Labels: Childhood, Essay, Society

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Reckless Debt Spending, Terrible War Planning, and Osama Bin Laden Running Around Free Top Our List Of Why Republicans Don't Deserve the Presidency

Is there anyone left in America that really still thinks George W. Bush has been a good president?

That the last eight years were better than the eight years under Clinton?

In case people have forgotten – Clinton handed Bush a balanced federal budget and a surplus of $559 billion. After eight years of reckless spending and tax cuts, Bush is ready to leave office with the federal deficit at $9.7 trillion dollars. This doesn’t even include the cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the money we’re about to shell out to Wall Street and the financial markets.

The reality is that Bush’s tax cuts are an illusion. He increased spending with borrowed money. But eventually – like all loans – you have to pay it back.

This irresponsibility alone should put to the rest the notion that Republicans are fiscally responsible. It just isn’t true. Over the course of the last 50 years, the country has done better economically under Democrats than under Republicans. You don’t have to the do the number crunching – the L.A. Times has done it for you.

Isn’t this reason enough not to vote Republican in November?

Well, if you’re one of the stubborn ones, here are four more reasons why Republicans simply don’t deserve the White House for the next four years.

The Iraq War

Lest we forget: here’s why we went to war in Iraq:

“(The Iraqi regime) possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people,” said George W. Bush in 2002. You can read the full text of his speech outlining why we needed to invade Iraq here. Be warned: it is scarily misguided.

Of course, after the invasion which has killed more than 4,000 U.S. troops, wounded more than 30,000 U.S. troops, and killed upwards of 90,000 Iraqi civilians, we have discovered that Iraq had never supported Al Qaeda, wasn’t even close to producing nuclear weapons, and didn’t have a single chemical or biological weapon.

Oops!

We’d better make another fabricated connection to 9/11! Vice President Dick Cheney did so repeatedly and continued to say Iraq had strong ties to Al Qaeda even after the 9/11 Commission found “no collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda.

So why exactly did we invade Iraq? I’m not sure if we’ve ever gotten a real answer. But it has cost us more than $580 billion so far.

The Financial Meltdown

Not only was the first bailout package for Wall Street killed by the Republicans revolting against the policies of their own party, but it was the Republicans who lead the charge for the massive deregulation of the financial sector that is at the root of the problem.

Bush appointed Henry Paulson as U.S. Treasurer. Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and has surrounded himself with other Wall Street insiders from his days at Goldman. They were slow to react to the mounting evidence that investment banks and other financial institutions were on the brink of collapse (Bush, in fact, was expressing confidence in the strength and stability of the markets as late as September 15).

Bush’s tepid response (it took him days to finally address the American people once the collapse became evident) is only slightly less ridiculous than McCain, who called the fundamentals of the economy sound on the day when the stock markets plummeted and banks went out of business. Then McCain overreacted by suspending his campaign and his debate with Obama – and then, of course, he did neither. Then he called for firing SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, even though he doesn’t have that authority (even as president).

Talk about a man in the throes of indecision and panic.

Perhaps this is why most people think the Republicans are to blame for the crisis. A new CNN poll has Americans 2-1 pointing the finger at Republicans rather than Democrats.

New Orleans

The city of New Orleans remains pocked with devastation from Hurricane Katrina three years later. In fact, the city hasn’t fully recovered and may never as the neglect from the federal government continues unabated.

You may recall that Bush didn’t think the hurricane merited ending his vacation early and that he didn’t tour the destruction until three days later – and then he went to Biloxi, Mississippi and talked about rebuilding Trent Lott’s porch and how he used to get drunk in New Orleans.

The federal government ignored New Orleans pleas to strengthen the levees as the storm was bearing down on it. Then the government bungled the recovery efforts – from providing shelter to getting food and water to victims. McCain called Bush’s handling of the disaster “disgraceful” back in April, yet he voted against a $21 million recovery package for the city and other areas hit by Katrina.

Bin Laden

Remember him? He’s allegedly the terrorist mastermind that murdered about 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001 by orchestrating a deadly plot to fly airplanes into our institutions (a plot that Bush was warned about several months before it happened – yet he did nothing).

Bin Laden is the man who supposedly destroyed the World Trade Center Towers. The man who we are told planned the attack that had a commercial aircraft takeout a section of the Pentagon.

Yet, he’s a free man – and apparently an avid videographer.

How is it possible that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress voted to divert soldiers, money, and resources away from finding Bin Laden in Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq – which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11?

It’s remarkable that Bush said in September of 2006 that capturing Bin Laden was “not a top priority” for the United States. Huh?

Why?

We really don’t have answers, but there are questions about Bush’s personal and family connections to Osama Bin Laden’s family. This may be the best reason why Republicans don’t deserve another term in office. They have betrayed those killed in 9/11, but not making the capture of their alleged murdered the number one priority of the administration.

Read More of Our Essays:

Blame the X$#% Media!

Addicted to Convenience

The Danger of Bottled Water

Labels: Bush, Essay, Politics, President

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Labels: Bush, Election, Essay, Media

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Labels: Essay, Hip-hop, Music

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We imagine Poetry running breathless down a dark alley slick with rain. A car skids to a stop, blocking the egress. Poetry’s black loafers slide on the pavement and he backs up. The sedan doors pop open and men with guns climb out. Their faces are black masks of shadow caused by the lone street lamp behind them. Poetry, terror etched on his face, turns and flees. But no one can outrun bullets and the lead cuts him down.

Poetry dies, eyes wide open, in a puddle of his own inky blood.

Or…

At a fancy French bistro, Poetry dines at a round table draped in a lace white table clothe. She lifts a wine glass by the stem and the burgundy leaves bloody streaks on the imperfections in the glass bowl. Poetry gazes at her dining companion, a twinkle in her pretty eyes, as she takes a long sip. Her eyes widen as her throat constricts. Poetry starts to choke and looks accusingly at her companion as the poison churns through her system and begins to boil her blood. Finally, she dies face down in the lobster bisque.

But Poetry hasn’t been murdered. Few are passionate enough to want her to die with such… well, poetry. Unfortunately, Poetry is alive – a shut-in at the nursing home.

He lives on the third floor in “an assisted living facility” on the edge of a Mid-western city. It’s hot in the summer and the air conditioner is faulty and only spurts out tepid air when its feeling generous. He can’t walk without a walker – propped up next to the front door. When he hacks up the phlegm from his lungs it sounds like he’s coughed up marbles. He spits the wads into a waste can that’s rusty on the bottom. He’s frail, doesn’t remember Frost or Kipling or even Cummings, and spends more time staring at his age spots than reading.

Someday, maybe soon, an orderly with bad tattoos will find him lying in his bed without a pulse, and his adult diaper soiled.

And that will be that.

But Poetry isn’t dead yet. She is simply ignored, forgotten by the many like some ancient god, no longer worshipped, no longer treasured. You can find her in the bargain bin or in some dusty corner of a chain book store.

Oh, there’s a few who deign to visit her now and then. Guiltily bringing her flowers and then sitting awkwardly across from her trying to pretend her breath doesn’t stink and convincing ourselves that we still love her. In fact, sometimes we can see the beauty still lingering in her eyes.

But we visit less and less.

(Hmmm, the last book of poetry we read was “Nine Horses” by Billy Collins and that was more than a year ago – at least. Maybe we can throw in a few Bukowski poems here and there as well. We keep fingering a new edition of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” at the bookstore, but so far we haven’t bought it.)

Wouldn’t it be fun to imagine Video Games in the same state as Poetry? But Video Games is a strapping, young lad with thick arms and a barrel chest. He wears his baseball cap backwards and shuffles around in flip-flops. So what if he’s got the beginnings of a gut and his hair’s a bit wispy on the crown? He’s got powerful thumbs and a cocky attitude (only wish he’d bathe more often).

Even TV is doing better than expected. Oh, she’s a had a couple of face lifts (and augmented her breasts), but she’s still a looker (especially in candle light). She still dresses elegantly and her smile is white and dazzling. And can anyone hold her attention better than TV?

But neither Video Games nor TV, of course, visit Poetry. Do they even know her? But then again look around at your friends and family. How often do they talk about Poetry? Is Poetry part of their lives? Most people would rather talk about DVD. Even Poetry’s close friends like Literary Magazine just give her lip service these days (hey, let’s publish another free verse poem about sex!).

Maybe Poetry’s stronger than we think. Maybe the old girl will make a comeback – find the Fountain of Youth. It seems to have worked out all right for Comic Book. Look at how fancy he’s gotten since changing his name to Graphic Novel.

Lurid Confessions of a Man Book Whore

Christine Larson's poem "Five"

Labels: Essay, Poetry, reading

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A Literary Quest to Visit the World-Famous San Francisco Book Store

I am a lost soul.

But I know that I’m not alone. We’re all lost in one way or another. Some of us are lost in the hedonism of youth – blind to everything except the next party, the next pick-up, and the next fun-filled weekend. Others are lost in family obligations – mortgages, diapers, tuition, taxes, and car payments. Yet others are lost in the meaningless pursuit of career and money – selling software or hardware, flying to conventions, attending meetings, and focused on providing solutions to make business faster, easier, and more productive.

Lost in the complications of modernity. But I am really lost – in San Francisco no less. I have taken a wrong turn down one of the many crooked (and rather steep) side streets. It is late in the afternoon and the sky is a searing blue and there is a chill in the air. I paused and consider my options.

Unlike all the other lost souls – I know the way out. I am on a quest. I am in search for a place that holds all the answers. A mystical place with all the collected wisdom of the ages. A place where the dead speak.

I am looking for a book store. A book store called City Lights.

There’s only one thing for me to do now.

Eat.

The restaurant is called Imperial Palace. It’s an unfortunate name as it is neither imperial nor a palace. But I suppose calling it Dingy Storefront wouldn’t attract enough tourists hungry for Dim Sum. But there are two large tables filled with Chinese-Americans and I think this is a damn good sign. If the Chinatown locals enjoy the food then how terrible can it be?

There is a white couple at the table next to me. As I study the menu, I overhear the man (who has an oval head and short, prickled hair like the bristles of a toothbrush) say to the woman (his daughter?):

“The Catholics cut a deal with Hitler and they’ve been rationalizing it away ever since.”

The rather careless waitress spills my green tea and doesn’t seem very concerned about it. I mop it up with my napkin after she departs. Overhead a sugary Chinese pop song plays on the hidden speakers. It is the kind of music that would cause inmates to riot and depressed teenagers to drown themselves in their family bathtubs.

But my instincts about the food were dead on. It’s hot and delicious. The shrimp dumplings are tasty and the barbequed pork melts on my tongue.

I follow the directions given to me by the host. Evening has settled in and the chill has become a frigid cold. I walk, hands buried deep in my pockets, pass the shops selling t-shirts, Buddha figurines, and other trinkets.

Soon I’m at North Beach. The neighborhood instantly becomes seedier, trendier, and hipper than Chinatown. A startling thought comes to me: I may not be cool enough to be walking here. Luckily, I stumble upon City Lights rather quickly.

City Lights Bookstore was founded in 1953 by the beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (and Peter D. Martin). The store (named after the Charlie Chaplain movie) became a hang-out for the Beats. City Lights became world-famous after it was sued for obscenity for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” now considered a classic beat poem. The independent book store is now a San Francisco landmark.

This being San Francisco, City Lights has a bum lying across the entrance. He appears to be sleeping, but he could be dead (or even Jack Kerouac). One never knows. I experience a rush as I enter the legendary bookseller. The interior reeks of intellect, free thinking, and pressed paper. I’m light headed.

The interior is crowded with wooden book shelves – overflowing with tomes. The first floor is filled with novels, best-sellers, and magazines. I follow the squeaky wooden steps down to the basement. It is a wonderful place with signs describing the categories of books: “Stolen Continents,” “Muckraking,” “Anarchism,” “Class War,” and “People’s History.”

Ah.

I buy lots of books. I am lost no more.

5 Questions About: Jane Austen

Knock Your Socks Off Great Books

Read our literary criticism of Ring Lardner's "The Haircut"

Labels: books, City Lights Bookstore, Essay

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“I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”

It’s a disturbing image – and one that might be difficult to refute these days. Conventional wisdom suggests that we’ve entered a tipping point on the environment. Our culture of modern conveniences, technologies, and machines has knocked the natural order of the planet, well, into orbit.

Our sins are many from increases in industrial farming (requiring chemical fertilizers, ever-increasingly potent pesticides, and overuse of antibiotics on cattle and chickens) to an overabundance of smog-clogging automobiles causing air pollution and ozone depletion.

But a careful review of the mounting evidence seems to show that we aren’t heading for a major crisis – but that we’re already knee-deep in one. Just take a glimpse at the recent news headlines:

• Honeybees are dying by the millions – up to 90 percent of hives in some regions. Biologists call the unknown killer “colony collapse disorder” – a colorless government term for labeling this fierce and mysterious plague. Honeybees are crucial to pollinating flowers and fruits (apples and oranges, for example, can’t grow without them). In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says honeybees pollinate about $15 billion worth of crops in the U.S. alone. One theory is that a virus has struck the bees because their immune systems have been weakened and destabilized by overexposure to toxins and pesticides.
  

• Thousands of bats in the Northeast are dying from a mysterious disease and biologists are worried that tens of thousands of bats could die this year. Many bat caves have seen 100 percent mortality rates. Scientists are speculating that that toxins and pesticides have weakened the bats and destroyed a lot of their food supplies in the last few years – making them susceptible to disease. There has also been speculation that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones is responsible. Bats are crucial to controlling insect populations – especially mosquitoes.

• Climate change, caused by carbon dioxide emissions, continue unabated. The number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years, Malaria has spread to higher altitudes, ice flow from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled in the last 10 years, and 279 species of plants and animals are moving closer to the poles, according Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

• The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River has become as large as the state of New Jersey – and continues to expand. Few creatures can live in this oxygen-deprived desert of ocean, which is caused by nitrogen-rich fertilizer that runs off from industrial farms in the Corn Belt into the Mississippi River.

If these four examples don’t convince you that human activity is changing the environment then perhaps reports from the World Health Organization that global cancer rates may increase by as much as 50 percent by 2020 will.

Yet, the conversation on how to turn back – to save what we haven’t yet destroyed – continues to be a backburner issue, especially in the United States.

Perhaps one reason is our arrogance and unfounded confidence that the technologies that brought us to this precipice will ultimately save us. This is ironic since these technologies (automobiles, air conditioning, plastics, radiation, etc.) are what have led us here in the first place.

We have a tendency to embrace new technologies before we fully understand how they will affect us in the long term. Isn’t that why we painted our homes with lead paint and used asbestos to insulate our pipes? Recently, we’re learning that plastic water bottles – already owned by most American families – may increase the risk of cancer.

As Agent Smith might have observed, human beings think they can improve Mother Nature. We believe that we can do it better – despite a history of shoddy results.

That’s why we end in situations like this one: We force feed our cattle corn – when they evolved to eat grass. By forcing them to eat corn, the majority become sick, so we treat the corn with antibiotics to keep the cattle alive and healthy long enough to slaughter them. As a result, we dine on sick, drug-infused beef while overusing antibiotics to a point that they’re becoming less effective.

Or why we end up pouring tons of chemicals on our lawns – forcing grass to grow lush and green in environments unnatural to the species. Believe it or not, but Arizona isn’t supposed to have grass. It’s a desert.

It’s time for the environment to become a top and urgent priority in the United States. The economy, gas taxes, and the war in Iraq all pale in comparison with the sorry state of our sick planet. We’ve broken it and now we need to fix it. Without Earth – what else is there?

Read some of our other essays:

The Threat of Bottled Water

The Trouble with the Mormon Religion

Labels: environment, Essay, Global Warming, water

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Pizza and Chinese food deliveries occur a few times a week. And, of course, she has Internet access and cable TV.

Her house is beginning to look a lot like a cocoon.

It’s time to admit that as Americans we’re addicted to shortcuts. We want things to be fast, easy, and cheap. And that spells: convenience. Americans aren’t lazy. Our work productivity is the highest in the world. We work longer hours and take less vacation than other developed nations. But we’re obsessed with saving time (what we’re saving it for is unclear).

Take these rather alarming statistics pointing to our addiction to convenience:

• The staggering increase in the popularity of disposal cameras – even disposable digital cameras. Analyst firm IDC said disposal camera sales reached a high of 460 million units in 2004.

• About 30 percent of all households across the United States (about 34 million homes) use landscaping companies to maintain their lawns and yards. Consumers in the U.S. spent more than $44.7 billion on landscaping, according to the National Gardening Association. The growth of landscaping services increases about 10 percent each year.
  

• The market for grocery delivery is expected to reach a high of $7.5 billion in 2008. The average time it takes to order groceries is about 10 minutes, according to a report in the Canadian Press. Why go to the supermarket?
  

• 2007 marked the sixth consecutive year that online sales increased at a double-digit rate. Last year, online sales hit an all-time high of about $62.7 billion.
  

• Going out to eat – even at fast food and casual restaurants is declining in favor of “prepared foods” consumers can buy at supermarkets (or have delivered by supermarkets) and pop into the microwave oven at home, according to a study by Technomic.

Americans view these everyday tasks as chores – unnecessary inconveniences and time wasters better delegated to another. But it’s a mistake to think of these things as chores – they’re responsibilities. They’re the cost of self-sufficiency (and, quite frankly, help build character). Isn’t the child who does their own homework better off than the child who pays someone else to do it?

There is, of course, an enormous price for all of this convenience: pollution, climate change, and energy consumption. But the high social and cultural costs may be the most damaging. All this convenience – and buck passing – is isolating individuals and eroding the social fabric of our neighborhoods and communities.

This disconnect may be this is why Americans continue to believe our society is at its most dangerous point in history despite a long-time trend in declining violent crime rates (the homicide rate in 2005, for example, was at its lowest point since 1965. But good lucking trying to convince people of that).

My parents knew all of their neighbors intimately. The women all stayed home with their children – set up play dates, babysat for each other, visited each other for lunch and tea. My father knew the men because every weekend they were outside cutting their lawns, trimming their hedges, painting their houses and garages, washing their cars, and performing other regular maintenance on their homes. They took breaks together, borrowed tools from each other, and shared beers at the end of the day.

That forged friendships which lead to family barbeques, joint vacations, dinner and movie dates, dinner parties, etc. When I was growing up, I was intimate with the insides of every neighbor’s house, played with their children, knew their relatives, and thought of neighbors as surrogate parents.

Now as an adult, I’ve never been inside any of my neighbors’ houses, except for one. Only four people out of 10 houses on my section of street even cut their own lawns (and this includes a 75-year-old widow).

Our thirst for convenience undermines our communities. Ordering DVDs over the Internet has closed down one of the two video stores in town. Amazon.com and other online book retailers shuttered the two bookstores many years ago. Home theater will eventually eradicate movie houses. Can gourmet “prepared meals” soon replace restaurants?

We even let convenience erode services we used to get for free. That’s why we now pump our own gas and why we’re starting to check-out and bag our own groceries at the supermarket. Because doing it alone is faster.

Convenience has become an addiction. One all responsible adults should try and break. Mow your own lawn. Rake rather than use a gas-powered blower. Paint your house. Go food shopping. These tasks? These chores?

It’s called life.

Labels: Convenience, Culture, Essay, Society

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Spring has arrived in New England.

There were two obvious signs. First was the purple crocus poking its shiny head through the wet soil of my backyard garden.

The second was the screaming roar of the gas powered leaf blowers being used by the landscapers in my neighbor’s yard. The noise was deafening – bone rattling – and shattered the morning quiet.

It was as if the leaf blowers snuck up on silence and beat it to death with thick oak clubs.

I closed my eyes and drank my coffee – quietly mourning tranquility.

The racket ended after 35 grueling minutes. I savored the silence until, of course, another landscaping crew arrived at another neighbor’s house and the shriek of the leaf blowers once again murdered tranquility.

Poor tranquility.

And say nothing of my shot nerves and the growing annoyance eating away inside my belly like a cancer.

Gas powered leaf blowers – the kind commonly favored by landscaping companies – produce sound decibels between 80-90 dBA. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) consider noises above 85 dBA to be dangerous.

But noise is only part of the problem.

Consider this:

• A single gas-powered leaf blower- and more than 2.5 million of them will be sold this year alone- can emit as much pollution in a year as 80 cars, according to an article in U.S. News & World Report.

• Leaf blowers can push air up to 200 mph and fill the air with dust, fecal matter, pesticides, chemicals, fungi, spores, and fertilizer at about five pounds per hour per blower, according to a report by an Orange County grand jury. The dust takes about one hour to settle.

• More than 200 cities and towns in the United States have banned gas powered leaf blowers as a nuisance and public health hazard, according to an editorial in the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph.

• U.S. retailers sold almost three million leaf blowers in 2006, according to an article in the Boston Globe.

It’s amazing how people put convenience ahead of comfort. Any reasonable thinking person must understand that leaf blowers are dirty, noisy, expensive, and impractical. There are also several studies that show that raking is actually more efficient and faster than using a leaf blower. It also gives people exercise.

Yet per usual – technology – or rather the promise of technology – wins out. Baby boomers and Gen Xers love short cuts, especially when the short cut includes an electronic device. Why do you think we have 40-year-old fathers prowling playgrounds wearing their mobile devices in holsters like they were six shooters?

Gas powered leaf blowers are a bad idea. They should be banned and if a ban isn’t feasible, there should be strict restrictions on the hours in the day when they can be operated. As a society, we don’t put much emphasis on decreasing noise pollution. But noise pollution can have serious health effects.

According to Wikipedia, noise health effects are the heath consequences of elevated sound levels. Over exposure to elevated noise levels can cause hearing loss, hypertension, heart disease, annoyance, and sleep disturbance. Elevated noise levels can also create stress, increase accidents at work and at home, stimulate aggression and other anti-social behavior.

Put away the leaf blower and buy a rake.

The Danger of Bottled Water

We All Die

Mystical, Magical Autumn

Labels: Essay, Leaf Blowers, Noise Pollution, Work Ethic

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Foppish Tales of Overindulgence and
Literary Snobbery

Literary Pantie Sniffing

I smell the pages of new books. The intoxicating perfume of fresh pulp makes me light headed. I’m a literary panty-sniffer. I skulk between the stacks at bookstores, crack open the pages of new book, and stick my snout right into the spine to snort like a sow in heat.

Snark! Snark! Ahhhh…

It’s unbecoming, I know. So I hide this behavior – who wouldn’t? I find lonely nooks in the bookstore and carefully scout the vicinity to make sure I’m not being watched (damn those security cameras!). Then when I’m sure I’m alone, my nose takes the plunge.

Snark! Snark! Ahhhh…

Do the pantie-sniffing perverts operate this way in Victoria’s Secret? Do they seek out dark areas in the aisles so they can stick g-strings and thongs up their nostrils?

Oh, the humanity!

On Ignoring Updike

I’ve scorned John Updike. I’ve never finished one of his novels – nor have I read any of his articles, short stories, or grocery lists. I started reading “The Witches of Eastwick” and “Rabbit, Run.” Both books bored me to tears within the first few pages.

I confess to being mystified and slightly irritated by Updike and his success. He’s one of poster children for the intellectual New York set (you know the type – insufferably liberal New Yorker readers who listen to chamber music). They adore Updike almost as much as Philip Roth (who I have read and enjoyed).

I’m no expert on Updike’s writing (how could I be?). But from what I’ve read, Updike’s writing seems too crafted – too unnatural. It reads like it was written and then rewritten and then edited.

That said I will always give the little literary bitch credit for calling Fenway Park a “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.”

That’s just perfect.

Stolen Moments of Delight

I get around. I read about 50 books a year – but I buy about three times that number. My unread stack is enormous: A skyscraper built with low quality concrete. If it topples, it will crush my neighbor’s house.

I could stop buying new books right now and have enough reading material for the next five years (especially if I break into the books that have been packed into boxes and now reside in the bleakness of my basement – poor darlings).

My addiction drives my wife crazy. When I come home with a new book – I get the look. If only she knew the truth – that I hide most of my purchases. When I go to a bookstore (snorting away in my private moments) and make a flurry of purchases, the items rarely make it out of my car trunk.

I’ll wait for the coast to be clear before smuggling them inside.

I’m a sad, sad man.

Soft, Not Hard

I prefer not to read hardcover books – and I rarely buy them. But I’m not a fan of paperbacks either. I prefer the oversized, trade paperbacks.

I love them.

They smell divine and they’re easy to handle while reading in bed.

Rrrrrr.

Playing Favorites

I don’t play favorites either. One question that stumps me always is: Who is your favorite author. Why not ask me if I love my mother or father best? Or which one of my children is better?

Book Man-Whores love many authors. Dearly! Passionately!

But I do have a stable of writers I return to often: Tobias Wolff, Pete Dexter, Tim O’Brien, Michael Connolly, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens.

I Own You

I don’t like to share my books. Why should I? But even worse, I need to own them – dominate them completely. That’s why libraries are useless to me. Borrowing books feels sleazy and dishonest (have you seen those hideously unfriendly librarians in action?).

And have you smelled a library book?

Yuck!

But part of me wishes I could sink the level of “borrowing.” Think of the money I’d save (and the storage space I’d get back). Ownership – possession – is part of the addiction to me.

"On the Road" Turns 50

Why we recommend avoiding "Darkly Dreaming Dexter"

How books are really time machines

Labels: books, Essay, John Updike, literature

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