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Peter Bearman - "Doormen"

In Talk of the Town ("Doctor Doorman"), Nick Paumgarten reviews a new book by Peter Bearman ... "Doormen" ...

He noted that while sociologists had produced ethnographies of waiters, milkmen, bill collectors, and nail-salon cosmetologists, they’d left doormen alone, and so, a few years ago, he had his students interview doormen all over Manhattan, and then he wrote a book on the class’s findings, which has just been published by the University of Chicago. It is called “Doormen,” and it addresses such familiar phenomena as the Christmas bonus, the sports conversation, the shady visitor, the problem of boredom, and the elasticity of the rule that, as the sign in the lobby says, "All Visitors Must Be Announced." The book is an academic work, but to anyone who has ever wished that doormen would stop calling him “Sir,” or worried that a babysitter might be mistaken for a mistress, or wondered whether he should refrain from looking at his nose hairs in the elevator mirror while the doorman presumably watches via security cam, it is a marvel. It provides the theoretical underpinnings for a lifetime of awkward awning encounters.

via Kottke, "The Matthew effect"

Posted October 5, 2005 05:49 PM  ·  Permalink   ·  Book and Web Site Reviews