They have hubris hours. There is no designated time for hubris hour. It happens unexpectedly and without warning. The bartender doesn’t ring a bell at five P.M., announce that for the next two hours drinks are two for one, and that sage advice and unmitigated superciliousness are on the house. In fact, the only way I can tell when it’s hubris hour is by the look on Lars Papenfuss’s face. Lars Papenfuss is Doris’s new boyfriend and my best friend. We met about two weeks after the unveiling of the jukebox. He’s a freelance journalist. A master spy who uses his cover as a pop-culture critic to prop up dictatorial movements like “trip-hop,” “jungle,” “Dogme 95,” and “graffiti art” instead of puppet third-world governments. He’s assassinated more visionaries than the CIA, but when we first met he was eager to come in out of the cold. “Why are looking at me like that?” he asked. “Because you look funny.” “How do I look?” “You look proud.” “Then indeed I do look funny.”
