Not just literary shenanigans… people can’t easily follow those advanced literature principles… they forget what you’re saying because they only see the half of it. They can easily understand all you’ve got to say if it’s blatantly there to follow along. In Antin’s case, he has a lot to share about the postmodernism shopping experience of mattresses which is so much more artificial than his writing… which is ironic because that’s an experience in his life, not some written construction that is clearly artificial, the result makes for a very natural essay (or maybe better put as subjective)…

This ironic tension can be seen through the expectation that the mattress would last a lifetime, but it didn’t. The lifetime is artificial because it can’t concretely be defined, only put to scale. Which is apparent in that a new mattress is needed. This need is a natural experience and thus why Antin needs to go shopping. However he doesn’t get all analytical to express this, he uses the principles good talk to allude to this.

This can be seen by the telling that precedes the mattress search. Antin shares more than the reader cares to hear about his wife’s back problem and then proceeds to figure out what to do about it, with the reader. This process is a postmodernist practice (according to Antin). Antin calls his masseuse to find a good mattress, who doesn’t know anything about it and suggests another masseuse who may. This is all very artificial, but Antin keeps his narrative in a present action and fuels the intensity that gets the reader to the key moments.

This telling is effective because it’s like Antin is working out his own personal insight of the experience by speaking to the reader (the keys). The conflict is clear, but the purpose of each sequence of events can only be given so much interpretation due to its artificial nature. Antin is sharing his juggling of these ideas through this essay.

He’s not all scripted literature about it either… He’s actually rather jagged with his layout… channeling the kinetic tension that is built up around the dragged out experience of shopping for a mattress (or any other ridiculous shopping experiences). Accounting for the strange format at every instance with some good talk; creates an emphasis for Antin’s expressive voice over his form. This is very intentional.

He pushes the envelope further when he experiments with the lowercase ‘I’ character. Antin emphasizes that the spoken ideas of his work are more important than the written expression of his sounds. Basically he’s relaxing the reader. This is necessary because the story is very dragged out, and Antin focuses on the instances where he was bored or felt dragged out. This creates a very natural written language, within a very artificial experience (or vice-versa).

This artificial mattress shopping experience is ironic because it should be more natural than something as artificial as writing, but it’s not because the postmodernist world won’t allow for that while you’re mattress shopping. It’s going to be a very artificial and probable experience that you can evaluate and pick and choose, not some magical experience that naturally will manifest the perfect mattress.