Ask Rachel

Dear Rachel,

Since Bob Dylan won that Nobel Prize, I decided I should give that nasally icon a real try. All I ever knew was like “Blowing in the Wind” and that one about everybody getting stoned. Turns out... I wasn’t missing much. Like that gem called “Wiggle Wiggle.” This guy wins the highest prize for literature in the world? I mean, sure, he defined an era. But Hemingway never wrote a turd like that. What am I missing?

– North Country Unfair

Dear Love Sick,

Do you mean the song that goes something like, “Wiggle wiggle wiggle like a bowl of soup / Wiggle wiggle wiggle like a rolling hoop” and “Wiggle to the front, wiggle to the rear / Wiggle till you wiggle right out of here?” The lyrics might sound simple, but you’re just jealous that you didn’t write it first. And who are you to question the establishment? I mean, Dylan never did, and look where it got him.

– Wiggle like a pail of milk, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I am trying to get a replacement oven range from a certain local big-box hardware store since my current one stopped working. It’s still in its infancy and covered in every way. They tell me the factories are backed up from being closed. Fair enough. But they tell me they’ll deliver a range they have in stock, then don’t show. The sales rep claims to have no memory of our conversations. I’m pissed, and I’m tired of eating cold cereal and tortilla chips. Any ideas how to handle the faceless corporate beast?

– Unserviced Customer

Dear Important Guest,

Don’t you have a camping stove? Set that bad boy up outside the back door and heat yourself some beans and eggs. Maybe even a hot dog. My dad always managed to make gourmet meals while we were camping. Things like spaghetti Bolognese. That really takes you back to the idea of roughing it. I’m a simple girl, though. Hot chocolate is as fancy as I get on the ol’ Coleman. Get back to nature and forget all about that orange store, because they’ve already forgotten about you.

– Please hold, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

All these Zoom interviews taking place in front of famous people’s bookshelves have got me contemplating my own living room shelves. Used to be I just had random books. But now I wonder if those Batman anthologies should be relegated to the bedroom and, I don’t know, a leather bound set of the works of Tolstoy and poetry collections from small presses should grace my public living room-slash-video call office. Any recommendations?

-Top Shelf

Dear Bookworm,

Anyone with any wisp of intellectualism has a copy of Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time in prominent  view. No one has actually read it – but it’s there. Same with all the big-name Russian novels. I say, go for the back catalogues of otherwise well-respected authors and poets and musicians. No one is impressed by that copy of Essential Bob Dylan. But if you can quote every verse to “Wiggle Wiggle”... .

– Dog-eared and well-read, Rachel