[Mb-civic] OP-ED COLUMNIST Love Lit 101 By MAUREEN DOWD

[Michael Butler]

 The New York Times
February 13, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Love Lit 101
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

There are many angles for romance.

In the movie "Silk Stockings," Fred Astaire uses geography. He croons to the
leggy Soviet apparatchik Cyd Charisse that he loves "the east, west, north,
and the south of you."

In "My Little Chickadee," Mae West rolls her hips and eyes and goes with
arithmetic. "A man has $100 and you leave him with $2," she lectures a class
of schoolchildren. "That's subtraction."

Physics, of course. As an old boyfriend used to say: "It's all
electromagnetic."

And then there's my favorite: the alphabetical approach.

I once had a crush on a guy who told me he was reading great works of
literature from A to Z, and had gotten as far as K. So I went to a bookstore
and picked out classics from L to Z and sent them to him. I couldn't find
one for X, so I stuck in a tape of "The X Files." He liked the present, but
the romance never went east, west or north. Just south.

Still, my ears perked up when I recently heard the tale of a New York
journalist who gave his wife an unusual birthday present: a list of books
from A to Z that would help her better understand him.

I decided to adapt the idea for Valentine's Day, and get some lucky guy the
books from A to Z that would help him better understand me.

I prowled Borders, but the more I looked, the more I fretted. I could start
with "All the King's Men," but it's pretty obvious that I'm interested in
the nexus between politics and dishonesty.

I love Shakespeare, but if I put in "The Taming of the Shrew," would I send
the wrong message?

Everything suddenly seemed fraught. What inferences would he draw from "The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz"? Would he find me stuffy if I included "Ethan
Frome"? Pretentious if I threw in Ovid? Mirthless if I chose the
shame-spiraling "House of Mirth"? Hostile if I picked "Be Honest - You're
Not That Into Him Either"?

High-maintenance if I selected "Empty Promises," Ann Rule's true stories of
love affairs that ended with a horrible crime? Scheming if I put in Zsa Zsa
Gabor's seminal treatise: "How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get
Rid of a Man"? Needy if I chose the Deepak Chopra cookbook to nourish body
and soul, unlock the hidden dimensions in your life and harness the infinite
power of coincidence? Pandering if I stacked the deck with guy-lit like Nick
Hornby, Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes," John Keegan's "The Face of
Battle" and my Mom's recommendation, "365 Ways to Cook Hamburger and Other
Ground Meats"?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed not only risky, but the
height of presumption to expect someone to devote that many hours to
fathoming someone else's psyche. What guy would drag himself away from
ESPN's "SportsCenter" to read "Sense and Sensibility" or from beer and pizza
to devour "Cakes and Ale"?

It strikes me that there must be a gender difference here. From my own
unscientific sampling, I think it's far rarer for women to ask men to read
their stuff than it is for men to ask women to read their stuff. Poor Condi
Rice couldn't even get George W. Bush to read her presentation of his
foreign policy goals in Foreign Affairs during his 2000 campaign.

While I hardly ever hear from female readers who want me to read something,
male readers are constantly e-mailing and sending me stuff to read: op-ed
pieces, essays, letters to the editor or letters they've written to friends,
e-mail messages their girlfriends or wives or buddies have written about me,
original poetry, lists of favorite CD's and books, unpublished manuscripts,
novels, jokes, business advice books, plays, TV sitcom treatments, recipes
for cranberry orange nut bread. One guy even sent me his script for "George
W. Bush: The Musical." (Georgie sings to Big Daddy: "Any war you can start,
I can make bigger; I can make any war bigger than you.")

One reader sent me his latest humor column, "Have Pity on the December Baby"
- "a look into the lonely world of living in Santa's shadow" - and said to
call if I wanted to discuss his publication fee.

Sometimes, if I don't read their work and write back, the authors send me
snarky notes complaining about my insensitivity.

While I could never give a guy I was dating the A to Z on me, I'd love to
read the A to Z that guy would choose to give me on himself. I just hope it
includes "The X Files."

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