Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman Page A

aforementioned Nordstrom catalogue from cover to cover, even though it was downhill after the goat.
    I hasten to mention that I have never actually solicited a catalogue. Although it is tempting to conclude that our mailbox hatches them by spontaneous generation, I know they are really the offspring of promiscuous mailing lists, which copulate in secret and for money. One of the pleasures, or horrors, of the direct-mail business is that you never know to whom your name will be pandered. My friend Ross Baughman, a photographer who once accompanied a group of American mercenaries to Nicaragua, inquired before the trip about a mail-order night-vision scope that would allow him to take pictures during midnight commando raids without using a flash. Ever since, he has been deluged with catalogues for pamphlets on how to make rifle silencers out of old car mufflers and napalm out of laundry detergent.
    At least Ross can trace his direct-mail family tree. But why do I receive catalogues devoted exclusively to salsa, equestrian gear, electric grills, extra-large clothes, extra-small clothes, tours to sites at which UFO’s have landed, and resin reproductions of medieval gargoyles? Do these companies know something about me that I don’t know?
    I have come to believe that the explanation turns on the fact that the address label often reads ANNE SADIMAN. (Over the phone,
F
sounds like
S
. All Fadimans have therefore learned to say, whenever we order anything, “
F
as in Frank.” However, at least a quarter of the time, people think we have said, “
S
as in Srank.”) Anne Fadiman is a middle-aged mother of two who possesses neither a microwave nor a CD player, let alone a deck on which to place an electric grill or a house to which such a deck might be attached. But
Anne Sadiman
—ah, she’s a horse of another color, and it’s almost certainly celery, blush, buff, ecru, kiwi, Java, thistle, grenadine, delft, pebble, cork, or cloud, to mention a few of her favorites from the J. Crew catalogue. Wearing her Ultimate Hat from TravelSmith, which has “been crushed by Land Rovers, dropped from airplanes, and lost in raging rapids,” Anne S. makes frequent trips to Lake Titicaca, the location (according to her Power Places Tours catalogue) of “one of the most powerful energy vortexes in the world.” She easily attracts men (since her body has been perfected by the Macarena Workout from Collage Videos) and ladybugs (since she buys three-packs of easy-to-use, disposable Ladybug Lures from Duncraft). Courtesy of her Audio-Forum language tapes, she speaks Yupik, Xhosa, and Twi “like a diplomat.” (Or better. Show me an American ambassador who is fluent in Twi and I’ll eat Anne Sadiman’s Ultimate Hat.) She’s fond of her $1-million Diamond-Studded Miracle Bra from Victoria’s Secret, but she’s equally partial to her twelve-point nickel-chrome moly steel crampons from Campmor. In fact, her husband gets particularly excited when she wears both of these items simultaneously.
    Anne S.’s husband was unavailable for comment—he was on the phone with The Sharper Image, ordering her an Ultrasonic Wave Cleaner whose 42,000-wave-per-second piezo transducer will automatically bubble microdirt off her diamond bra—so I interviewed Anne F.’s husband instead. The question I posed was, “Why does your wife read mailorder catalogues?”
    George looked me straight in the eye and said, “Because if something is addressed to you, it doesn’t occur to you that you could throw it out. You’re a bizarrely obedient person.” (This is true. It is hard for me to walk on a DONT WALK sign even if there are no cars for miles. However, while waiting, I get back at it by thinking, DON’T OMIT THE APOSTROPHE.) George confessed that when he knew I had a deadline, he had on occasion triaged half the mailbox—
my catalogues!
—directly into the trash can. I counter-confessed that I had decided to write this essay just so that whenever he caught