walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library - line up to the mind cemetary

I love reading books about movies. I'm currently working my way through Planet Hong Kong, a film textbook I borrowed from my buddy Jesse at work. It was actually classwork for him back in the day, it's weekend reading for me. I also took three books out of the library this weekend: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs, and Rock N' Roll Generation Changed Hollywood by Peter Biskind, Seeing is Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us to Sop Worrying and Love the Fifties, and Shootout: Surviving Fame and (Mis)Fortune in Hollywood. I'll allow that I may be going overboard on the theme, but I'm really looking forward to ripping through them over the next month.

I'm looking forward to it despite the fact that reading a library book is in some fundamental way different and tangibly less satisfying. It occured to me as I was pulling them off the shelf at the library yesterday. There's something about the clear plastic covers that libraries use to protect the books that mutes the pleasure of cracking one open. They're like condoms during sex. You know perfectly well why it needs to be wrapped up, and it's not going to prevent you from getting the job done (except for that one night, but you decided to blame that on the alcohol anyway didn't you?). It's just that however good it is there will always be a part of you that wants nothing more than to rip the damn thing off and dive in bareback.