I have changed the look of the blog again. The list of books has been moved into the page titled "Where are they now". This page will list all the books that are out roaming the world and where they were last seen. I will update their locations as I get that information. In the near future I'm hoping to include a map showing where all the books are currently located. The second page I've added is the "Quotations" in which you will find inspirational quotes about reading. Feel free to send me any quotes you would like to include on that page. Send your contributions to the Hobo Tomes e-mail address HoboTomes@shaw.ca.
In my Feb. 15th, 2011 blog I spoke about how we live in an environment in which we are constantly being distracted by images and sounds vying for our attention. Our social milieu is one of endless interruptions limiting us to short bursts of concentration followed by long periods of sensory stimulation geared to have us engage in some form of consumption and making us feel inadequate if we don't. This became all to apparent one day as I stopped to take notice of all the "noise" that was surrounding me while I engaged in my daily workout at the local gym. I arrived as I usually do at about 7:45 am proceeded to change and head up to the exercise area. On my way I stop to fill my water bottle and put my headphones from my ipod into my ears. I was also carrying a book since it was Tuesday and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I spend an hour on the elliptical machine and with nothing else to do but move my legs and arms back and forth I set my book in front of me on the shelf designed for this and read for an hour to escape the monotony of the situation. An activity which is supposed to make me healthy, energetic and by recent newspaper accounts slow the aging process. Funny how although I have been doing this now for over six years my age still increases with every passing year and now the government has got into the act by reminding me just how old I am by insisting that I register for the Canada Pension Plan. You would think that they would knock off a couple of years for good exercising behaviour like they do for the criminals housed in our hotels of detention. So as I mount the elliptical apparatus ipod at the ready to drown out the ever present local radio station playing over the loud speakers, book clutched to my bosom I resign my self to the fact that for the next hour I will joyfully immerse my intellect in the well of words, soak my psyche with literary largess while the guy on my left loudly grunts with every stride and the lady on my right moves so fast that when I look over her way I see nothing but a human blur so fast I almost swoon. Did I mention that these machines have televisions which I immediately turn on to the business channel to watch the stock quotes as they move by at the bottom of the screen in an endless loop. Now I'm ready ipod on music playing, television set to business the channel grunty guy grunting blur lady blurring local radio station coming through during the quiet moments between songs I set the elliptical to sixty minutes open my book move my arms and legs back and forth and start reading taking my hand off the apparatus only to turn pages. The cacophony of sound and images constantly competing for my consideration unstoppable for the entire sixty minutes but yet I continue to read until the end. I finally extricate my self from from my false sense of isolation clean the machine congratulate my self for reading thirty or so pages only to realize when I get home that I don't remember a thing from the book and I'll have to read them all over again. But, hey the stock market was up, I watched the highlights from the previous nights hockey games, over heard numerous conversations, got some exercise so not all was lost especially since I stopped on the way home to pick some things I really needed.
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