; books about business that aren’t actually business books. And don’t give me Ayn Rand, friends. Give me something under the radar. Give me something that wasn’t written by some “it” boy interviewed in last month’s NYT Magazine. Surprise me.

I have enjoyed reading Tepper thus far and look forward to finishing it. Perhaps by the time I’m done I’ll have even greater insight into why the business world is as revolting as it currently is. But in the meantime, I’d like to recommend to MBA types (hello?) and those who work for MBA types but feel they deserve better (yes, you, sweetie) a short list of books that will remind you all that talking like an MBA is not, truly not, an admirable thing. “You’re an animal!” is not a compliment when said outside the bedroom. There is no good reason for speaking sentences that mean nothing at all unless you are Lewis Carroll. Remind yourself of what it’s like to be a person by exposing yourself to these books, which, yes, Miss Edith has actually read.

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky


The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit: An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk by Lois Beckwith

Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth about Bullshit by Laura Penny

As the eminent Irish business man Bernard Black says, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.”