Welcome to the first few days of winter. Or are these the last few days of autumn? Either way, trust the poor to get it wrong. Their approach to cold weather is to reuse their summer wardrobe, only in layers. Clearly they haven’t been reading the right magazines.
Let me tell you though, nobody’s more grateful for the first signs of the coming chill than the intellectuals.
There are no summer clothes for intellectuals and in a climate such as ours they have to suffer through most of the year being mistaken for ordinary people.
All day the lumpen, unmuffled masses bump and bustle against their delicate inner lives, talking about reality TV, playing pop music or asking for the time. (To which they answer: “What is time, really?”).
Sure, in summer, intellectuals can advertise themselves by chewing on the arms of their spectacles, stroking their chins or staring into the middle distance in that squinty way one does when considering the hopelessness of everything. But winter is their season.
Even now, in these between days, when the weather is balanced like a board on a ball — sometime sunny, sometimes not, but definitely not winter yet — they rush to their wardrobes with childlike glee so rarely felt it hurts their faces to feel it.
The first thing they reach for, of course, is a scarf.
Quickly. Before it’s properly cold (then even the poor will be wearing them). As a precaution, they carry them in their book bags and cubby holes; you never know when the temperature might dip to 25.
Deep thoughts, like eggs, need warmth to hatch.
The rest of us are taken in gradually. It starts with a little hint from your nipples. Then, at night, under the covers, you find yourself not only having to pee more often, but are also less willing to get out of bed to do so. Next you begin looking for a sunny spot to park your car when before you looked for shade.
Finally, there’s that one day — the tipping point reached — when everybody’s in the shopping malls at the same time buying a heater and a bale of blankets.
We walk around with that sweet half-smile, a little embarrassed to have not planned ahead, but enjoying the grand unifying experience that is a change in the weather.
It’s a good day.
But the intellectuals just can’t wait. They have to get there first. Only bank robbers look forward to it more, since, on a cold day, ski masks look a whole lot less suspicious. Even less so if you’re carrying a set of skis.
Still, of all the seasons, winter is the one smarty-pantses are most comfortable in. It’s not just scarves, it’s polo necks (which are jerseys with scarves built in) and hounds-tooth and, especially, tweed.
Intellectuals love tweed. Even their undies are tweed.
It should be said that wool in general is a pretentious textile. Ever tried having a conversation with a sheep? It’s all Nietzsche and analyses of Kierkegaard’s The Crowd is Untruth. The only sheep I ever liked was on my plate covered in rosemary.
Then there’s the coffee drinking.
You like coffee and I do too. But for the Tweedies it’s different and in winter, like no other season, they go crazy for the stuff.
“Cafe culture”, as it’s called, is basically drinking coffee … and being obvious about it. The activity might be accompanied by being obvious about reading Jean-Paul Sartre and looking dissuasively at neighbouring tables where people are obviously having fun.
“Intellectual” being the opposite of “physical”, it is convenient that no season is less about sex.
Cuddling, yes. And there might be a sort of sad loveliness in getting intimate with your socks on. But winter is unsexy in larger ways. Ways determined by nothing smaller than the tilt of the Earth’s axis relative to its orbital plane.
Flowers and leaves fall from trees, birds fly away and girls and boys both show less skin than at any other time. It’s a ticking time bomb.
The cold stimulates a fondness for roasted potatoes, pastries and food served in various kinds of “dollops”. Nothing good for you comes in a dollop. Under cover we swell like dough beneath a tea cloth. By the time it’s warm enough to strip off the frump, it’s barely worth the trouble.
Did you know, though, that up to 40% of body heat is lost through the head? Feeling as I do, that no matter the season, there isn’t nearly enough public nudity, why don’t we all walk around wearing nothing but beanies? The intellectuals, of course, could always add a scarf.