A Head Full of Ideas that were Driving Me Insane....

This is turning out to be one of those odd entries from the little English village of Consciousness-upon-Stream. I'll understand if you start hearing crickets chirping in the background.

An elJay Friend brought an old book friend back to mind the other day. It's a time travel novel set in the New Yorks of 1882 and 1970, which I know I've mentioned here before:

Time and Again

I could go on, and probably did originally, about the book's premise, its fabulous execution of the idea, the sequel I'd not recommend nearly as much, the pedigree of the author (the late Jack Finney, originator of the "Body Snatchers" sci-fi concept) or the sad Development Hell of efforts to get it filmed in the almost 40 ensuing years.

Not today, though. For me, for now at least, my consciousness has been sent even further downstream to the form in which I first encountered this work. It wasn't a dimestore paperback (and at the time, the paperback probably would've actually been only about a dime) or a library hardcover (though I went out and borrowed that in a hurry), but that freak of literary nature known then, and apparently still alive now, as the Readers Digest Condensed Book.

 Dude, that is IT. Fifth from the left, with the brownish cover with green titles. I can't recall if my parents had a separate subscription to these, or if it came with getting the weekly magazine at the time, but I know our house was full of the things. Most were romance or adventure tales- Finney's tale was condensed along with Halic-The Story of a Gray Seal, Six Horse Hitch, Bomber, and A Woman in a House. Classics all.

Such was the story of my childhood. Our parents had one high school diploma between them and little if any college, but they always had a love of reading which got imparted to all three kids and, through us, all three grandkids. Yet while their intentions were good, their choice of subject matter was, to say the least, a bit odd. They were heavily into collections, mainly of things like these which just arrived in the mail or at the supermarket without any effort. I must've had the world's biggest collection of 99-cent introductory volumes of encyclopedias known to man, probably explaining why my knowledge of everything from "Aaron, Hank" to "Byzantine Empire (The)" is far vaster than anything at the end of the alphabet.

My sisters were onto this racket by the time I got a hold of this one time-travel-toting tome in my 10th year. "Reader's Disgust," one of them spurned them. "Get the real things." So I did. Even so, all these years later, seeing that set of condensed books- others in that rack include that smarmy 70s tearjerker Bless the Beasts and Children (which DID get made into a movie, goddam it)- is giving me a rollup of nostalgia, much like seeing a good car accident on the side of the road between a Ford Pinto and an AMC Gremlin. Ugly, even dangerous, but you have to slow and look.

And for less than 35 dollars, including postage and packing, it can all be mine.

Someone stop me before I go blind, get stupider, or both.

(PS to She Who Started All This: the uncondensed version of this book appears to be out of print in your Amazon but quite available in ours. To stop me before I start buying useless junk, if you either email me a snail addy or the location of your amazon.com wishlist, I would be honoured to inflict bestow one on you. Even if the p&p winds up being more than the damn book, which is itself quite cheap.)

I've become quite attached to so many people here. At the wrist and ankles, which makes riding a bicycle rather interesting.

It's been tempting, and utterly lazy, for me to just use our undistinguished second person plural pronoun "you," or any of its regional variants (youse, yas, yall, allyall, allyallyouse), to express those genuine feelings of affection and appreciation.

No more. It's time to put faces to the names that move me, inspire me, feed my soul and make me laugh.

Of course, they'll be the entirely wrong faces. And therefore, no names.

( With all this talent in one room, it's no wonder they tore the school down... )