Meditation on The Great Gatsby: 1953 Paperback Edition

I recently read The Great Gatsby for a book discussion group. I happened to have a paperback copy of the book that my dad used when he was in college. The $1.50 printed price was only one of many visual cues that this was a relic from a bygone era. In my head the Mondrian-esue, sea-foam green minimalist cover, now very faded with sans serif font, belied an attempt by the publisher to market this particular tome to the bohemian hipster set. The fruitlessness of that particular project seemed slightly wrongheaded, as any fan of the stream of consciousness of the beat writers would have felt swindled by Fitzgerald’s elegant, sometimes dense prose. He used words like an artist would work with solid steal beams in a gloriously complex abstract sculpture, not a single element wasted or out of place.

I am a fan of reading used books. There is a particular kind of nerd that gets excited to see someone else’s handwriting in a book. I would be that particular kind of nerd. To see someone else’s notes in the margins or a well-placed “Hmmm” next to a sentence that wouldn’t have elicited the same thought for me adds another layer of appreciation to the reading act. I’ll never forget the mysterious, sprawling mathematical equations in pencil that accompanied several pages of the local library’s copy of Zen and the Motorcycle Maintenance, looking something like very orderly, concisely hieroglyphics to me.

The Lonely Planet: Satori in the Produce Section

I have come to love grocery store Saturdays. In the morning I’ll roll out of bed at whatever time I feel like it, go to the store with list in hand and make my rounds through the aisles at a leisurely pace. I do my best to not get run over by the people in their motorized carts who have ostensibly given up on upright life and go to the check-out counter, smile at the middle-aged cashier as a couple weeks’ worth of food goes parading between us, each item making that beep sound. Sometimes I’ll ask a particularly unenthusiastic cashier if they ever get tired of hearing the beeping. It comes from all of the registers in the store during an eight hour shift. Ceaseless-the actual sound of sustenance and commerce.

(I keep to myself the idea that I wish the cash register manufacturers would design their systems with adjustable pitches for the beeps. Imagine how much more interesting the check-out process would be if each register was tuned to a different scale degree. Every day would present the opportunity for employees to participate in a brand new aleatoric piece of music.)

Ivan Drago vs Magneto

“I’m better”

“Nuh uh, I’m better.”

Ivan Drago and Magneto glared at one another with jaws clenched and eyes full of hatred. The two men were firmly entrenched in a verbal battle of which one of them was superior to the other and neither was ready to yield. Eventually, as these things usually do, the verbal battle escalated into one of physical proportions.