Monday, 16 March 2009

• Currently The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test By Tom Wolfe see related

  Reading Glasses of Kool-Aid

  I've always loved to read. Many of us do, but I rarely make time to read. Over time, I've managed to buy more books than I ever have read books. I have magnificent shelves filled with finely sorted books that have perfect spines. Only a few books on my shelves have scoliosis - Fahrenheit 451, Timequake, Walden, and my collection of Calvin and Hobbes.

  I am on a quest to narrow the amount of time I spend in front of a computer monitor once I'm away from work, seeing as my job in IT consists of little else than staring at monitors. At the end of the day, I want my mind to be better. Though the internet is a vast landscape, I often find its oasises spaced too far apart and that I'm bored in route between them.

  I'm as fluent with the depths of the internet as anyone, but I feel as though I'm a stranger to the depths of chapters in books. I've been snorkeling too long, so I've set out to read more. I now receive subscriptions to Wired, Play, Geek, and the New Yorker, and I read each issue in full. It is a good feeling, though I am drowning in the New Yorker.

  You never realize how often "weekly" is until there is a visual reminder of it. And I almost feel shame as I look at the slowly growing stack of New Yorker magazines that seems to arrive before I can finish the previous issue and think to myself "Surely, You can read these faster than they arrive." (Hurray, self-efficacy!)

  I'm also breaking the spines of the books on my shelves.

  We (Laura and I, not me and my book shelves or magazines) ventured to the City Lights Book store, a brisk fifteen minute walk from our apartment, on Friday night. By far the best book store in San Francisco, it reminds me of the beloved Shakespeare & Co in Paris. Though City Lights is bigger and more clean, they both seem to have the same guiding principles. And City Lights is owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the last living beat poet.

  From City Lights, I purchased Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". It is a smooth read. The words seem buttered. A passage can be read with such ease, that I'm always convinced I must have missed something. And Wolfe's style seems to be a blend of Arlo Guthrie and Hunter S. Thompson. Also, Wolfe must have been allergic to commas. He either removed as many commas as his editor would allow or he used few enough commas to not cause anaphylactic shock.

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