The curse of the jet-ski

An F. Scott Fitzgerald biographer by the name of David S. Brown refers to America’s promotion of deviancy (my words) as ‘the great post-Appomattox launch toward materialism’. I liked that line and was thinking about it as I left the boat in the early morning and walked into an almost perfect Greek village square for a coffee. There were some French people blabbing away with their usual hand gestures, Greeks discussing politics at high volume, and then an American couple, both quite attractive, each with a Mac in front of them and absolutely impervious to anyone or anything in their immediate surroundings.

Talk about a launch towards materialism. The two of them never once looked up from their screens. They remained totally glued, expressionless, to that demon plastic – or whatever it is that screens are made of – and failed to look up even when a Greek woman got into a shouting match with an Austrian lady who had taken her chair.