Grit, Grime and Grease Are All Most Real

The heroin addict “was under the influence of the idea that some aspects of reality are more real than others: that the seedy side of life is more genuine, more authentic, than the refined and cultured side—and certainly more glamorous than the bourgeois and respectable side. This idea could be said to be the fundamental premise of modern popular culture” (Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom, p. 119).