Moot Thoughts & Musings

Good stuff coming from MrsCrumley. She linked to a great article, which I heartily enjoyed: Ten Steps to Being Well-Read. It's true. Learning how to read is more than sounding out words and putting grammatical concepts together, it's thinking, gaining ideas, vocabulary, etc. I'm preaching to the choir here, I'm sure. I live in sort of pseudo-world where almost everyone around me is humanistically educated and well-read. There are exceptions, of course. But I would venture to say that at least 60% of the people I know is reasonablly well-read. We talk about the classics, use proper grammar in everyday speech, make cultural allusions in everyday speech, use extensive vocabulary in everday speech, and can be found analyzing a movie on the way home from a theater. We're nerds.

So where would a nerdy person like to hang out on a hot summer's evening, when his/her airconditioning unit just really isn't cutting it anymore? A bookstore. The promise of coffee, reasonably comfortable chairs, a ton of books, and icy-cold airconditioning is divinely tantalizing.

--Digression--
We have been going to Border's. If given a choice: Barns & Noble or Borders? I would always choose Border's. I'm from the Northeast. It's as simple a choice as Walmart or Target? (Target, duh.) I'm getting tired of our Border's though. The coffee is bad. And then when you go to order just a regular coffee you get two choices: "here" or "to go". "Here" is 30 cents more than "to go". Upon noting this fact to the girl behind the counter, she explained that with "here" you get free refills and was a little thrown off when I pointed out that 30 cents more wasn't free! She quickly recovered and stammered out something about "it must be a dishwashing fee". Well, give me the free refill in a paper cup! Anyway. Also, at our Border's, the staff is all hipster-wannabe-ish and make a habit of having conversations with eachother across the store. They're not very clever conversations either. So last night I buckeled and suggested that we patronize B&N instead. I got a good cup of coffee, looked at magazines, got thoroughly cooled off, and left a satisfied patron. *sigh* what have I come to? One thing that Border's has over B&N is these super comfy couches next to the coffee shop and magazine shelves (if you can snag one!).
--Digression over--

So now this post is moving away from initial article posting and praising and towards general reflections on bookstores, wh. I guess I already have been doing, whatever. I'm just rambling:

One activity Chris and I engaged in last night was perusing these two tables piled high with "classics"--what everyone should have read. He's been putting together lists of what every high schooler should have read as he begins a new school year of teaching 9th and 10th grade literature classes. So as we wander around these tables just to see if there is something we haven't thought of, we effortlessly choose some and throw at others as "how did THAT get here?". Somebody tell me, how in the world did we get to be such "experts"? (I'm being sarcastic, pointing out that it's really ridiculous of us to consider ourselves experts without even thinking about it. Yet, my very pointing out the ridiculousness of thinking myself an expert is a sign of acquiring more knowledge, i.e. the more you know, the more you know you don't know. This mindset can have staggering and debilitating consequences. It's also a malady found in many graduate students who are on the verge of breakdown.)

Another reflection. There is the novel equivalent to the "chick flick." Usually it's something like Pink Toenail Polish on 49th Street: A novel or Babed and Bewildered: A novel. (I just made those titles up. I will now make up plots.) The first is about the flashy, sexy, feminine career woman whom everyone loves and saves somebody's day and finally a hot guy saves her day. She probably has a sister who's frumpy but ends up being cool. The second novel is this woman with kids, usually struggling with identity and feeling inadequate as a stay-at-home mom. What's really handy about these books is that they tell you what they are: "a novel". It is not "a documentary", "a memoir", "a cookbook", "a fashion book", "a homedecorating book". It is "a novel." Just in case you were wondering. (Frankly, sometimes I am. I look at that book and think "what is it?")

A confession. (Just in case you thought that this was "a novel".) I haven't read most of the classics I should've read. I know enough to get by. My ongoing goal for the rest of my life is to read more, to be a better writer, and to increase my vocabulary.

p.s. I've realized that for two posts in a row, I've complained about stores. I usually don't get out much, so when I do, I am naively shocked at probably what the rest of the world has developed a shell to as "normal". I don't mean to take a complaining attitude towards things. Sorry, big corporations who probably don't care one iota that I'm complaining about you on my blog.