white with blue dots in Morning Stream
- Nov. 5, 2020, 6:37 a.m.
- |
- Public
Books, most people will agree, are better than movies. Sure you miss the whiz bang special effects, the star power and ‘the event’ of watching a movie that a book cannot compete with when comparing the experiences of the two. Reading a book is never an event.
You can’t eat popcorn and read a book.
Opening a book is an event. Picking a book up at the library or buying a book at the airport or at Chapters (are they still around?) is an event of sorts, mini events, like halloween candy bars, somewhat satisfying, but certainly not bloated holiday meals - dinner spoilers maybe, but not meals to talk about later when you want to bore someone else to death.
“The roasted brussel sprouts were to die for.”
A book can change you, can change your outlook, especially when you are young. My friend George’s life was changed by reading “On the Road”, Jack Kerouac’s frenetic cross-country adventure. Mine was too, but not as much as George’s. We both individually went through a “freedom phase”, a la Moriarty…
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
I got my love of long run-on sentences, and use of commas, lots of commas from Jack Kerouac, a bee-bop style of writing.
My life was more changed by “The Dice Man”, Luke Rheinhart’s self help exploration into decision making. I rolled those bones into Bangladesh, wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms and a bushman’s hat. In my luggage, I had another couple t-shirts, a water colour set and set of dice - white ones with blue dots.
If you ever watch a movie after reading a book, you know what is coming up. It doesn’t spoil the experience because it never plays out exactly how you read it. Yep, I’m talking here about the election.