Bloom's Morning

Book excerpt: Coffee, comforters, king-sized beds, gel toothpaste, razors, underwear, the morning shower-all activities and objects we have tended to pay no attention to-until the publication of this book. In a series of short vignettes endearingly illustrated by the author, Arthur Asa Berger gives Americans a profound way to understand their morning rituals. Have you ever considered, for instance, that the digital clock, by producing free-floating liquid numerals disconnecting us from both time past and time future, could be interpreted as a metaphor for the alienation many people feel in contemporary society? Or consider our nightclothes: The pajama is the most immediate witness to our sexual activities; thus, we cover our pajamas with a bathrobe to guard against the anxiety of being revealed to other family members. The pajama is intricately connected to human shame. Bloom's Morning, with thirty-six short chapters bracketed by brief essays on the nature of semiotic analysis, is a perfect book for the inquisitive mind. It is chock-full of valuable and quirky nuggets from this most interesting of social commentators-items that, taken together, give us a new vision through which to understand ourselves.