When I was very young — probably about six or seven — my mother taught a life-drawing class at an all-female college. She was a single mother, and so I would often go with her across the mountain to model for the class. A group of about 30 women would stand behind easels in a circle around me as my mother arranged me seated, standing, and then laying down. When I told her that it was really, really boring, and therefore hard for me to sit/stand/lay still, she’d let me read while I posed. But then my hands, flicking pages, interrupted the sketch’s stillness. It was decided that I could have the book, but that I couldn’t turn the page. One day I remember I had my favorite childhood book — "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" — and I read of the same 7,000 fathoms over and over and over again.
Ever tried to read at a bar? Perhaps due to my personal history of reading-to-be-watched, I can’t do it. The paper in front of my face makes all of the people around me all the more interesting. Even the baseball on the TV is suddenly so fascinating. And I hate sports. And I also love books. So this is saying something. Sometimes I can’t even read when I’m alone. I feel totally watched. I have to isolate myself, however insufficiently, like a cat retreating into a cardboard box that actually sits in the same house he’s scared of.
I guess what I’m trying to say is — what if you were to embrace the performativity of reading? What if you were to drink not what fits the mood of the book, but to consider what beverage makes the most hilarious, apt or curious juxtaposition between you, the book and the drink itself?
A few months ago, I saw a photo of Paris Hilton reading Sun Tzu’s "The Art of War." It turns out that the photos were part of a promo shoot for the 2006 VMAs, which was the same year that I went as “dead Paris Hilton” for Halloween. I wore zombie makeup, a blonde wig and a pink miniskirt. I was 12. I digress. It’s a Gemini thing. Anyways, this photo of Paris had me thinking of all the ways in which books can act as props.
Towards the end of my time in high school I would recline in the direct sunlight of a UVA garden, drink black coffee, cross and uncross my legs in the shortest shorts and read the collected works of the Marquis de Sade from behind my extra-extra-large sunglasses. I wanted to be seen. No one saw me. But that’s a good thing; it turns out that de Sade’s a really nasty guy and the schoolmarms aren’t lying about that. Due to my pose-reading I read about a page per hour and that was enough.
For pairing: Try "Lady Chatterly’s Lover" and a dirty martini. "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" and a stout. "In Cold Blood" and, hell, a Bloody Mary.
Words by Ryan Murphy
Photographs by Jodi Cash