Anti-Climacus

Manifestoes, etc:

* Trolling through Robert Christgau's archive, I found this column that had a significant impact on me way back when in 1996. The phrase "sensitive jerks with acoustic guitars" is applicable to so much music, and to so much of life.

* Whatever other shortcomings are proper to central New Jersey, it's exceedingly difficult to fly anywhere. For my current trip, I had to drive 20 minutes to Princeton to park my car, walk 15ish minutes to the train station, take the Dinky, get on the NJ Transit train, take the tram from the rail station to the airport, and do this all with ample time just in case there were issues with security, etc. Thus a day in which I left my house at 8:00 and had not yet even boarded the plane at noon. Needless to say I was a little out of it.

Seated across from me at the airport in Newark were an elderly Asian couple whose luggage included a red-and-black tote back with inspirational slogans on it. I read the slogans periodically and made fun of them, e.g.: "Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself," which actually makes the world a more sensible place if you reflect on it (/s). One of the slogans was just weird, so strange that I had to read it literally ten times before I believed that I recognized all the words and put them in the right order. The phrase was, as you might imagine, memorable, so upon arrival I googled to find out why this would be written in bold, clearly visible letters and received my answer: it's the Lululemon manifesto. And it's still odd, an exercise in wholly unneeded metaphor-making.

Which phrase it was is left as an exercise for the reader.