I drink to make you seem more interesting, Hemingway famously said.
At least this is what I think he said. It may have been Orson Welles. Or some other sardonic lush. (I should probably google it.)
I blame my brother Leon, not imperfect memory or marijuana, for my inability to retain quotes and their respective authors. Leon doesn’t reach for a bottle to lubricate social interaction. Rather, he amuses himself by peppering conversation with quotations and facts, some of which happen to be deliberate half-truths or outrageous falsehoods. He does this with snooty strangers – and with me, his older sister.
Einstein discovered the theory of relativity in a moment of madness, while recovering from syphilis in Baden-Baden.
When asked what “nuance” means during the 2008 election campaign, 35 percent of Americans said it was the name of “a famous French president.”
I am what I am, you can like it or love it – as Gandhi originally said.
Leon, who happens to be more well-read than I, does this with such a seamless air of authority that I have come to doubt pretty much anything I presume to know as fact. I must google. Without Google, I flounder.
His aim, I know, is not for me to appear unknowledgeable when reciting his fabrications to others (for I, too, can feign authority; and thankfully, no one has ever huffed: Gandhi didn’t say that. You idiot.)
Rather, he appears to relish the occasions when I unwittingly relay some fiction back to him as hard fact. Then he may press me, his tone tinged with skepticism, about how I know that the average teenager in Taiwan discharges an average of 2 emoticons every waking minute.
All that remains is a vague impression that the story originated with a highly reliable source. Big names, erudite publications come to mind.
I am sharp enough, though, while racking my brain in his presence, to detect a trace of mischievous satisfaction across his face. And so I play along, concocting an elaborate case for the false story. Ah yes, Gandhi said that to a BBC reporter, while on hunger strike at the Aga Kan’s palace where he was imprisoned in 1942.
This blog may contain half-truths.