Oh, sure, books can be highbrow and uplifting, full of intelligence, wit, and deep knowledge and giving the reader a deeper understanding of the human condition. But they don't have to be. Some books just waste time more or less well when you're doing something else.(And those books I try to tuck away on weekends, when I can.)
So here's something called The Bathroom LOL Book
, part of the Bathroom Library and published by a press I've never heard of from a small town in northern New Jersey. (It has an ISBN and everything, though no printed price I can find.) It was compiled by Jack Kreismer, with Russ Edwards as Head Writer, and I have no idea how it found it's way into my house.(Was it a jokey gift? Did I buy it for a quarter at some random sale? Did I see it for free somewhere and grab it as a lark? Any of those are possible, but I doubt I actually paid retail for it.)
In any case, somehow I got this book, and I have just finished using it in the requisite manner. It's old-fashioned, full of the kind of humor that people my age found mildly funny and deeply embarrassing when uncles pressed it on us twenty or thirty years ago. It's copyright 2011, but it feels like an artifact of the '70s or earlier to me, despite the jokes about cell phones and the Internet. It's full of little snippets -- jokes and quotes from comedians and supposedly true stories without a single citation or shred of evidence -- so that it can be read in easy increments, depending on the time available.
You will probably never come across this book, or any of the similar books in the Bathroom Library. But, if you do, know this: it is deeply old-fashioned, but functions well in its place. And don't we all want that?
Book-A-Day 2014 Introduction and Index
No comments:
Post a Comment