The Things You Find When You're Not Looking For Them

This morning I stumbled across the website for The Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Appreciation Society, which is exactly what it sounds like: a group of New Yorkers (mostly young and female, from the pictures) who have been getting together for at least the past two summers to read Hard Case Crime and similarly noirish stuff, usually in Central Park, with their tops off. (There also seems to be a connected series of read-ins on the roof deck of some building, where full nudity is allowed.)

Yes, there are pictures, and many of those pictures will not be safe for work. That seems to be the point of it: it's more "look at us having fun reading and tanning with no shirts on" than "and here's what we thought of these books." I've chosen one tame image to put here, to illustrate the concept. (If anyone from OCTPAS comes by and wants me to remove it, my e-mail is in the right sidebar.) I'm also happy to see the focus is clearly entirely on the fact that they think this is a fun thing to do, and not on wanting people to look at them. (There's plenty of the other on the Internet already, of course.)

I was hoping for book criticism, but tits are pretty darn nice, too. I never want to be someone who complains about tits; that would be sad. But it would be swell if those readers wrote a tad more about what they read, particularly the ones that multiple topless readers enjoyed -- because that could make a completely wonderful back-of-book blurb.

Still, this is an activity that should be encouraged. Well, both of them: reading and public toplessness. Not necessarily together, I suppose, but there is a lovely chocolate-and-peanut-butter piquancy to the combination. The world turns out to be a little more interesting and exciting than I thought it was when I got up this morning.