======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
I wouldn’t call myself an old soul. Far from it actually. I love technology, the advances we’ve made as a society, and all the free porn money can buy. Outside of the music, there’s not any part of me that thinks I could survive thirty years ago. We’re living in a modern world and I am a modern girl. That all being said, there’s one ‘old school’ practice that I think we need to fight to preserve, because it’s dying and it is NOT for the betterment of the world. And that, my friends currently reading a blog on their computer/phone/tablet, is reading a fucking book.
There used to be a day where novelists were rock stars. Hemingway used to sling peen all throughout the globe, publishing books and scoring 11/10’s. A woman for every page he wrote. Now people wouldn’t recognize Hemingway if he walked into the Starbucks you’re probably sitting in, partly because he’s been dead for 55 years and you’ve got your faced buried in your phone anyway, but primarily because nobody reads! And it really pisses me off.
Writing is a gorgeous art form. The way some of these writers can evoke such powerful emotion is simply perfection. And it sucks because nobody will ever read it. People are more interested in taking someone’s masterpiece and turning it into a two-hour motion picture that probably sucks donkey dick.
Maybe I’m coming across a little too much like Hank Moody, but you know what? Who fucking cares. There’s so much out there besides – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – Seinfeld re-runs and FIFA. You know what goes really nicely with a trip to the beach, or lounging on the porch drinking an aptly named Sam Adams Porch Rocker? A book. And fiction at that. Not some Hamilton-inspiring Alexander Hamilton biography. But an effing novel.
We’re currently living in a time when culture moves a mile a minute. We’ve got Biebs dropping auditory cocaine on our asses in the dead of the night, and you wouldn’t have known about it unless you were plugged in like a Glad fragrance. You turn on the TV and you get an insane number of channels, plus all the streamable content on your SmartTv via Netflix and the like. There’s so much content out there. Almost too much. And while it might make you anxious thinking about unplugging for a few hours and just sitting and reading, I suggest you try it sometime. It’s not so bad; I recently tried it out and survived to tell the tale. It’s exceptionally freeing; it’s nice to read something other than the Twitter feed.
Maybe I’m being old fashioned, but get a hard copy of the book, too. None of that Kindle business. Unless you’re reading at night and you need that backlight. That’s actually pretty handy. But having the physical copy of the book is just plain enjoyable. It’s got that new book smell. You feel the pages. You feel the weight of the book. And you just look smart reading a book. Guys, chicks dig the long ball, but they also dig guys who read. There’s an Instagram account dedicated to this called Hot Dudes Reading. Somehow I’ve slipped through the cracks and have yet to be featured on there. Someday soon, though.
I’m not suggesting you stop reading PGP because we like your #pageviews, but I’m simply asking you to go to a bookstore this weekend, buy a novel, and read it intermittently between PGP columns. If you don’t know where to start, or what to read, DM ya boi. I’ve got recommendations like a damn hotel concierge..
Respond
Boston Max
Spending my retirement fund at Trader Joe's and trying to remember to check my mailbox semi-regularly
@BostonMaxG
@boston_maxg
George R.R. Martin is forsure slinging peen
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
via GIPHY
Anytime someone says they just “don’t read”, I die a little inside. Reading a real, non-Kindle book is so underrated these days.
Same with the newspaper on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Y’all should open the good book! My biography is in there, from four different view points!
The movies are better.
Are you talking about “The Passion of the Christ” by Mel Gibson? He has no right to direct a movie based on my life. He’s nuts and is an anti-semitic.
He is an anti-Semite or he is antisemitic. Pick one
My apologies, I don’t use either of those words often. Regardless, Mel is an asshole. That one I use more often and can spell correctly.
I forgive you, Jesus
Forgiving Jesus. PGPM?
Not knowing how to read. PGP
Fitzgerald’s short story anthologies are great. You can knock out a few 20 page stories per week and still have time for SportsCenter and The Bachelorette.
Fuck you, stop trying to make me better myself.
What if I turn on subtitles?
We’re living in a modern world and I am a modern girl.
Hot Dudes Reading. Somehow I’ve slipped through the cracks and have yet to be featured on there.
What is happening?
I’m male if you’re for some reason baffled
I read this thinking you were a woman until the very end. Your writing voice was confusing in this article.
No more giant jenga at bars, summer and now tv? When will the PGP crusades end?!
You forgot tattoos, house parties with people you don’t know, and probably a few others I’m missing.