A Moving Experience: Italian versus American Psycho in business cards
One of the most memorable scenes in American Psycho (maybe THE most memorable scene if you are not into blood and dismemberment) has nothing to do with murder. It’s all about the swapping of business cards, and the one-upmanship between Patrick Bateman and his colleagues in a conference room. I was reminded of that scene when I went to pick up my new American business cards, including the homicidal impulses that thereto ensued.
It all started when I ran out of business cards after moving to the US two years ago. For the first few months, I used the ones left from my decades in Italy. Of course, I had to cross out my Italian phone numbers and manually write in my US replacements, which took time and looked sloppy. But I was fond of those cards. They had been the result of a lengthy back-and-forth between me and the Italian print shop, owned by a young husband and wife who seemed to care about doing a good job. The first time they printed the cards, they made a typo after I had approved the layout. Clearly their fault but they could have waffled. Instead, they reprinted all 300 cards at no extra charge, and then gave me the flawed cards as well as the corrected ones “just in case I might be able to make use of them.” I did because, frankly, business cards are awfully expensive to custom-print in Lombardia. I paid a hefty sum for…
