ideologues in the roomplace kitschen

after receiving a blank stare from the polite, epitome-of-southern-liberal-arts-college subletter, in response to my comment, "now THAT'S telling," after being informed that all the major businesses in new york are closed tomorrow in honor of reagan, i'm beginning to suspect that we landed this particular subletter thanks to our kitchen decor's experiment in ironoclasm--that is, our glossy piece of republican "grassroots" kitsch, the stilted photo of george & laura that was charmingly, painfully made out in full scripty font to "mr. lamar c——, a charter member of the republican party of new york." i was so sad to be turned down by the nice liberal jewish law student interning at human rights watch this summer, but i'm beginning to think the photo's presence during our interview may have spooked her, despite all my earnest talk of harper's, mcsweeney's, and what it was like to be liberal at a southern conservative college. i'm now convinced she was thinking, 'liberal? sha!" ah well. perhaps we would have been too earnest a pair. living in that apartment seems to require bizarre ideological mixes of people.