it to stink when it farted, but that was technically beyond us.”
The short walk to reception, with Edison, was not short. “Then there are the pornographic ones,” I said. “I had to decide whether to accept the orders at first, but there were so many . . . If a wife wants to give her husband a doll that barks, ‘Suck my dick, bitch!’ why should I care?”
I introduced Edison to Carlotta, our receptionist, whom I’d alerted about my brother coming by for a tour. I had not warned her about anything else, and was glad she took the lack of obvious family resemblance in stride. “It’s a real pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, pumping his hand warmly. “Your sister here’s the best boss a body could hope for. And I’m not just saying that to wheedle for a raise.”
I brought him into the big open area, which hummed with two dozen sewing machines. The walls were stacked with hundreds of fabrics, while one corner mounded with clear plastic bags of cotton stuffing. “All the dolls are custom jobs, but we have standardized a little,” I said, raising my voice over the machines and leading him to the piles of unclothed dolls with no hair or facial features. “Over here, you can see we’ve got three basic body types in both sexes: thin, average, and portly. Three fabric colors seems to cover the racial bases. These we mass-produce. Angela also churns out denim and leather jackets, though we often add a distinguishing detail—embroidery, a political button. It’s the personalized touches that people like.”
“So—what, they send you a photograph.”
“Sometimes we work from one jpeg; other customers send five or six. And a list of expressions. We recommend a minimum of ten. We’ll do up to twenty, but the poetry—honestly, it is a form of poetry—seems to work better with fewer.”
Edison frowned. “This is shit the cat in the photo says all the time. In real life.”
Clearly, my brother had neither read my interviews nor looked at my website. I wondered if I felt hurt. I marveled that I didn’t seem to. Instead I felt an increment sorrier for Edison. If I felt any sorrier for Edison, I would faint.
“That’s right,” I said. “We all repeat ourselves, but certain signature phrases become a form of branding. Most people aren’t aware of what they say all the time unless it’s called to their attention. The repetitions are telling. Our dolls are expensive. But as a substitute for therapy, they’re dirt cheap.”
I introduced Edison to my staff. I was proud of my workforce. A business with an inbuilt sense of humor gave rise to a natural joviality, and as long as orders weren’t piling up we had a good time. They were nice people, so my impulse to protect my brother from my employees was disconcerting; my first introductions were tainted with a challenging demeanor, like, So? What are you looking at? that made my workers glance to the floor. Some of them may have read correctly in my hard stare, You’re not so skinny yourself, you know . I was dismayed that my brother’s size seemed to be all that people saw. I wanted to object, But his mind is not fat, his soul is not fat, his past is not fat, and his piano playing isn’t fat, either .
But I wasn’t giving my employees enough credit. You have to provide Iowans good reason to be unkind, and if anything a conspicuous weakness for pork rinds made my nightclubbing East Coast brother seem more down-home.
“Don’t you believe that guff this lady spouts about Monotonous going down the tubes any minute,” said Brad, the weedy guy who inserted the recording mechanisms. “This biz is going like gangbusters. Gonna be one distant day when people in this country run out of folks they wanna make fun of.”
I explained that Edison was a jazz pianist in New York City.
“You mean, like— doo-doo-doo-REEE-do-REE-do-do-do-dum-dum-DEEDLE-DEEDLE-dum-do-dum . . . ?” Brad’s screeching recital was comically cacophonous.
Edison
The short walk to reception, with Edison, was not short. “Then there are the pornographic ones,” I said. “I had to decide whether to accept the orders at first, but there were so many . . . If a wife wants to give her husband a doll that barks, ‘Suck my dick, bitch!’ why should I care?”
I introduced Edison to Carlotta, our receptionist, whom I’d alerted about my brother coming by for a tour. I had not warned her about anything else, and was glad she took the lack of obvious family resemblance in stride. “It’s a real pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, pumping his hand warmly. “Your sister here’s the best boss a body could hope for. And I’m not just saying that to wheedle for a raise.”
I brought him into the big open area, which hummed with two dozen sewing machines. The walls were stacked with hundreds of fabrics, while one corner mounded with clear plastic bags of cotton stuffing. “All the dolls are custom jobs, but we have standardized a little,” I said, raising my voice over the machines and leading him to the piles of unclothed dolls with no hair or facial features. “Over here, you can see we’ve got three basic body types in both sexes: thin, average, and portly. Three fabric colors seems to cover the racial bases. These we mass-produce. Angela also churns out denim and leather jackets, though we often add a distinguishing detail—embroidery, a political button. It’s the personalized touches that people like.”
“So—what, they send you a photograph.”
“Sometimes we work from one jpeg; other customers send five or six. And a list of expressions. We recommend a minimum of ten. We’ll do up to twenty, but the poetry—honestly, it is a form of poetry—seems to work better with fewer.”
Edison frowned. “This is shit the cat in the photo says all the time. In real life.”
Clearly, my brother had neither read my interviews nor looked at my website. I wondered if I felt hurt. I marveled that I didn’t seem to. Instead I felt an increment sorrier for Edison. If I felt any sorrier for Edison, I would faint.
“That’s right,” I said. “We all repeat ourselves, but certain signature phrases become a form of branding. Most people aren’t aware of what they say all the time unless it’s called to their attention. The repetitions are telling. Our dolls are expensive. But as a substitute for therapy, they’re dirt cheap.”
I introduced Edison to my staff. I was proud of my workforce. A business with an inbuilt sense of humor gave rise to a natural joviality, and as long as orders weren’t piling up we had a good time. They were nice people, so my impulse to protect my brother from my employees was disconcerting; my first introductions were tainted with a challenging demeanor, like, So? What are you looking at? that made my workers glance to the floor. Some of them may have read correctly in my hard stare, You’re not so skinny yourself, you know . I was dismayed that my brother’s size seemed to be all that people saw. I wanted to object, But his mind is not fat, his soul is not fat, his past is not fat, and his piano playing isn’t fat, either .
But I wasn’t giving my employees enough credit. You have to provide Iowans good reason to be unkind, and if anything a conspicuous weakness for pork rinds made my nightclubbing East Coast brother seem more down-home.
“Don’t you believe that guff this lady spouts about Monotonous going down the tubes any minute,” said Brad, the weedy guy who inserted the recording mechanisms. “This biz is going like gangbusters. Gonna be one distant day when people in this country run out of folks they wanna make fun of.”
I explained that Edison was a jazz pianist in New York City.
“You mean, like— doo-doo-doo-REEE-do-REE-do-do-do-dum-dum-DEEDLE-DEEDLE-dum-do-dum . . . ?” Brad’s screeching recital was comically cacophonous.
Edison
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