our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise

In the same way that a pious sexual moralist is bound to have a tawdry, ill-advised fivesome come to light, a person who routinely complains about a decline in manners will inevitably be exposed as having taken a piece of spanakopita off the tray of a cater-waiter without saying thanks or be filmed cutting in front of a pregnant woman in line at the post office.  I guess there isn't much to do: all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword, and so forth.

Although I think that talking about manners in terms of comfort is a great way to approach the subject, it hardly provides all of the answers.  I agree with my heroine Judith Martin when she says that "allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace", but manners can and should also be used to humiliate those who have committed major violations of the social code, to shame them into changing their behavior.  When I stared with my most hostile withering look into the eyes of a 60-year-old man who had just thrown a crumpled-up cigarette pack onto the street the other day, I was not trying to comfort him.  Christianity may have required compassion in this situation, but it is here that I part ways the Biblical literalists.

And, of course, even if you did focus only on comfort and decided to keep out of the humiliation business altogether, the right thing to do, in the many complicated situations of our modern world, is not always obvious.  I was recently involved in a misunderstanding where I accidentally offended someone and continued to make the situation worse and worse as I tried to undo the damage.  I kept failing to think things all the way through.  It makes me think of this exchange from Atom Egoyan's The Adjuster:

Hera: Do I make you feel stupid?

Noah: What?

Hera: When I say something which deserves consideration and you respond without thinking, how do you feel?

Noah: I feel fine.

Hera: I thought you might feel stupid.

I liked that Arsinée Khanjian's character's name was Hera.

Anyway, I was invited to stay with friends at their rental beach house in Cherry Grove last weekend, and, as I had been bloviating on politeness and being a good guest and a good host and whatever, I was full of anxiety.  Once I was the guest of some socially prominent friends in East Hampton, and the effects of a caffeine-withdrawal headache along with a nearly instantaneous hangover caused by a bizarre cocktail served immediately upon arrival kept me bedridden for most of my visit, and afterwards I remember feeling a sense of relief that, having been isolated from the hosts and other guests for the better part of my stay, I hadn't said or done anything I regretted.

The fact that this visit was in Cherry Grove, instead of Fire Island Pines, also introduced an interesting dimension to the trip.  I had never spent the night in Cherry Grove.  To an outside observer, especially a non-homosexual outside observer, the differences between Cherry Grove and the Pines would seem minimal.  But Fire Island insiders act as if the two hamlets are as different as night and day. It's kind of like the situation with Vermont and New Hampshire.  Or maybe Athens and Sparta, with the Pines being like Sparta, at least how it was depicted in a recent film.

All of the noble qualities of humankind are in short supply in the Pines.  When I think of the Pines, I think of this paragraph from the "The Housesitter" by Andrew Holleran:

"The next summer I went to the Pines for the first time, and I was the hot number that year -- the one everyone wanted to sleep with.  Now I won't even take my shirt off in public."  He laughed.  "I had two queens from California last month, standing in line one night waiting for a table, and one of them comes up to me and says to me: 'Can we go back to our room to get a sweater, and not lose our place in line?  We're very cold because we don't have any body fat.' And I thought: What is the point of all that's happened?  Apparently there is to be no progress, nothing new, no evolution.  We'll never regard each other as anything but fantasies, we'll never integrate sex with the rest of our lives, we're just going to keep going to gyms and dance clubs, taking drugs, dancing, and cruising the Rambles.  I mean, it's staggering when you think about it!  Nothing changes!  The only thing different about the Pines is that I think it's all a bit duller," he added in a lower voice, flicking the ash from his cigarette.

To many, Fire Island Pines is an enclave of snobby, white, non-heterosexual men who only care about sex, drugs, dancing (less, now), and status, status being measured by income, connections, and the possession of visible abdominal muscles and an Apollo's belt.  Many think that the residents of the Pines look down on Cherry Grove for two despicable reasons:

1) they don't like persons who are not white, and

2) they don't like persons who are not in possession of a penis (or, to be charitable, persons who never had a penis; those who had one in the past but currently don't may be tolerated).

Therefore, it is seen as somewhat reactionary to state that one prefers the Pines.  Several times I have been in conversations where the other person expected that I would agree with the sentiment that Cherry Grove is, of course, so much better than the Pines.  More accepting.  More relaxed.  Fewer hang-ups.  Fewer superficial snobs.  Fewer crazed methamphetamine-addicted sexual compulsives glazed in sweat on the dance floor. Cooler. Hipsters (assorted Bohemians, East Villagers, and Williamsburgers) greatly prefer Cherry Grove.

I do not consider myself a racist or a sexist, although I am definitely a snob, despite my efforts to feel unbounded loving-kindness for all humanity and all sentient beings, etc.  So upon my arrival at the Cherry Grove harbor, walking past its honky-tonk bars advertising $5 daiquiris, making a brief stop at the ratty grocery store where I heard a girl working behind the counter yelling "Oh my God she bought me so many shots!!" (the girls at the Pines Pantry always appear to be relatively wholesome, although I know in this day and age it must be an illusion), and hearing the sound of show tunes blaring from the dilapidated Ice Palace, a mild wave of revulsion passed over me.  Of course, I feel revulsion in the Pines all of the time, but for a different set of reasons.

I think my objection to Cherry Grove is primarily an aesthetic one, and I freely admit that I am superficial enough to include human beings in this aesthetic judgment.  Luckily, I was reading The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton, a person who is currently the closest thing I have to a role model, despite knowing nothing about his personal life (he could be a terrible individual who beats his wife, if he even has a wife, although he appears to be too weak to beat anyone).  In it, he discusses the question of why our ideas about what is beautiful are prone to change.  In summing up the theories of the German art historian Wilhelm Worringer, he states:

We can conclude from this that we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient.  We respect a style which can move us away from what we fear and towards what we crave: a style which carries the correct dosage of our missing virtues.  That we need art in the first place is a sign that we stand in almost permanent danger of imbalance, of failing to regulate our extremes, of losing our grip on the golden mean between life's great opposites: boredom and excitement, reason and imagination, simplicity and complexity, safety and danger, austerity and luxury.

Unfortunately, this didn't really help me with my analysis.

That night I went to an underwear party with Asaph, held in the dilapidated Ice Palace.  An underwear party is a mine field of potential faux pas!  I was very concerned.  Evidently, the underwear party in Cherry Grove is typically a soul-crushing experience, as a rival party is now held in the Pines, and it attracts the majority of attractive, young so-called studs interested in this type of event.  But this was a special occasion, sponsored by some new brand of underwear or some new pornographic website, so there were many handsome visitors from the Pines, eager to display their rectus abdominis, and even more.  I was so preoccupied with how to behave in such an odd setting, I had a hard time staying in the, as they say, moment.  Asaph made many friends, however, as he has much better perspective on things, being used to running from Katyusha rocket fire and whatnot.

The next day I went for a run.  Since I don't really know anywhere to run except for the main street of the Pines, Fire Island Boulevard, I ran through the graphically named Meat Rack to get there.  (Even though I always call the distinctive, upscale neighborhood where I rent a comfortable one-bedroom apartment with wood floors and many other luxury amenities "Hell's Kitchen" and never "Clinton", I really wish there was a gentler word for this area between the Pines and the Grove.  I heard some young girls calling it the "Meat Rack", and it just seemed very wrong.)  I must admit, with shame, that I felt a sense of relief upon entering territory under Pinesian control.  It just seemed brighter and more cheerful.  But I vowed to repent for these feelings.

So, for the first time ever, I went to church on Fire Island, that Sunday morning.  The service was held in the massive, new(ish) Whyte Hall, where, according to an internet correspondent of mine, "every toilet seat, coat hanger and electrical outlet has a donor plaque".  This was true.  I personally verified that every step leading up to the large deck was named after a different donor!

One thing I like about the Episcopal Church is its formality and pageantry.  But this was a bare-bones Holy Eucharist, with hymns accompanied by a piano but no chanting, no choir, and certainly no incense.  The celebrant did wear a chasuble, thankfully.  In any case, I loved the simple service, which took barely 30 minutes.  There was no coffee hour afterwards, but I felt refreshed, at least spiritually.  Here was a group of people, who would be condemned by the overwhelming majority of Christians across the world, gathering to search for God together in a bright community-center conference room in a beach resort community known for its decadence.  I thought it was very beautiful.  But I guess we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient.

Comments

[R J Keefe]

Cherry Grove: Williamsburgers? It's the hairburners from the outer outer boroughs. It's the ye-olde names on the "cottages." It's the absence of "houseboys" and other kept personnel. Not to mention the lack of clean, straight lines.

It's as though Cherry Grove were supposed to be Portmeirion, but it isn't, in a big way.

[Boomer]

Excellent post! I just ordered 2 Alain de Botton books on Amazon based on your quotes in your blog like thing.

I am, however, having trouble wrapping my head around an Anglican Holy Communion that isn't celebrated with pomp and circumstance, flags flying and incense flapping. It just seems to me that without these things one might as well be, dare I say it, a Scandanavian Lutheran.

[TED]

I prefer to think that our vices are but virtues in disguise, but to each his own.

[Aaron]

Anyone over thirty with "abs" will never really love you.

[Hyde]

I am struck that someone as prone to introspection and graceful expression as you are even cares to associate with this crowd.

[Stan]

Well, wouldn't you know it, Eric, like the alm uncle in "Heidi," finally shows up in church in the Pines, and I have rented my house and am forced to sit on the hard grass at Tanglewood for my sins. As for another name for the "Meat Rack," it is technically (?) known as "The Great Swale," owing to the high dunes that rise up and create a protected picturesque vale. It seems, however, that some years ago there was a very dear President of the Pines Property Owners Association (a/k/a The Landed Gentry), now departed, who for all his genuine charm and devotion was ever so slightly dislexic. In giving an address from written notes, he kept referring to "The Great Squirrel," to the west of the Pines, prompting many in the audience to envision a rather large marauding rodent with fangs. Certainly a shock for the teddy bears and their picnic.