Keywords: typical washington, wolfe, seating

I've found that living in DC means that, when you travel to other parts of the country, you're likely to find that people believe that EVERYone in DC works for the government. And in seven years here, I've not only never worked for the government, but often forget that there's that other world in this town; the one that's filled with important people in the government and that shows an Americanism that you'd be very hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

But I was right smack dab in the middle of this world last night, when I saw Tom Wolfe give a speech at the Warner Theater. The crowd was full of suits, there was the "presentation of the colors" before the speech, a brass band playing American standards, and the guy waiting in line behind us as we waited to get in couldn't stand not asking us who we worked for (being in a place where "who do you work for" actually expects the answer of a person's—not a company's—name). I let Jen and Josh give out their impressive job titles and kept quiet, as I know when and where my web-monkey status at an NGO holds any weight, and this was not one of those times.

I'm rambling here, which is appropriate, because that's exactly what Tom Wolfe did for almost two hours. There were some fascinating points made on culture, humanity and status that I'd love to talk to him (or anyone. Anyone?) about, but it was a little tough sitting there for that long trying to figure out where he was going or what sweeping cultural generalization he was going to throw out next.

And so I found myself sitting there thinking about sitting there. As Wolfe trailed off into another rambling story about some social group, I trailed off and thought about a TV show I'd stumbled on a few months ago where a guy who was every conservative's imagining of "snobby city liberal" went off on how we can tell that America is getting fatter because of the difference in the sizes of subway and stadium seats. They used to be much thinner and now seats in public places have to be made ever wider to accommodate the ever bigger asses of America.

I was thinking this in the Warner Theater because I was uncomfortable. Now, in spite of having a some places on me where you could grab a good handful of flesh, I'm a pretty thin guy, and I fit into the seat just fine. But I was reminded what I thought of this snobby city liberal's arguments when I first heard them: that his logic was all wrong. Seats are getting wider not because America's getting fatter, but because we've gotten so used to comfort. We've gotten used to air conditioning and personal space and nice office chairs and sound-proofed houses and advances in hygiene, and we expect the same of seats in theaters and subways. I thought about the guy in the program and how I wanted to take him back to 1910 and have him sit on a thin, wooden, backless bench in some theater for three hours between two sweaty guys and then see how much he's begging for the wide seats of 2006.

I don't know how to end this, so I'll end it the way Wolfe ended his fascinating though generalization-laden speech, with that word that can let you summarize anything:

Therefore...