In other news, Chris Hitchens scribes a trenchant essay concerning the fact that when he's at a restaurant, the waiter sometimes pours wine for customers. With his rapier insight, Mr. Hitchens calculates that this "barbaric custom" is driven not simply by rudeness but also "conveys a none-too-subtle and mercenary message: Hurry up and order another bottle." Really.
The comedy here has precious little with HItch's mastery of the obvious, but what is revealed in his stout little pique regarding this infringement. Here's the nut:
It completely usurps my prerogative if I am a host. ("Can I refill your glass? Try this wine—I think you may care for it.") It also tends to undermine me as a guest, since at any moment when I try to sing for my supper, I may find an unwanted person lunging carelessly into the middle of my sentence."Sing for my supper" is particularly telling, but then so is the word "usurp" and this hostly prerogative: all images of yore. In specific, the yore of the lord's table, where the rules revolved around the various rights of seignorage. That Chris can shift from lord to courtier in a sentence is surely a story of his own resentment that such a superior being has ended up a peon propagandist — but the overarching hilarity can be summed up as Christopher HItchens Angry At Capitalism Because It Isn't Aristocracy. "I payed for the right to play margrave-for-an-evening, god damne you; why are you acting like I'm a customer?" Posted by jane at May 28, 2008 10:34 AM | TrackBack