The Only Bush I Trust is My Own

During my recent Internet hiatus, I read a lot, just sort of whatever was at hand. One of the things I read - quickly, since it's a short book - was Periel Aschenbrand's The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own. It's a quick read filled with a no-bullshit attitude and a dangerous sense of humor. There are two passages I wanted to highlight from the book that stood out to me:

From page 190:

[Walt] Whitman said: I am large, I contain multitudes, and I wallow in my inconsistency.

Perfect. Internal coherency is overrated, anyway, not to mention nearly impossible to achieve. We are human, after all.

The second passage, from later on the same page, is Roland Barthes on what he termed The Fashion System:

Fashion is a social fact; those who exclude themselves "suffer a sanction: the stigma of being unfashionable."

I'd never thought about it that way before, but I think Barthes is essentially correct. I think that goes a long way towards explaining the tension in my style of dress: Just acceptable enough not to be noticed.

Anyway, grab the book some time if you can. It's pretty funny, especially the first section.