Stories tend towards hysterical, particularly when your grandfather describes his first hangover of his college education. Also, his tale concerning early prophylactics ranks up there on the hilarity scale. These tales came out of a brunch with grandfather on a rainy day in PH. The back drop of all this is my brother’s and mine attempts to prepare for our parents 40th anniversary. So we ask grandpa for tales about our parent’s early years and end up hearing about the time he puked on a frat’s front lawn in Minnesota. We come out of the brunch with more information about Gpa’s “wild” days and less about the x-factor behind two persons deciding to “tie the knot”.
Now let us progress from wedding celebration to a more cultured pursuit: books, a most obvious segue for me.
I have found purpose in life … or at least a tangible goal: book conservation. Specifically, book binding repair and paper conservation. Nothing like learning a trade skill in an ill-funded specialty. Woot for debt. Double woot for feelings of purpose. IS debt jealous? I think so. In light of my new found pursuit, I’ve taken to reading not a few books/blogs about, get this, books, paper production, and binding methods. Including A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Baez (interesting read documenting destruction of libraries from Mesopotamia to the digitization of Google), the blog of Jeff Peachey, and, a personal favorite, The Library At Night by Alberto Manguel. This last book is phenomenal. It combines the personal reflections of a book collector as he organizes his library and considers the numerous forms libraries take through the march of time. Simply put: read the book.
Books and marriage. Marriage to books? Is that even legal? How does a book say “I do”? This and other inane questions find fecund pasture within mine mind. I’ll leave you readers with a few entertaining youtube clips:
The Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer brought to you by BriTANicKdotcom
As I drove around town the radio played this childhood classic: Ace of Base’s – “The Sign”
