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    Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads
    Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads
    Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads
    Ebook118 pages55 minutes

    Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads

    By C. W. Shain

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Adapted from the Preface:

    Craigslist was an unknown to me until a dear friend extolled its beauty and strangeness. So one night, unable to sleep, I logged on, and was floored by this meeting place of high-low culture, ostentation and tawdriness happily mixed. I became enamored of this stinky and clamorous world market.

    And what attracted me the most were the personals: M-W, W-M, W-W, M-M, M-W-W, W-M-tricycles.

    Over succeeding nights, I continued to watch the ads scroll by...and one particular ad stood out like a plinth in a desert. Someone posted, reposted, and reposted—night after night—a desire to meet a Swiss gentleman.

    But as this desperate quest continued to reappear, endlessly, people began to post rude remarks to the author (of course). This seemed so uncalled for that I posted my own response, defending her against the mounting onslaught. Others too came to her defense, in an old-fashioned battle royal.

    The OP now began to append to her original ad all the letters of support she had received (mine included). I was a bit annoyed that there had been no acknowledgement or request to use my post, that I had been treated like spam....So my first personal ad was born: an act of petty revenge, a way to reclaim my own domain.

    Yet the effect was electrifying. I sought nothing, expected nothing, but people emailed me, thanking me for my hilarious “ad.” Praise from intelligent, witty individuals spurred my creativity. In my brain, the doors holding back nonsense, string, and rubber balls were opened and I began a ludicrous and year-long adventure of writing personals.

    And the correspondence kept coming: my ads were byzantine, ridiculously obscure, slapstick. I was begged not to tire—or retire. Naturally, I fed off of this: I was offering a public service—laughter, distraction, repasts for a tired and beaten-down society. This was my contribution: a glistening ladle of water, a smile and kind eyes for a dystopian planet’s distraught denizens.

    My personals, though nonsensical and filled with trivia (of the historical kind that most appeals to me) are also ultimately and intimately personal—for they are laced with my own nostalgia for lost worlds, lost imagery, and lost people. Everything changes, and never are the things that are lost replaced by something better. The only guarantee of change is that in adapting to it, even laughing at it, you must open yourself to the awareness of loss.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherC. W. Shain
    Release dateAug 8, 2012
    ISBN9780985971717
    Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads
    Author

    C. W. Shain

    The author lives within a stone's throw of Boston, MA, with the love of his life, a ceaselessly demanding and abusive mackerel cat, and 4,000 history books. When not teaching, he dreams of going back in time to buy Coca-Cola stock and making love to long-dead actresses. He can often be found driving about in an old British convertible, collecting autographs of deceased kings, and attempting to reignite long-forgotten wars online. The paperback edition is now available on Amazon! (http://tinyurl.com/pointlesspursuit) Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway contest on GOODREADS.COM. Our next giveaway of ebooks will be in September on LIBRARYTHING.COM.

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    Reviews for Pointless Pursuit

    3.5/5

    15 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Good fun, if a little on the obscure side, C.W. Shain's Pointless Pursuit: My Year of Picaresque Personal Ads is an entertaining collection of actual personal ads the author placed on Craigslist. Easy to read in snippets during the morning commute on the train, it's not really the type of book you'd devour in one go.
    • 3/5
      The author has had quite the experiences with real life personal ads. This book is a collection of personal ads she has posted in a variety of different cities on the Craigslist site. Her witty humor may fall short of the understanding of many readers in their early to mid 20's. Many references in the ads are indicative of the authors age. The pages of this book are full of good laughs. It is even better to think of the men that actually responded to these sarcastic and ridiculously funny ads. I recommend this book to audiences that have had experiences with dating sites and personal ads and those who just need a good laugh.
    • 4/5
      This book is witty. The language is dense, like a good personal ad. It's best read in short sessions, in small doses. It's like the TV series Gilmore Girls in its plethora of references, historical and literary and cultural and other. If you are a trivia buff you will enjoy puzzling them out.
    • 3/5
      Pointless Pursuit is a collection of nonsensical personal ads that author C.W. Shain posted on Craigslist over the course of a year. What started out as retaliation against people being cruel to one Craigslist poster’s ad turned into one writer’s way to entertain, amuse, and downright mess with readers. I personally did not enjoy this book, as I do not have the best sense of humor and take things too literally; most of the ads were over my head. But the book is well written and C.W. Shain is talented. I would definitely recommend this book and encourage people to give it a shot.

    Book preview

    Pointless Pursuit - C. W. Shain

    My dear friend Linda S. was my guide to Craigslist (CL). Before she told me of it, I did not know exactly what it provided or why it was becoming habitually referenced. Linda was quite taken by its offerings, from window blinds to potential marriages.

    One evening, after a movie and dinner, she again started to extol the beauty and pageantry that was CL. So, when I got home—long after midnight and, typically at that hour, too wired to think of sleeping—I went online to take a look.

    Even though I knew that Linda saw the world with a kind of high-pitched resonance, I found that she couldn’t have been more low-key—downright banal even—when it came to this site. I was floored. For here was a meeting place of high-low culture, ostentation and tawdriness happily mixed. I became enamored of this stinky and clamorous world market.

    And what attracted me the most were the personals: M-W, W-M, W-W, M-M, M-W-W, W-M-tricycles.

    Over succeeding nights, I continued to watch the ads scroll by…and one particular ad stood out like a plinth in a desert. In the women seeking men section, someone posted, reposted, and reposted—night after night—a desire to meet a Swiss gentleman.

    Odd, but not the oddest to be found on CL, certainly—yet it became a buoy among all the others. And as this desperate quest continued to reappear, endlessly, people began to post mean and rude remarks at and to the author.

    These remarks seemed so uncalled for that I posted my own response, defending her against the mounting onslaught. Others too came to her defense, in an old-fashioned battle royal.

    Like some ocean undertow, she (assuming it was a she) continued to repost, but now began to append to her original post all the letters of support she had received (mine included).

    There had been no communication directly from her, no acknowledgement or request to use my post. I was annoyed; I felt I had been treated like spam, used like spam. So my first personal ad was born: an act of petty revenge, a way to reclaim my own domain.

    Yet the effect was electrifying. I sought nothing, expected nothing, but people emailed me, thanking me for my hilarious ad.

    It kicked in. I became such a narcissist (likely, I am still), fed by these flowers thrown from the orchestra onto the stage…candy and more flowers awaiting me when I checked my email again the next morning.

    Praise from intelligent, witty individuals spurred my creativity. In my brain, the doors holding back nonsense, string, and rubber balls had been opened and I began a ludicrous and year-long adventure of writing personals.

    I posted the first half of my ads in Boston. Eventually, I was banished by ad-flaggers, and so moved on to New York. This great city—the online version of it—gave me access to the most funny, brilliant, and appreciative audience that gifts the world.

    And the correspondence kept coming: my ads were byzantine, ridiculously obscure, slapstick. I was begged not to tire—or retire. Naturally, I fed off of this, developing in my mind a responsibility for an audience. I was offering a public service—laughter, distraction, repasts for a tired and beaten-down society. This was my contribution: a glistening ladle of water, a smile and kind eyes for a dystopian planet’s distraught denizens.

    My personals, though nonsensical (where they are not true), are also ultimately and intimately personal—for they are laced with my own nostalgia for lost worlds, lost imagery, and lost people. Everything changes, and never are the things that are lost replaced by something better. The only guarantee of change is that in adapting to it, you must open yourself to painful awareness, sadness, and loss.

    C. W. Shain

    A Note on the Book

    This book is a mix of fact and fancy. For those who would like to try their hand at identifying all of the factual references (also known as trivia), I have provided a simple listing at the end, in the section marked The Index: Just the Facts. For those not so inclined, I have provided some explanation of the more obscure references in the Endnotes section. Anything not in the endnotes and for which you desire more information can easily be found through an online search.

    You are welcome to email me at cwshain@gmail.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions.

    1. Given up looking for a Swiss Gentleman—hottie from Liechtenstein preferred

    January 4, 7:30 PM

    After weeks of posting ad nauseam for my own piece of heaven, I realize the closest I can get to feeling up a true Switzer is in the

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