white with blue dots in Morning Stream

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.