March 15, 2009
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Clubs
Joining has never appealed to me. Having a library card is a big responsibility. It's as if I've joined a club. It's really not a matter of unwillingness to commit. I used to belong to Sam's Club and the old Price Club, now Costco. It took me years to stop calling it Price Club. Now that I've made the transition and can say to my wife, Do you need anything at Costco?, the perverse business bastards will probably change the name again. I'm not going to think about that now. I'm taking the advice of something I read in a book a long time ago, So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Yes, I had a library card before Saturday. The truth is when I went to use it the library computer wouldn't take my number. Can you imagine? I'd been thrown out of the club, purged from the computer data base for lack of participation. Maybe they thought I'd died. It happens with the elderly. Younger people expect it's going to happen any moment to the people who have crossed over the age barrier. Don't rush me, I'll get there soon enough for me, even if not soon enough for you. The woman who tried to scan my card said, I suppose you haven't been here in a while. My reply was simply to smile politely at her understatement. She was one of those frighteningly cheery membership people who say things like, We'll have to get you another one. She meant business too. You'll have to fill out a new application form. This is the very reason I don't like clubs. It's the whole joining process. It wasn't so bad because the fear of rejection was bearable. They accepted my application and gave me a brand new, fancy library card. Honestly though? I did feel a little hurt they wouldn't take my original card and that I had to join again and lose my seniority.Peter Pan was a very short book and I finished it yesterday but couldn't take it back until after using it to read parts for the talk I gave this morning. It will be in the next Phat Podcast. Reading Peter Pan was so wonderful that I decided there was another movie I'd seen and loved that came from a book. Well, thought I to myself, if Peter Pan the book was so much more excellent than Peter Pan the movie it is reasonable to think Dune the book will be much better than Dune the movie. Though I am a slow reader I am not a slow learner. I got online and found the library so I could see if the closest branch had the book. They did and I put it on hold. I was rather distressed by the whole process because they said they'd let me know when it came it. I wanted to tell them, You already have it, you silly library people! It seemed prudent not to since I was a new member and that might not look good on my record, if they keep such things. I think they do because they fine you money if you don't bring the book back in the amount of time they give you to read it. The puzzling thing to me is they give you the same amount of time to read Peter Pan, which as we've already said is a short book, as they do Dune which is a big book with much smaller print. Oh, the pressure for an admitted slow reader. What's worse is I went and found the book and brought it to the checkout desk only to have the girl tell me I had one on hold. They have a whole section where you're supposed to go pick up the book you have on hold. I didn't know that. She went and got the book for me and asked which one I wanted. They're the same aren't they? Library people are very smart because all they do is read all day and night. They must not always read the right books though because there are huge holes in their knowledge base.
She opens both of the books and tells me to examine the print to see with which one I'm more comfortable. Who says things like that? I took the one she'd already checked out for me because I didn't have my reading glasses on and couldn't see the print in either one anyway. Then she tells me when I have to have it back before they start fining me and adds, Depending on how fast a reader you are you can renew it. Since I've already declared to the world, like an alcoholic in an AA meeting, Hello, my name is James and I'm a slow reader., I didn't feel hurt by her insinuation. It's not like I have it tattooed on my forehead. I wonder to myself if people can tell when they look at me that I'm a slow reader? Meh, let them know. I want to get the book home so I can start reading it. As if to even the score when she tells me I can call the number at the bottom of the ticket to renew it I say, Or I can renew it online. I may be slow but I'm not ignorant. She smiles at the old gentleman and acquiesces. I'd like to stay and chat some more about my adventures at Club Library and all the real members who are quick readers, good readers, practiced readers and good club members but I've got the fat book here on the desk in front of me and I really want to get after it. Messiahs make me cry in the most wonderful way because I think humanity needs to be saved from itself.
Comments (20)
Not much of a club joiner, either. I had a library card once. About... 25 yrs ago or so. Haven't been in a library in all that time, so my membership is probably rather like yours was...
Hope you enjoy the book. I've not read it. I read really fast, but these days seem to have trouble concentrating long enough to get anything read. It'll probably pass... I hope.
Best I remember Dune the book took me a while to read. There were parts that were slow going for me.
@moniet -
I took a speed reading course once and read the Cain Mutiny in twenty minutes. I passed a test after finishing the book that indicated I had eighty percent comprehension of the book. Reading the book wasn't fun. I'll take my time and bear the brand of SLOW READER while I enjoy the author's tale. If life is a raise to the finish line I hope I don't win.
Yowch. Cain Mutiny took me a couple days. I read fast, but not that fast...LOL It depends on what I'm reading how fast it goes and how much I comprehend, too. In school I blazed through many because I wanted to read something else not on the list of 'gotta reads' we had.
I don't like library books. I love to read though. I always, even as a child, got a stomach ache in the library immediately upon entering. It has that soooquiet feeling. I also have an aversion to books others have touched that I haven't checked their hands and many people read books when they don't feel good and are in bed with a flu or something. It is like piss cookies/candies in the diner. You know that big bowl of cookies or mints that is on the counter that everyone is breathing over talking over with spit flying and grabbing in. How do you know if they washed their hands in the bathroom or picked their teeth or something - all right - I'm wierd. Sorry if you used to like these and I ruined it for you. I do that often to people. Plus there is a woman in my town with the exact same name and that bothers me that they mix us up all the time in the library and at the Hallmark store with the Hallmark card and at the High School. I still get her dopey emails and my daughter graduated and I told them so many times and they won't take me off "the list"...the list I joined. I also don't like the pressure of being timed with my readings. I read several books at once and go back and forth at whim and like to take my time. p.s.: I like that advice about tomorrow I am going to try and repeat that to myself more often.
@Sassenach_org -
You haven't spoiled anything for me. I'll be married twenty-seven years in May. My wife has the same perspective about germs, dirt, people and touching things or drinking from things. Watching me probably makes the poor woman's skin crawl because I simply do not care, think about it or care to think about it. I don't get sick. Some day I'll just die but I see no sense in doing it in bits and pieces. It's something should be done all at once and with full awareness.
I was entertained by your library clubbing blog. Good times and you got a book out of the deal. At least to borrow. Cool beans.
I, too, had to renew my library card this month. Mine had also expired from lack of use. When I received my new card, I was told that eighteen months of inactivity would cause me to be dropped from the club. Or maybe it was twice as long, three years.
I hope somebody warned you that reading Dune is an endless task. There are endless sequels to each story, now being produced by the son of the original author, and each sequel gets written faster than I can read any of the books. I was several books behind when I gave up on the series.
I have a Kindle that I use for reading. I have hundreds of books on it. Amazon, the people making the Kindle, recently announced that they've fixed up their books so people can read them on their cell phones. That wasn't what I had been hoping for: that they would make it possible for me to download library books that would stay on my machine for a month or so, then quietly vanish. That capability, however, seems to have been pushed into the far distant future.
I may give up on cellular phones, too. They've transformed themselves into something so far from what they were originally created to do that I suspect many users have forgotten that they can be used to call other people. Cellular phones got so smart that people started using their inexpensive processors to make small laptop computers they call netbooks. Cellular phones have gotten so powerful that Apple has established a separate App Store for little tiny programs to run on them. Medical science has been blessed with a rash of new repetitive movement injuries to the thumbs. Short text messages have evolved into Tweets, based on Twitter. They're stacking up new toys faster than I can become aware of the new toys, much less learn to use and appreciate them.
That doesn't make me a Luddite, you understand. Being slightly hearing deficient, I hate phones of any kind.
@WordJames -
I'm seriously considering giving up on cell phones. I pay the bill every month and wonder why. I don't use it enough to justify the expense to my parents who raised me to be frugal. As for the new toys. I grow weary of the electronicization of their world. My job isn't threatened by their machines so I'm not against them. I simply do not care to be at their effect anymore than I am already. My rebellion will be in consciousness alone.
The people I see at our branch library are sitting at the computer desks. Seldom do I see them with a book in the chairs, but I take my book and come home. I should try the chairs sometime.
I've always avoided "joining" like the plague, for various reasons. I'm too much of a loner, I know my deep-seated values clash too much with those of others to put myself into a category which would require me to bend things I won't bend. I don't like that when you join a group, you're generally expected to hold all its views, demonstrate all its behaviours. Paradoxically perhaps, I'm also profoundly religious. Gotta love human contradictions.
In school, I hated group work, because I always ended up doing it all, and the others coasting by on my grade -- Even if they were willing to put in the effort, I wasn't willing to settle for a result that was less than what I could achieve on my own. I didn't (and still don't) see myself as a snob, and I've spent a lot of effort over the past few years learning how to encourage progress in others regardless of how our achievement levels relate. But when it comes to a product with my name on it, I would still rather put in extra work than be dragged down by a subpar co-contributor.
Luckily for me, while I was something of a prodigy as a child, as I've progressed into adulthood, I feel less and less sharp. These days, as often as not, I'm interacting with my brilliant friends and trying hard not to feel too dejected about being the dull one.
As for libraries, my mother is a librarian and my house is filled with books, so I've always enjoyed them. I used to read a lot more than I do now. My attention span has somehow been jarred loose, and I find I need a very specific book to be able to keep me reading. It's a distressing state of affairs, and one I hope I can eventually turn around again. I love grown-up books and kids' books -- what I need when I read is truth, a window into the divine and terrible nature of reality. Perhaps because I've been focusing so much of my consciousness lately on understanding others, character has become very important to me. I'm much more likely to read a series than a standalone novel. Reading thus becomes something like spending an afternoon with friends...
Take care
-J-
Oh James! You always make me smile by bringing sanity to the insanity of life. You should have been one of the authors of the books at the library!
God bless you and enjoy your new book! (There's nothing wrong with reading slowly and enjoying every word. If you pass away before you're finished, I'm sure the Lord will either let you use His library or tell you how it ended!)
HUGS
@chastityrose -
I hope you're right.
i too am a slow reader when posts go over 2 paragraphs i have to get comfortable
thanks
And here I am thinking about volunteering to help somewhere or something. Is that a club because I do not do clubs! I do groups that are not clubs...does that make sense?
i am ashamed to say I don't have a library card... i tend to just buy a book because I don't like having the time constraints and piddly things like taking back library books always get me... i was pretty much a resident of the library in school though, having few friends, i spent my time reading and learning. i don't do any clubs...
While I was down in your general neck of the woods, I introduced my friend to your podcasts. *smile*
I had a library card early on, seeing as how my mother always told me to look it up whenever I had any sort of question. Once I found out there were places that would allow you to give them money and you could take the books home and keep them however, I was hooked and the library lost me as a customer. (I never claimed to be brilliant... at least not recently)
@Timantec_II -
Oh, so you're the one in Canada who listens to the Podcasts.
I notice already I have takenh the library for granted. They didn't have the next book in the series I'm reading and I was appalled that there was only one copy in the system for over three million people. I will not, however, buy it since I will only read it once and don't care to take up space.
Clubs can have their uses--but I usually distrust groups in general.
Dune the book is great. The David Lynch movie--is well--David Lynch. Cinema version has the yucky gross stuff. There was a four hour TV version a few years ago that took out the gross stuff, but I guess added all the extra footage back in. Except the added footage then didn't have any special effects--so people's eyes kept going back and forth between normal color, and spice blue--haha. Sci Fi Channel had a version that I think was trying for Japanese theater look, but only have seen fragments of that version.
There was a time I did speed reading--but realized I was just doing pages-read number race. There was no joy in it. So I just read to enjoy and savor the words.
@Wilshak -
About the reading: Well put, Wil Carter. I love to read for the joy of words, ideas, thoughts, feelings and perspective the author offers. Words are tasty.
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