I might well be late to the game, but the personal classifieds in the New York Review of Books are… well, fascinating.
Personals are weird beasts; there is a kind of code and etiquette to writing them; weird acronyms, certain phrases… Yet there is always something a little seedy to the enterprise. When I was in the UK my flatmates and I would sometimes go through the personals in the ‘best’ tabloids, but nothing compares to those in the New York Review of Books.
It doesn’t seem right that the New York Review of Books would carry Personals, but, at the same time, if the New York Review of Books is going to have such Personals, you would expect them to be of the best quality.
And boy, they are.
Comments
Look up “They call me Naughty Lola” – a collection of similar personals from the London Review of Books. Personal favourite:
“This is a terrifying world. I am the only worthy edifice in it. You are probably a tree. You know what I’m saying. Man, 35. Box no. 7213.”
but nothing compares to those in the New York Review of Books
Oh, I don’t know. What about the ones in the London Review of Books? Times Literary Supplement? They do symposia about these things, you know. And there are collections I believe.
Article in the Sydney Morning Herald from a wee while back: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908885008.html
“‘Fleeing Meryl Streep” sounds like a catch for an amusing, literate man of any age.