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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2020)
Wednesday, January 8, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon In the PINES By T. Lee Brown Elites, Part One I bought myself one Christmas-Hanukkah- Solstice-Kwanzaa gift this year, <In Defense of Elitism: Why I9m Better Than You and You9re Better Than Someone Who Didn9t Buy This Book,= by Joel Stein. Being a deep thinker, I natu- rally based my interest on the book cover, which caught my eye as I wandered through an independent bookstore. The dust jacket offered an illustration of a trophy buck with a big rack 4 an image that in my childhood meant, <Here9s what we ate a few months back, and it9s staring at us from the wall,= but in the 2010s became a symbol of wannabe hipster-North- westerners from places like Minneapolis and San Diego who moved to Portland, grew beards, and wore plaid flan- nel shirts. When I was a youth, see- ing a guy in a beard and a plaid didn9t suggest I was in the presence of a computer programmer who played dobro while launching an online self-regulating mar- ketplace for artisanal hunt- ing knives. It meant Dad was home, and maybe I could wear his plaid to see a ska- punk or neopsychedelic band play in somebody9s basement that night in the college town near us. (Sorry, Dad; I stole both your red buffalo plaid and your turquoise-and-blue regular plaid, and wore them until they fell apart, by which time <grunge= had happened and I reluctantly reduced the appearance of plaid flan- nel in my wardrobe, at least temporarily.) Anyhoo, the deer star- ing out at me from the book cover was wearing a top hat and monocle, you know, like the rich guy in the Monopoly game or the snootypants on the front cover of the The New Yorker. I proceeded to browse the back-cover blurbs 4 which both praised and pretended to neg on the book9s contents and author 4 then the inner back flap. The author photo showed a white man with short brown hair, a faux uptight sneer on his face, propping up an over- sized monocle. His snootiness was quite American, by which I mean he looked like a cross between Thurston Howell III, the mil- lionaire on the old television show <Gilligan9s Island= (the mention of which, if you are in the appropriate demo- graphic, will cause the lyr- ics, <A three-hour tour&A three-hour tour&= to become lodged in your brain for the next 72 hours), and Hugh Hefner, who really did wear le smoking jacket whilst put- tering around the grounds of the Playboy mansion. Stein9s author bio was mostly about him being dif- ficult to work with on his author photo, and while the juvenile obviousness of the humor caused my eyes to roll, it also made me cackle appreciatively, which inter- rupted an older woman9s loud monologue about downsiz- ing (<I spent two weeks driv- ing back and forth to Habitat and Goodwill. Two weeks!=), which elicited a fierce glare from her and a silently mouthed <I9m sorry!= from her younger companion. At this point I suspected the whole book might be pure satire: a down-home American guy roasting the elites, chapter after chapter. Having cut my teeth on Mad magazine, I might get a kick out of it. Then I realized that although I9d heard an awful lot about the terribleness of elites, I wasn9t too sure exactly who they were, other than Hillary Clinton. I9d once been accused of being an elite, but since at the time I Put your best face forward for the times of your life! was wearing a muffler, stock- ing cap, and ski jacket (prob- ably with a plaid flannel underneath) indoors because I couldn9t afford to heat the house that winter, I assumed the accuser thought <elite= meant <struggling middle- class writer,= leading me to believe that the accuser didn9t know what the heck he was talking about. Maybe by elite, the author of <In Defense of Elitism= meant to invoke the anti- Semitic conspiracy theory which claims that super- fancy, rich Jews are secretly running the entire world and all of its media, and they murdered millions of their own people in a Holocaust in order to, uhh, the reasons for that aren9t entirely clear. So let9s go with the version that says super-fancy, rich Jews are secretly running the entire world and all of its media, and they made up the entire Holocaust, planting fake evi- dence and fake documenta- tion for decades in order to, uhhhh, the reasons for that aren9t entirely clear, either. Neither version made much sense in this case because the author9s name was Joel Stein. I9d hate to be racist and make assump- tions based on someone9s SKINCARE SALON European Facials Professional Peels Microneedling Nano Facials Microcurrent Microdermabrasion Full Makeup LED Treatments Karen Keady $2 OFF $1 OFF or You look amazing! Did you get a peel? 541.480.1412 Essentials Skincare Features P d Éminence Organic Skin Care Products 492 E. Main Ave. www.SistersEssentials.com — NEW CLIENT GIFT BAG — Complimentary consultations by appointment. NCEA Certified Esthetician name, just like I9d hate to judge a book by its cover 4 yet I couldn9t shake the suspicion that perhaps the author of this book might himself be Jewish. Maybe the book would be a parody of how non-snooty, non-Jew- ish, down-home Americans view elite people4up to and including Jews4at the expense of those down-home American goyim/gentiles. My curiosity piqued (a word I know is elitist because it looks French), I finally opened the book and began to read its contents. It soon became apparent that yes, Joel Stein is Jewish. So is his wife. And their son. And some of their friends in Los Angeles. All of whom seemed scared and horrified by the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Will the book parody elit- ist literature to talk smack about Trump voters, or will it parody elitist literature to roast the elites themselves? Will Thurston Howell III save the world from a mad scien- tist and his minions 4 or will Gilligan and the Skipper drown Thurston in a fit of populist rage? Tune in next week to find out. <A three-hour tour&A three-hour tour&= Bring in this coupon for Essentials any 16-20 lb. bag of Cat Food any 30-35-40 lb. bag of Dog Food 102 E. Main Ave. 541-549-4151 Offer good through 2-5-20. Coupon not valid with any other promotion. Limit one coupon per customer per month. Your passport to a world of fine cuisine... JA PA N Wednesday, January 8, 3-4 p.m. Need a place to hold your meeting? We have just the space for you — for 10 to 35 people. Enjoy a demo of some tasty food, play trivia, and win prizes! RSVP to 541-549-5634 by Th ursday of the prior week. Your presence at each h d di Y dinner i earns you $250 credit as a future Seasons resident.* Attend three consecutive dinners and double your credit; bring a friend and triple it! 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