Last to Jump on the Wagon, First to Fall Off...

Just curious...Do people still blog? Is blogging still trendy? Does anyone actually read these things? Anyway. It looks like I am blogging for the moment, why I have no clue. Perhaps, its because I am bored with Facebook. Its very typical of me to jump on a bandwagon after its no longer popular and be really, really into it. I do everything in my own time...or it may just be that I curiously created this blog and now I can't figure out how to delete it and now feel I must do something with it. damn my computer illiteracy.

Perhaps, I am tired of having no one to talk too about great books and good literature. The truth is...and its hard for me to accept this... is nobody wants to talk about Herman Melville, The Scarlet Letter, Walden Pond, or William Shakespeare -- especially Shakespeare, they will accuse you of snobbery and putting "on airs" if you try to talk about Shakespeare at a bar or cocktail party and may try to punch your lights out or kick you in the nuts (the philistines always go for the nuts)...No, the Bard is much too dangerous in a bar. However, You can quote Mark Twain freely in a bar so long as you occasionally misquote him or act as if the passage is something you read on a bumper sticker while sitting at a traffic light...then add, "f*cking traffic!" 

I find Kerouac, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Poe all work in a bar setting but not a cocktail party. (trust me, nothing kills the mood of a fancy-schmancy cocktail party like reciting, "Annabel Lee") It's safe to discuss Russian writers in a bar, because they all have great last names. The kind of last names that sound like they would make for a good drinking buddy (Tolstoy. Chekhov. Dostoyevsky...) Plus, they are Russian. Russians are known to drink like its an Olympic Sport and they don't care if they get the gold they just want to compete and want competition. 

They know the Belle of Amherst in bars but they know her as the local girl, who has a certain sadness about her and a love of books. a quick wit and a way with words. the local girl who is easy to seduce with a kind word or a half-hearted romantic gesture. Poor Emily Dickinson, its a good thing you were a recluse and liked to drink alone. 

To play it safe, regardless of the situation be it bar or cocktail party, it is best to say you simpy saw the movie adaptation of something but you did NOT read the book. Then add that you kind of liked the movie but follow that with a sarcastic side comment of, "if you know, you like that sort of thing..."

Cheers,

Chad