‘I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty - to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom...The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired.’
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Books might be a bargain for the hours of stimulation they give you. But they’re not cheap. Except at the library.

I have spent too much time on the computer since my shoulder injury made it hard to hold a book without pain. I’m going to get back to reading a few books I started but put down because they hurt my left bicep when I’d turn my left hand out like you do with a book in your hands. Reading a book is richer than flitting around the computer. I’ve learned that these weeks. Way too much time on the screen.

This was at the encampment of Occupy Wall Street in 2011. That’s gone of course. But this coming Saturday’s endorsement of Bernie Sanders by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez evokes some of that spirit. 

A teacherish-preacherish-looking guy in a crew-neck sweater and a reddish beard came by my sign this morning and went off on the school system. You can rant in cities more easily than in small towns. The thrum of traffic and ambient city noise lets you make your own noise without standing out like a lone streaker at a suburban high school football game. He stared at me while he went off. But he was speaking to the cosmos. He was there in front of me for maybe 90 seconds but that was time enough for him to make his points. I nodded in agreement on a couple points. But I did as I’ve learned to do with guys like him, I pointed at my sign.

It’s what you’d tell anyone you care about. It’s how a school system should send off its seniors. It’s what a parent should say. What a teacher should say.  Everyone should make sure their children and their students can read well.

The daily paper should monitor that. It doesn’t though. Alec Baldwin gets more ink. Deborah Harry still does. 

I saw this in the Jefferson Market Library a few years ago. I loved it. Thought it was cool that they made it, or used it even if they hadn’t put the message and the photo of Dylan together. This was before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Maybe the photo is from his days in the Village. Maybe it was taken right there in that library. It’s a wonderful library. The only neighborhood branch I know that opens on Sunday.