The Comfortable Places of the World

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In most (not all) places that one goes when one is out in public there is the implicit idea, an idea there, hanging in the air (the atmospheric ideology), telling us the leisure and comfort of life is to be found in the private sphere, the "private sector." Generally, of course, persons do find leisure and comfort in their private areas. Of course, yes, they do. They find leisure and comfort in private, and normally that means, quite simply, the home. But not in this world! Oooooo.....no.....yesterday "private" meant at home.  Of course now it means the "private" -- "business" -- sector. Now which wag came up with that? The "private" business sphere. But what is business? -nobody knows, dahling, nobody knows.

     Anyways at the bar (Kitty O'Shea's to be exact) at the Hilton Hotel on south Michigan is where I am scratching this onto a white piece of paper so it is definitely some privately-owned business that is your only shot for finding out some comfort, leisure. And you know, they are so friendly in those places. I want to open a cafe' called "The Burned Bean" where everything is burned and awful. And the wairtress chews gums and says nastily, "what'll it be, bud?"
     So, the only place left to go for comfort, outside of your home, if you have one, is yet another world called "private."

     Americans as a people are known for being "friendly." In fact, it is as if the private sphere, the business sphere, were their own public property or transplanted on top of it like a fried egg. They are obsessed with kindness and niceness and comfort to the extent of sometimes forgetting to shave. But these are our folks. I'm so loyal. We no longer find comfort in our own family quarters. Where do Americans find it? They thirst for it in commercial establishments, which somehow seems kind of inside-out. This is somewhat disturbing. How can you pay money for that? How can there be "comfort food"?

     But wait: the money thing is important. In that earlier part of the timeline, of a mercantile, commercial society, they find comfort at home but that means where money is not spent. But now, the italics have turned upside down, and, they do it in public (Ooooops...private) places where a latte is four dollars, a hotel room 2 or 300. That is what is "comfortable"?

     I dunno.