To Be, Or Not: Who Does Sheila Heti Think She Is?
Imagine for a moment that an infant alien blob has oozed its way into the Columbus Circle subway station and through a miraculous process of osmosis managed to absorb the most important material from a rack of women’s magazines. The blob would have a lot of direction about how a person should be. It would have a repertoire of 10 Things to Do With Mason Jars and know how to “upcycle” things. It would know how to execute the “G Spot Jiggy” and have some useful suggestions about what to wear to a wedding. But then something terrible would happen: for the rest of its life, from having received an injection of Seventeen, Readymade and Elle in a formative moment, the abiogenetic marvel that was the alien blob would experience the constant assault of dubious information flitting through its organ of reasoning. As it blobbed about it would never be able to forget the minimum Sun Protection Factor to wear out of doors, even in winter. When it squeezed its pimples it would be forced to recall from the magazines that pimples should never be squeezed. Thus besieged with all it knew of how to be, and aware of its consistent failure to fulfill even the simple mandates of some listicles, the alien would despair. Read More
