Wednesday, July 29, 2009

How not to plan a career

Anyway. Here's how not to plan a career: (a) split up with girlfriend; (b) junk college; (c) go to work in record shop; (d) stay in record shops for rest of life. You see those pictures of people in Pompeii and you think, how weird: one quick game of dice after your tea and you're frozen, and that's how people remember you for the next few thousand years.


Suppose it was the first game of dice you've ever played? Suppose you were only doing it to keep your friend Augustus company? Suppose you'd just at that moment finished a brilliant poem or something? Wouldn't it be annoying to be commemorated as a dice player? Sometimes I look at my shop (because I haven't let the grass grow under my feet the last fourteen years! About ten years ago I borrowed the money to start my own!), and at my regular Saturday punters, and I know exactly how those inhabitants of Pompeii must feel, if they could feel anything (although the fact that they can't is kind of the point of them). I'm stuck in this pose, this shop-managing pose, forever, because of a few short weeks in 1979 when I went a bit potty for a while. It could be worse, I guess; I could have walked into an army recruiting office, or the nearest Slaughterhouse. But even so, I feel as though I made a face and the wind changed, and now I have to go through life grimacing in this horrible way.

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

2 comments:

sarah shipley said...

i'm just reading about IFK, or Ioannes F. Kennedy, on vicipaedia and wondered - do you ever contribute to that site? cause that would be really cool if you did.

(i'm not being sarcastic, i really think it would be cool! you could make that a class assignment, how awesome would that be!)

Unknown said...

Bitter pill regret is it not? But I’m sure there are plenty of days your glad that particular wind blew your way if you really think about it, and rather be playing dice than have not to have roll the dice at all. What if you had said no to playing dice with your friend Augustus and you stayed in and the roof caved in on you ( and been remembered as the guy that didn’t want to play the game) you would never have know that you could have had such fun keeping Augustus company and of course in this scenario you would have won the game! Breathe