The Wit's Guide to Spending
Or, congealed snow
The main problem with spending money is that you can only do it once. Then you need to get some more money, and so on and so forth, and then you’re dead.
“That money talks
I’ll not deny,
I heard it once,
it said goodbye.”
— Richard Armour
That’s where the sadly discredited philosophy of Cakeism comes into play. As most glibloquently (that’s a portmanteau of glibly and eloquently) framed by disgraced former British prime minister Boris Johnson, Cakeism is a response to the old saw about having your cake and eating it, too — a situation that clearly requires two cakes. As Johnson said, “My position on cake is clear: I’m pro-having it and pro-eating it.” Sadly, there is no multiverse of baked goods. Or at least not one that I’ve been invited to join.
“Some people’s money is merited
And other people’s is inherited.”
— Ogden Nash
This is a perfect interval to mention that when I wrote about Johnson’s early, funny stuff in The Globe and Mail, they wisely commissioned Graham Roumieu to draw Boris Johnson as a cake:
I then even-more-wisely commissioned Graham to draw a Riposte Card, which I will mail to you upon upgrade to a paid subscription and looks like this:
F. Scott Fitzgerald made spending money seem effortless, as The New Yorker pointed out in a 1926 profile of the writer snidely headlined “That Sad Young Man.”
“Ever since This Side of Paradise, money has poured in upon this young couple, thousands and thousands a month. And just as fast it has poured out,” recorded John C. Mosher. “Where it goes, no one seems to know. Least of all evidently, the Fitzgeralds. They complain that nothing is left to show for it. Mrs. Fitzgerald hasn’t even a pearl necklace.”
“Hollywood money isn’t money. It’s congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are.”
— Dorothy Parker
Enough about spending money — time is much more finite. And then there’s your attention, which most of us will spend like intoxicated sailors on any flashing trinket that zips through our field of vision.
“Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’”
— Philip Larkin
There’s a great line — there are many great lines — in Patricia Lockwood’s internetty novel No One Is Talking About This about how we spend and waste our attention, specifically on facts about movie stars:
“Maybe it was the champagne, but it suddenly struck her as a democratic principle, that everyone should get to know about Marlon Brando: how he looked like a wet knife in a T-shirt, the cotton ball in each cheek when he talked, rumors of him wearing diapers on the set of Apocalypse Now. Nothing useful, but one of the fine spendthrift privileges of being alive—wasting a cubic inch of mind and memory on the vital statistics of Marlon Brando.”
“Resolve not to be poor: Whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impractical, and others extremely difficult.”
— Samuel Johnson
I had a theory that use of the word spendthrift had declined exactly as use of the word baller had spread. I checked Google N-gram and, well, not quite, meaning it was one of those theories that was too good to check. Adjust your spending and/or balling accordingly.
“I’m tired of Love: I’m still more tired of Rhyme.
But Money gives me pleasure all the time.”
— Hilaire Belloc“I hardly ever tire of love or rhyme —
That’s why I’m poor and have a rotten time.”
— Wendy Cope
Stationery but not stationary
That right there is 35 envelopes stuffed with Riposte Cards, mailed out on Monday morning. (They’re currently in transit, thus not stationary.) And you know what else I spend your money on, in addition to PayPaling terrific artists to create amazing postcards and buying the postage required to send them to YOU? Especially you three subscribers in Australia, whomst are 100% fair dinkum?
Silly self-inking stamps. They are deeply satisfying to design, order and use! It’s not an addiction, I can stop designing silly self-inking stamps anytime I want, I just choose not to. Please subsidize this peccadillo! I’ll send you 5 beautiful works of art for your trouble, and then 8 more after that. If there’s a better deal out there, it’s not mentioned in this email!
Quote Vote
“There’s only one thing to do with loose change of course. Tighten it.”
— Flann O’Brien
Last week Children were leading the Quote Vote right up until they got outspent by Spending. This week, I’m testing my hypothesis that if I put one mundane subject next to four highfalutin concepts, the lowest falutin option will win. Prove me wrong! Give a hoot, don’t falute!
Thank you for spending time and attention on Get Wit Quick No. 211, a wet knife in your inbox. You can’t take my book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting to the afterlife — they’re very strict about this I’m afraid — so best read it now. And you’ll never get back the femtosecond it takes to tap the❤️ below.