Special Guest Misanthrope

Update: Happy birthday to Semisweet1!

This week, a hale and hearty welcome to Anomie-Atlanta. Anomie was asked to define Bonhomie.

BONHOMIE, n. 1. An attribute carefully cultivated by those whose livelihood depends on the good opinion of the ignorant masses (eg. politicians, homecoming queens, ministers.) 2. Urbanity for profit.

About Anomie: Anomie, recently Anonymous, is a clever blogger with a beautifully dark worldview who turns her jaundiced eye on her own life in my former hometown on the banks of the Chattahoochee. The home of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the capitol of Jimmy Carter needs its cynics and I'm confident I've left the town well-tended. Anomie's blog, False Consciousness, is currently on hiatus but there is plenty worth reading there so long as you don't need cheering up. An explanation for her pseudonym and the blog title is in her first post, here. At least one of her eyes and eyebrows is lovely. On the other side I suspect a patch as well as a bloody saber in one hand and a Ginsburg collection in the other.

Anomie first showed up at this site in May, and her career here has been marked by esoteric quotations and a willingness to make fun of the Waking Ambrose editor-in-chief delightful to contemplate and not too terrible to experience. Since putting her blog on hiatus she wears many shapes, like another famous misanthrope, but I'm usually pretty confident when an anonymous commenter quotes Émile Durkheim it was her. Between May and the temporaryish suspension, Anomie wrote not often but very well. Like many of us who take a dim view of our neighbors, she is often very funny (also here), surprisingly thoughtful and vulnerable, and very creative. Before any of you all go read any of Anomie's writing one warning: Anyone who has made fun of your host for using three-bit words will come back owing me an apology.

Now, a person has to ask themselves: Why would someone name themselves Anomie and then blog? I will make the case that Anomie is, in fact, a misanthrope worthy of her pseudonym.

1. She rarely responds to comments on her site but responds on other blogs.
2. Her non-fiction is compassionate and thoughtful but her fiction always ends with a corpse or a bleeding lover.
3. She finds neuro-scientists attractive.
4. She has her hair done by a Frenchman who despises Americans.
5. Anomie goes to IKEA for the same reason her hairstylist lives in Atlanta.
6. Anomie has suggestions for spammers.
7. She accepts career counseling from volunteer lexicographers.
8. Anomie prefers insomnia to dull literature.
9. She once had an argument with the late Noah Webster over the definitions of "Irritations" and "Alone" and shared.
10. In her profile she declares herself a paradox and then goes on to explain.

Thanks to Anomie for her continued participation here, for a perfect guest definition and for being above it all. Are you ready for your close up?

How to be a guest on this site: To be anointed, I will need your email address and permission. So, were you to send an email to dpascover at mac dot com and say in the subject line something like "OK, ok I'll do it," that would definitely work unless I thought it was spam and deleted it. On an upcoming Wednesday, after posting that week's guest I would then send you an email with a word not in The Devil's Dictionary which you could then spend the next three days writing a definition for and return to me with a graphic or two of your choosing. The only rules are no profanity, no novels and anything else I make up. If you've done this before, I may ask you again if you're around a lot. If you've done this before and not been heard from since, just let me know that you want to be a guest and then disappear again.