Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption
Gross Earthly Body
From While Not Writing A Book, in Helen Garner’s essay collection Everywhere I Look: At the health farm, fasting. I must be hallucinating: when I walk past a pile of folded towels I see them as a huge club sandwich. I present myself for reiki treatment. The woman announces that she is going to massage my aura. I submit with a sigh. I don’t have any trouble at all believing that people have auras: you only need to have seen a dying and then a dead body to know this. But I wanted my massage to be about my gross earthly body. I do not know how many ways I can recommend this book, but I’m putting this quote here so I can add one more to the list.