I saw this morning that Megan McArdle responded to that silly piece in the Washington Post by asking whether students will "use" Shakespeare and other writers after they graduate high school. This got me thinking about what’s useful and what isn’t. I went ahead and made a chart.
I annotated the chart to the best of my ability, but in the interest of transparency, here is the data broken down in more detail:
1) Proust — Totally useless. Can’t even talk about him because no one else has read him.
2) Cigarettes — They break up the tedium of a work day; they also kill you (or so we’re told).
3) Guided By Voices — Indie rock is pretty useless, but at least you can bond over it with folks on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
4) Gin — Not even useful for social signaling à la whisky.
5) Cooking — We all need to eat, but doing it yourself is a lot of work.
6) Vitamins — Pure nutrition. Useful esp. if your life involves a lot of 2) and 4) and very little 5).
7) Alarm clocks — Can’t sleep all day.
8) D.C. Metro — Whatever its faults, it gets thousands of people to work every day.
Funny how it works out that some stuff is useful but some stuff isn’t.