Distain is Unbecoming

Distain is unbecoming. This piece has been forwarded around, we’re not with you Mr. Diamond, we’re sad for you.

Do you want to name drop The Paris Review? Do you want to tell other people you’re better than them in a public forum? Congratulations. Follow Diamond’s model.

Read: Diamond's NY Times opinion and it’ll be clear that this man feels markedly better than - others, his past self, goodness knows who else for having once prepared coffee drinks and moved on.

Despite his conciliatory last sentence:

And while I may always be more recognizable on the city streets for my great steamed milk than for my killer prose, there are worse things than having a legacy, even one so strange and aromatic.

Mr. Poor-Surpassed-What-He-Once-Was-Man spends eight hundred words or so shaming the life he and close to thirteen million other Americans live(d) working in the restaurant industry. It’s as though he wants you to put your hands to your cheeks and inhale quickly because - he was able to entertain outside thoughts and goals and perform respectably at a day job. GHASP.

There are coffee snobs and there are writing snobs (any prefix or modifier accepted) and then there are people like you, or who represent yourself to be, Mr. Diamond.

Still, we’d like to think there’s hope for you.

Take pride in what you do. If you spend your paid hours behind a bar, make those drinks with enviable finesse and facilitate customer interactions that make lives better, yours and theirs.

As for your “killer prose” - to influence hearts and minds and you need a perspective grounded by at least an ounce of balance, perhaps with a touch of humility. It’s hard to anticipate that from you, but we’ll keep an open mind.

The text at the bottom of the NY Times post reads: Townies welcomes submissions at townies@nytimes.com.

Please write to Mr. Diamond, if you feel like you can help him.