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I Enjoy Drinking in Bars
By briantologist | November 7, 2003
Maybe it’s the exciting new shipment of cold weather we’ve had lately. Maybe it’s just my general dependence on alcohol. Maybe it had just been awhile since I’d been out on the town. But man, I had a damn fine time getting snookered at Caz’s last night.
Nothing particularly eventful happened, but I definitely felt a genuine sense of release from the generalized staring off into space that I sometimes fall into when I’m not careful to keep my brain working.
In other news, Librarian superhero and action figure Nancy Pearl visited our fair radio station yesterday, promoting her book, “Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason.” It’s funny: Usually when we have actual famous people drop by in person (David Halberstam is the most recent one I can think of), I kind of disappear, and hang out in my office until they’re gone. Partly it’s because I’m kind of shy, and don’t really have anything new or relevant to say (what am I gonna come up with? “Loved slogging through ‘The Fifties,’ Mr. H!”). I like to think it’s also partly because I think I’m above acknowledging celebrity, but that’s giving myself way too much credit. I honestly just don’t ever feel like I have anything to say, and since famous people are constantly approached by people who don’t really have much of anything to say to them, I figure I can be one less person to do so.
Anyway, where I was going with that was that, for some reason, I was really excited to meet Nancy Pearl. I guess it’s my exposure to Darleece and her librarian colleagues (and her librarian mom, for that matter), but I find librarians genuinely heroic, and I’m excited by the fun in the notion of a librarian celebrity. It actually seems kind of like being the host of an NPR program would be, like being one of the Magliozzi brothers: About one person in every fifteen has heard of you, but the ones who have think you’re really, really awesome. I like the odd, kind of geeky twist on celebrity that represents.
AAAAAnyway, where I think I might’ve been headed with that was that, while standing around, Nancy asked me what I was reading right now. I sort of stammered about “In Cold Blood” for awhile, but the truth of the matter is that, being a much crappier reader than I ever thought possible, I’m not really reading anything right now. I read the first hundred pages or so of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” and while it’s got its charm, I’m finding myself distinctly not drawn back to it. Which leads me back to my dilemma over how soon to stop reading a book if you’re not really into it.
A heroic thing our action librarian has done, though, is establish what she calls “The Rule of 50″: If you’re under 50 years old, give a book no more than 50 pages to impress you, and to make you want to keep reading it. If you’re over 50, subtract a page for every year older than 50 you are, since you’ve got less reading time left while alive.
I’ve totally forgot where I was going with this. I think I was going to berate myself for not reading more, but maybe instead I’ll just go home and read now.
Cheers.
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