Young people just don’t read books anymore. This must be truth, because I hear it from plenty of old people who must know exactly what young people do with their spare time. They then proceed to walk away from me without buying any of the books I’m selling.
I cannot promise that these old people are the same old people who gape at young people who don’t own televisions. But I can promise they are the same old people who drove the young people off Facebook fifteen years ago. Granted, there are solid cases to be made for the decline of reading. Take me, for instance. Me getting published anywhere at all on a regular basis suggests heavily that no one reads anymore, regardless of age. Unless it’s the birds and gerbils whose cages get lined by my work. The US Census Bureau does not track such things, but if they did, I suspect they would find more people light fires with my work than read any single piece from start to middle. But I am just one man. I can produce only so much writing—as much as half a man, or perhaps a quarter. There are dozens more people like me out there, each of us struggling to craft the perfect cup of tea. Some of them are actually succeeding in writing back-cover copy for other people’s books well enough to get them banned. Banned, I tell you! And by people you KNOW don’t read. Now I can’t articulate exactly why it is okay to start a fire with my junk published in a newspaper, but abominable to start a fire with a book. Nor can I explain why burning a book is worse than banning, because it isn’t, other than in a matter of degrees. (Most bannings, for instance, take place at room temperature.) All I know is that if I can’t stop people from condemning books to the ol’ burn-n-ban, dammit, I want them to condemn my work too. Because that is the SUREST way to get someone to read it. Or at least to buy it—can’t burn it if you don’t got it. Frankly, I can’t figure out why I haven’t had more books banned, aside from the fact that I haven’t written very many. I am always game to “punch up,” as comedy experts say—to take a swing at The Man, the powers-that-be, particularly if I think they are unlikely to read it. Take the old people who think young people don’t ready anymore. I’m pretty certain they read only the Wall Street Journal and/or the CNN crawl, neither of which has picked me up for syndication (yet). I can “punch up” because their horses are so high, and most especially because they don’t know I exist. But I will refrain from punching anyone, old or young, up or down, because I have faith in humanity. I was recently in attendance at a party for adults, in honor of a kid’s ninth birthday. I hung out with the kid, mostly because they had Legos, but also because I made a day-long commitment when I asked what they’ve been reading. I learned—in greater detail than the original text—about their current favorite book series, which I’m pretty certain involved a kid and most definitely dragons and the kid had bullies and also sisters (which were maybe the same people) and these other people also had dragons who weren’t allowed in the apartment complex which was a problem because CLEARLY you cannot keep your dragons OUTDOORS, especially on a day like THIS, and you don’t even understand how cool the main character’s clothing is, which she makes herself with the dragon’s keen fashion sense guiding her, but the other dragons don’t appreciate the chic bent to apartment D-3, so they bond together to wipe out both the main character and her dragon, and it’s possible the lines bled between the book series and the Lego village we were touring together while enduring the synopsis, but you get the gist and also I evaded conversations about the stock market so it was a real win-win. This: this is the greatest hope I have for the future. I’m pretty certain we’re all going to die in an overheated, ever-erratic climate like that time I forgot banana bread was in the oven. But until that happens, kids and other young people will keep reading, and bookstore sales will continue to climb so long as we have trees to make books and zealots to spike book sales by banning books. I just hope some of them are mine.
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Zach Hively
Fool's Gold I have decided to become the human version of P.F. Flyers: I want to run faster, jump higher, or at least endure nominal physical exertion without hurting my back. I have also decided to embrace who I really am, which is a man deeply averse to exercise. I have tried it all: running never gave me that mythical high. Swimming never enhanced my hearing with swimmer’s ear. And tennis? Well, I quite like my elbows just the way they are. Yet for all the distaste and disdain I have for exercise, I LOVE being active. Who doesn’t love activities? This is a word we use to coerce children and child-like adults into keeping themselves occupied for at least five minutes a stretch. “Let’s do an activity!” could lead to ANYTHING. Building the Tower of Giza or the Pyramid of Pisa out of clothespins and pasta is an Activity. Digging for the Lost Ark is an Activity. Picking up the trash that blows in from the neighbor’s yard like money-seeking relatives in the night? Most definitely an Activity. In fact, the only thing better than an Activity is a NEW Activity. This is really quite Zen, if you don’t think about it too hard: it’s the doing that matters with Activities, much more than the finishing, and if a new Activity gives your caretaker ten more minutes of effing peace and quiet, you best believe there will always be a new Activity. Of course, I don’t get such inventive variety with my Activities these days, because I spend all my time walking the dog. Both my faithful readers will remember that I recently adopted Ryzhik, who requires approximately seventeen consecutive hours of exercise each day. This contrasts with my other dog, Hawkeye, who like me prefers Activities to exercise. We are really quite alike, Hawkeye and I, and the similarities go far beyond our matching rugged handsomeness. I like throwing balls, and Hawkeye likes fetching them. I also like throwing sticks, which Hawkeye also likes fetching. We both enjoy the pure being-ness of being outside, and we both will turn around and head home rather than talk to strangers out there in the world. We will also congratulate each other on a ten-minute-constitutional well done, then settle in on the couch to re-binge a season of Daredevil. So Ryzhik has forced a bit of adjustment in our lives. It now takes three, four days to binge a full season. And walking is now a regular form of exercise, especially if I don’t want someone pulling all the coats off all the hooks in all the rooms of the house, sometimes with the hooks still attached. Ryzhik is that freakish beast who revels in exercise but can’t stand Activities. For a block of time each day, we leave Hawkeye at home for some of that well-warranted effing peace and quiet, and we go out for a destruction-prevention walk. Rather, I walk—and Ryzhik leaps up cliffs, and digs up rabbit dens, and disappears to join the circus, and returns with exotic animal skulls in his maw. He truly is a P.F. Flyer, and the reason I want to become one too is the dread that someday I will have to carry all 75 pounds of him home. Fortunately, I have a brother-in-law. Let’s call him “Scott” because that is his name. Scott is the sort of man who was born capable of lifting refrigerators. For a long time now, he has been rucking—which is the fine art of powerwalking with the equivalent mass of a Ryzhik in a backpack. “Teach me,” I said, because even after whole decades of Activities I am more likely to empty a fridge than move it. So Scott got me started—and we started smart. I selected a moderately petite rock, and Scott had me wrap it in duct tape so it wouldn’t chew up my pack. I strapped the pack to my back and took the first steps of turning Ryzhik’s walks into an Activity—hey, let’s go carry rocks for an hour! It’ll be fun! And it was, both times. I could practically feel myself getting stronger and less resistant. It’s amazing the difference that five, six whole pounds made in my worldview. Until those pounds made me take up new Activities like “should I take two or three ibuprofen this morning,” “where’s the ice pack,” and “Epsom salt baths.” Much less P.F. Flyer, much more penny loafer. Which is okay, too, because from now on, I’ll make the dog carry the rocks—in preparation for the day he needs to carry me home. |
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