Sunday September 17, 2023; 8:41 AM EDT
- I'm pretty sure I paused a conversation with a sales person once to suggest that he stop seasoning his banter with the phrase "to be honest." Besides raising the question of whether the other things he was saying might not be honest, it's boring stock language that draws attention to the possibility that our encounter was a ritual he was seeking to bring to completion behind of distracting curtain of pretty words.#
- I think there's a scene in Tin Men where Danny DeVito's character needs to buy a car. He's a salesman himself, so he knows the ritual, the moves, the language games, and knowing the false face of it so well he asks, then finally begs the car sales guy to just tell him the price of the car, the actual price, not the price before other things will be suggested later, mentioned later. The real price. Just tell me the real price. I play this false game all day every day, I breathe the atmosphere of falseness half of my life now, just tell me one true thing. Just tell me the price of the car that I am trying to buy.#
- Something like that.#