{"id":141633,"date":"2020-01-01T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141633"},"modified":"2019-12-17T16:34:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T21:34:40","slug":"loitering-is-delightful-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/01\/loitering-is-delightful-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Loitering Is Delightful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 6, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_133496\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gay-ross-c-natasha-komoda_rgb.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-133496\" class=\"size-full wp-image-133496\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gay-ross-c-natasha-komoda_rgb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gay-ross-c-natasha-komoda_rgb.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gay-ross-c-natasha-komoda_rgb-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/gay-ross-c-natasha-komoda_rgb-768x511.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-133496\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ross Gay. Photo: Natasha Komoda.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m sitting at a caf\u00e9 in Detroit where in the door window is the sign with the commands<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><small>NO SOLICITING<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>NO LOITERING<\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>stacked like an anvil. I have a fiscal relationship with this establishment, which I developed by buying a coffee and which makes me a patron. And so even though I subtly dozed in the late afternoon sun pouring in under the awning, the two bucks spent protects me, at least temporarily, from the designation of loiterer, though the dozing, if done long enough, or ostentatiously enough, or with enough delight, might transgress me over.<\/p>\n<p>Loitering, as you know, means fucking off, or doing jack shit, or jacking off, and given that two of those three terms have sexual connotations, it\u2019s no great imaginative leap to know that it is a repressed and repressive (sexual and otherwise) culture, at least, that invented and criminalized the concept. Someone reading this might very well keel over considering loitering a concept and not a fact. Such are the gales of delight.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/11\/loitering-is-delightful\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In which Ross Gay argues the virtue of fucking off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1690,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60329],"tags":[14345,21251,49117,8400,49119,49118,30306],"class_list":["post-141633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2019","tag-capitalism","tag-consumption","tag-delight","tag-essay","tag-loiter","tag-loitering","tag-ross-gay"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Loitering Is Delightful by 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