I want to really enjoy Rakoff’s essays because he desperately wants to be in the same league as Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris. Rakoff’s writing is just off/mean enough not to be included into their league. Quite frankly, looking back, I can’t remember too much about these essays…which speaks volumes. An okay volume of essays…not the best. I’ll read him again…give him another chance. Book #10 of my 2006 Book List, finished reading it on 2-20-06.

David Rakoff has a funny and original voice. Listening to this book, a significant portion of which is a critique of the Bush years, feels a bit quaint in 2019 but is still sharp. His observations of life and death towards the end made me feel wishful that he was still with us.

Loved! Review to come

Something caused me to remember David Rakoff and his sublimely horrific wedding speech recently, and thus to look into his other writings.

He is a David Sedaris on steroids. Frankly, I don't love David Sedaris and can only take him in small doses, but this distillation of New York gay cattiness finds perfection in its extremity.

He covers events I don't care about, in great detail. He insults others and self-flagellates. None of the sounds good, but I can't wait to read more! It was so delectable. Even better in an ebook narrated by the author himself.

We have become an army of multiply chemically sensitive, high-maintenance princesses trying to make our way through a world full of irksome peas.

All of the nice things I have to say about listening to David Rakoff narrating one of his audiobooks was said in my review of Half Empty and I would reiterate that it is a very enjoyable experience. The writing here in Don't Get Too Comfortable The Indignities of Coach Class The Torments of Low Thread Count The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil and Other First World Problems is just as smart and insightful and beautifully crafted. The biggest difference I would say there is between these two books, however, is that while in Half Empty I found Rakoff to be piercing but never cruel, I found many instances of over-the-line cruelty in Don't Get Too Comfortable.

I couldn't quite pinpoint what was turning me off about this book until I read someone else's review wherein he complained that the lack of connection Rakoff makes with his material is because he is sent off on adventures that are sure to bring out his snarky side-- I hadn't considered this and of course that's the problem, and also the reason why I can't quite classify him as a memoirist. Of course the gay Rakoff is going to have a dull time at a Playboy photoshoot. As the Director of the Log Cabin Republicans ( a gay Republican group) says to the incredulous Rakoff, "You had this story written before you even got here". It seems apparent that Rakoff exclusively sought experiences that would confirm his worldview, confirm that he's on the smart side of history. And in this book, about excess and avarice, he can be downright cruel about some easy targets:


At Paris Fashion Week

All of the designers I have met up to this point have been very nice, although upon being introduced to Karl Lagerfeld, he looks me up and down and dismisses me with the not super-kind, 'What can you write that hasn't been written already?'

He's absolutely right, I have no idea. I can but try. The only thing I can come up with at that moment is that Lagerfeld's powdered white ponytail has dusted the shoulders of his suit with what looks like dandruff but isn't. Also, not yet having undergone his alarming weight loss, and seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin overrisen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, inhumane oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money. How's that for new and groundbreaking, Mr. L?


On post 9/11 distrust:

If for example, it came to light that the dangerously thin, affectless, value-deficient, higher aspiration-free, amateur porn auteuse Paris Hilton was actually a covert agent from some secret Taliban madrassa whose mission was to portray the ultimate capiltalist-whore puppet of a doomed society with nothing more on its mind than servitude to Mammon and celebrity at any cost, I wouldn't be surprised.

And he takes several potshots at Republicans in general and the Bush family in particular:

While we're on the subject of the horrors of war, and humanity's most poisonous and least charitable attributes, let me not forget to mention Barbara Bush (that would be former First Lady and presidential mother as opposed to W's liquor-swilling, Girl Gone Wild, human ashtray of a daughter. I'm sorry, that's not fair. I've no idea if she smokes.) When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq - purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war - the family matriarch expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? I mean it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

Mrs. Bush is not getting any younger. When she eventually ceases to walk among us we will undoubtedly see photographs of her flag-draped coffin. Whatever obituaries that run will admiringly mention those wizened, dynastic loins of hers and praise her staunch refusal to color her hair or glamorize her image. But will they remember this particular statement of hers, this "Let them eat cake" for the twenty-first century? Unlikely, since it received far too little play and definitely insufficient outrage when she said it. So let us promise herewith to never forget her callous disregard for other parents' children while her own son was sending them to make the ultimate sacrifice, while asking of the rest of us little more than to promise to go shopping. Commit the quote to memory and say it whenever her name comes up. Remind others how she lacked even the bare minimum of human integrity, the most basic requirement of decency that says if you support a war, you should be willing, if not to join those nineteen-year-olds yourself, then at least, at the very least, to acknowledge that said war was actually going on. Stupid f-ing cow.



I'd imagine a reader's enjoyment of this book would be related to how closely one's own worldview is confirmed by the smart and articulate David Rakoff's expression of it. Just as only a very rich person could recognise the ironically retro high value of rough handmade bars of soap, only a person with access to unlimited food could find it a spiritual quest to commit himself to a strict fast-- an experience so self-indulgent that Rakoff spent many hours every day preparing the broths and teas that sustained the fast, prompting the question,"Who outside of a person of high means could afford that kind of time to artificially keep himself above starvation level?"

I will stipulate to having both French sea salt and a big bottle of extra virgin in my kitchen. And while the presence of both might go some small distance in pigeonholing me demographically, neither one of them makes me a good person. They are mute and useless indicators of the content of my character.


I wonder if that notion is backwards? That perhaps the indicators aren't so mute?


On cryogenics, he says:

In my brief glimpse of what is to come I realize how little I care to witness it. I have seen the future and I'm fairly relieved to say, it looks nothing like me.

It is still poignant to hear Rakoff dismiss immortality from beyond the grave, and even if his politics seemed to enter this volume more than in the last one, he passed too soon.

Ummmmm.....there are things in this book that are truly memorable...aesthetic moments, they are called- when you never really look at things quite the same way after...the book takes you to some interesting places, and you feel like you're on a really cool World-Class field trip with someone really special, someone with an inside track. I don't get that feeling very often these days. So, thus the three stars. And, I have to love someone who hates the Bush family the way I do. Also, the description he gives of himself on a scavenger hunt is great: (paraphrase) "I was like Beth in 'Little Women', chattering brightly at Christmas about a piano recital in the spring, when it was clear to everyone else that I probably wouldn't last until the egg nog was finished." Total drama queen.

Why I almost gave it two stars: The book feels dated at times, although it is from 2005. Sometimes I was like: Okay, so what. Next story. Overall, I like this book- most of it was quite funny. Perhaps there is better stuff by him out there??

Someone recommended Rakoff to me after learning I am a huge David Sedaris fan. Well, they don't seem very similar to me. Sedaris can be coy, glib, self-deprecating, indulgent, shameless, sentimental, vulnerable, sweet... Rakoff's writing is skillful but generic. These essays are good enough to be published in many magazines, but I would never buy, open, or pick up one of those magazines because it contained his work. Finally, he always reaches a point in which he can condescend to his subject, which can work in small doses but the dynamic loses its charm when it's presented repeatedly in a book.

Should we write about the political moment? If you wanted to make the case against doing so, it's worth noting that many of the essays are dated. Sometimes they do remain interesting: "Beat Me, Daddy" is about an organization of gay Republicans during the Bush years.

The author does a fabulous job of narrating it himself! Very entertaining as well as intelligent! So sad that he died so young.

It is wrenching that David Rakoff died at 47, I am so grateful for what he contributed in his too short life. These essays are summarily perfect, wry, arch, devastatingly funny. The writing is gorgeous. If I were to draw comparisons, I'd say Rakoff's writing style is akin to David Sedaris and David Foster Wallace, thereby comprising a holy trinity of David marvels. But it is facile to make comparisons. Rakoff is an entity of his own. Read this hilarious, moving, delightful book. And read everything else Rakoff wrote. You won't be sorry.

A series of 15 essays on the excess in our culture.

My Take
It's well worth reading for Rakoff's use of words as he has a beautiful way of writing whether he's dishing or dashing his topic or himself. In general, he dishes himself, which I suspect is part of what attracts his fans. Each essay addresses a variety of issues as Rakoff leapfrogs from negative to positive and back again. History, politics, environment, consumerism, the shallowness and depth of the individual. And Rakoff. And he makes it work.

I can't agree with the book description as I don't find it "bitingly funny" nor is he "mercilessly skewering". Then again, maybe I'm simply more vicious…*shrugs shoulders*

In this particular book, his essays are the result of his field trips into trying on different roles or simply investigating. There's his short stint as a cabana boy in Miami, exploring life after death and the possibilities of plastic surgery in others, the outrageous excesses of the Concorde with the contrasting down-home qualities of Hooter Air, making fun of our obsession with beautiful food and contrasting it with snobbish superiority over people in homeless shelters, his praise for Steve Brill's naturalist forays into Central Park combine with the Catholic Church and Linnaeus while regretting how out-of-date Brill's ambitions are, and his exploration of fasting with his candid experiences.

I do love his honest willingness to let it all hang out whether it's his decision to become a citizen of the U.S. and what is involved, his grandiose visions of his superior aid as a cabana boy—you can't help but laugh with him as you imagine the same heroic achievements for yourself!

The silliness of hanging around outside for the Today show, the joys of crafting—I can definitely understand how Rakoff feels about this one!, and the craziness of Paris fashion week—his revenge on Karl Lagerfeld was a vicious paragraph. I suspect I most enjoyed his foray into the scavenger hunt, and I do wish he'd finished at the Midnight Madness. His thoughts on the Puppetry of the Penis were both hilariously funny and depressing as it describes the genital origami, blending it with his thoughts on 9/11.

Ooh, Mrs. Bush's comment about ignoring the deaths of soldiers in Iraq seems much on a par with Hilary Clinton's dismissal of the soldiers dying for their country, ignored in Benghazi. It's too bad his insight into the Log Cabin Republicans' strategies had to be right. The years they lost...sigh… I have to go along with Rakoff on Robert Knight. Disgusting and stupid. Christening him as the "Vaginal Punisher" seemed appropriate, jerk.

I found it odd that in one essay he found servitude by others disgusting, but embraces it in yet another.

It appears to be a general theme of excess that refers to America's over-proportionate use of world resources. And he does make a few references here and there, it reads, however, as more of an excess in dreams and fears.

The Cover
The cover could be considered an excess of red—the background—and uncomfortable with the Louis XIVth-style chair. You'd be even more uncomfortable if you were sitting in that chair and watching the hand saw cut a circle in the floor around you!

I'm not sure how the title fits unless Don't Get Too Comfortable is a reminder that Rakoff is holding up a mirror for himself and the reader.

If David Sedaris had a liberal arts education and a hefty thesaurus. I want to be David Rakoff when I grow up

This was disappointing. The first chapter had so much promise, so much hope to be a wonderful book, but then it was kind of...blah. And the cover line about "The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems"? There was nothing about ANY of those things in there. Bummer.