Choosing the Last Word

The Boogieman is real...

Or so he is, as per some of my conscientious friends.  The Boogieman lays in wait for our souls and our children, waiting to snatch them into the bottomless pit of perdition.  He is also a writer, and he manifests himself in the form of books that will certainly sprout legs and chase thee down.  So beware, lest thou also be overcome!

I have an avocation that I keep mostly quiet.  As conservative as I try to act and live, I don't believe in censorship.  Period.  So I make it my business to read the major titles of books that have been banned, regardless of the objection.  As a result, I have read tomes banned by Muslims, Christians, Liberals, Conservatives, Communists, Fascists and Capitalists.  I have struggled my way through some heady titles that give voice to those hungering for the advent of either the New World Order or the coming Dystopia and Fall of the Western World. 

Make no mistake; one man's Tea Party...is just the opening chapter of another man's Diary that Turns.  He that hath an ear...go interpret the previous sentence.

Recently, however, I read two titles that were judged to be unpublishable forty years ago.  Even by today's standards they offend every sensibility.  I skimmed through them both, but managed to write down key phrases that explained either the characters' or author's aesthetic.  The books had been sitting in a box - unread - for years.  Having finished them, I felt (and still feel) unsettled.  Recently, I sold them on the internet to someone else who wants to either read them or burn them.

Normally I end these missives with some question for thought.  But this time, I wish to give the Last Word to someone else, a writer who gives us the antidote to whatever mental poisons we choose to ingest:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things."

---The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:8, New Testament, The Bible (KJV)

The Tomes of Living Folk

The late Loften Mitchell once asked if I had read a particular play of his.  I stammered. But he merely chuckled and said "No!  Your friends and family don't read your stuff until after you're dead!"

My car's trunk is almost full.  Some things will go to Goodwill, others to the public library.  Others will end up at my local used book store.  I hate giving away books, but I have to face the fact that I won't be reading some of these titles.

The classic plays and literature I will keep; but there is no reason to keep some of these obscure sales training books from the 1950s, 60s and 70s (most positive thinking books say the same thing anyway).  I don't think I need these manuals from long-gone appliances.  In addition, I am chucking most of the the "Beware of the Boogieman"  conspiracy books written by Liberals, Conservatives, Christians, Atheists, Environmentalists, Educators, Afrocentrists, Eurocentrists, you name it (I don't discriminate, but I am elimnating most of these titles just the same.  I came to the conclusion long ago, that writing a book on a problem isn't the same as working to solve it.  Talk shows and speeches don't count unless you get your proverbial hands dirty.  Too many philosophers; too few workers).

Then there are the books written by authors with whom I have a personal connection.  I'll keep those. In the near future I will take the plunge and add a reader or tablet to the nerdly arsenal of electronics that I really don't want but need.  I am not an early adopter of anything; I let everybody else deal with the headaches of version 1.0 or 2.0.  But in this case, I will relent.

After all, I am eliminating most of my printed books.  I want to read the new work from my friends, formers students and associates (and I hope they would do the same for me), while we're all still alive.

Always B Positive