My complete and utter freaking, crazed neuroses has resulted in my actually getting my shit together more than I expected. I have a whole lot of sunscreen, an ocean of mosquito repellent, khakis, linen and all sorts of anti-this and that viral load roiling through my veins. I might try to pack this weekend.

Most surprisingly of all, I got a shitload of work done this week, including a list of what kind of crap I can do remotely, what kind of crap can wait and what kind of crap some poor, co-working schmoe might have to help file, send, sign, email, fax, burn or shred. It felt like a well-earned mellow Friday night.

M. and I strolled down the street to peruse the billions of possible morsels we could dine upon in the ‘hood. Meanwhile, I had completely forgotten to tell M. about seeing Susan Jacoby talking up her new book on the U.S. of A.’s growing anti-intellectualism on The Colbert Report the other night.

I wanted to remember, tell M. and possibly buy him the book, because Susan Jacoby mentioned a statistic near and dear to his heart — half of Americans haven’t read a book in the last year. None, not a romance, a pulp novel, a smarmy self-helper, a graphic, pornographic novel. No books. Half of us. None.

M. has three, four or five books he’s cycling through at any given time. His book consumption is as constant as his rice and barbecued pork consumption, and by that I mean a fucking lot. Mostly, they are non-fiction with a capitalist, business, economic bent. But, books they are. He also enjoys nothing more than a couple of hours in front of his big ass TV channel surfing from the crappiest movies ever, murder dramas and CNN.

M. has come home from work on a thousand or so different occasions with variations on the observation, “Other people in my office don’t read books.” Sometimes it’s a self-conscious question, “Do you think I’m weird for reading books all the time?” More often it’s a question about others, “How can people not read?”

I’m way down on the keeping up with M. book-wise. I’m voracious for news and articles and spend a fair bit of time keeping up with the current events of the work I do for pay. My rationalization, poor as it is, for not reading more and not keeping up with fiction for sure is that time reading is time not writing. That doesn’t make me a complete boob, does it?

Anyway, I forgot about The Age of American Unreason and went about my life. This life included the aforementioned stroll in search of dinner.

Dinner we had, and where else did M. want to go afterward during our nighttime constitutional perambulation? The local independent bookstore, Kepler’s.

I saw the pile of red books displayed before I heard the speaker and noticed the crowd in folding chairs. It was Susan Jacoby herself, again talking up her book. Live and in person in our very own neighborhood.

“The Age of American Unreason” (Susan Jacoby)

It’s a book I will likely read in paperback. It’s a sad truth in my intellectual weakness, but I hefted the book and deemed it too heavy to carry on my upcoming string of international flights. My brain is small and atrophied, as are my wrists.

It does feel as though we, the people, have been dumbed down collectively, although Hamilton rather disdained the rabble such as we are back in the day. Jacoby’s stories and connections are compelling.

However, I looked over the mostly grayed and white-haired heads bobbing in agreement in the crowd, and I couldn’t jump in with both feet and show my support. Sure, the point of computers and electronic communication and access to information as mere tools is a sound one. But, books are tools, too. They are no more magical and imbued with mystic healing properties and wisdom. There’s as much useless, dull, pointless and anti-intellectual dreck in the library, as there is on the old ‘puter.

Take the guy harshing on the culture today plugged in 24/7 to iPods and how listening to music as a constant soundtrack was impairing people from critical thinking. Or, old, bookstore-going dude, I’m listening to my friend’s recordings of violin quartets after she explained some rudimentary music theory to me, or I’m listening to NPR podcasts, audiobooks or classic radio bits from Bob and Ray. I’m sorry was your judgmental swipe and assumption that all iPods are loaded with Deathcab for Cutie more intellectual than thou or am I too dumb to get your point?

I guess for me, I wanted to stop the nodding heads of complacent agreement about those other people out there getting all dumbed down and explain that they were perhaps missing something in the books versus computer/TV/video screen either-or argument that seemed to be seeping into the conversation. Hell, sure, now with the speed of the internet, assertions can become fact and conspiracy theories and freakish lies become worthy of discourse without merit. But, the same intranet instantly spawns associations of like-minded individuals collectively correcting the lies and distortions.

That second effect of the internet seems powerful to me in positively affecting public discourse.

I can think people who take Wikipedia at face value without understanding it as a tool, an end not a means, as anti-intellectual. But, I cannot dismiss the body collective who contribute their esoterically tiny or their vast and varied knowledge and verifiable facts as the great drooling masses, because they haven’t produced or consumed books.

M., punkass punk that he is, walked over to me, as I stood in the back of the book talk, and whispered “elitists.” Wherever does he feel such sarcasm is acceptable?

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