Fire Walk With Me

I remember writing an essay in the good ole days when I had essays to write, arguing that Jabberwocky is nonsense. All attempts to impose a meaning to it being the result of the human need for order in the midst of chaos. Lewis Carroll himself may have said that he didn't mean anything more than nonsense, but good ole David Buchbinder eked out a meaning - calling it a quest, etc, etc.

Which may be why I read so voraciously these days, attempting to find the hidden code to what is happening in the world now, stringing together random words from various books like some sick Dadaist poem, fingers...desperately....turning....pages....

And I watch Twin Peaks which was one helluva mystery beyond the murder mystery and the "who was Laura Palmer, really?"....and wish and wish and wish they had the sense to allow a third season so it wouldn't have finished in the air, so to speak, with the bad Dale returning from the Black Lodge. I mean, it ended on a cliffhanger, for crying out loud. A cliffhanger and they cancelled it...so the ending was European, at best, leaving you with more questions than answers.

I had lunch with a good friend today and we talked of many things and I told her about Plot Against America which I had just finished and which she would probably like as she followed the recent elections so closely, listening to every debate, following the issues and arguments, while I avoided all of the same.

And I walked into a bookshop to get a birthday present for a friend and ended up buying two other books (one depression memoir, another an appetite memoir) because I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't resist them (although I have enough books unread to last me till the end of the year, and that's if I read fast).

And I realise that the only place I get the candy store reaction, is the bookshop. You could turn me loose amidst oodles of chocolate and I would make my desultory way through, maybe tasting a bar here and there, but not really caring, you could turn me loose in a make-up counter, or amidst clothes and shoes and bags, and I would get bored, tired and ask the air...aren't we done yet? Can we go home now? Please?

But a bookshop, now that's different. I recognise the signs of addiction. It was like that time when I had nothing but juices (fruit and vegetable) over the course of a month and I started going wonky in my head, reading recipes like it was extremely accomplished porn, closing my eyes and tasting bloody meat on my tongue, fantasising about spaghetti and meatballs and avoiding Kentucky Fried Chicken because the aromas made me miserable. Aromas that I normally ignored or never even registered when I was eating normally.

And that's how I am with a bookshop, even when I have loads to read and re-read....and I don't understand why.

But excuse me, I have to go read one of my new books now.