I love the library.

I have spent my last two days, almost in their entirety, at the local library. I love the silence of mind, I love the company of so many brilliant minds, and most of all I love the whispered scheming and hushed dreams that bounce off every shelf and every hardback. I overheard two probably high-school aged boys planning their great escape to some tropical destination (most likely Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Chicago or at least I hope so for their sake). Then I remembered my initial achings for the coast. What took me there, how I got there, and I envied their youth. I was jealous of their naivete, and for the first time in my life I felt old.

How did I get here.

The byline is a question I ask myself frequently. With each passing day decisions are made which have inconsiderable implications on the rest of your life. I have since attempted to ask myself before any reasonable decision...how will this affect me one year from now? Five years from now? 10 years from now? Not that I will answer these questions even remotely accurately, but the magnitude of the power with which I am granted every waking hour is exhilarating and should be for you as well. Happy trails.

mb.

Inside of the New Year.

Rarely, does a day begin with a bang but no day in this global society starts (or ends like the preceding day) quite like the first of January. We drink, we celebrate, we tell people we love with whom we may not have seen for a year, and it is good. We are able to start afresh. For one night we are pure, clean, and happy. There is no debt, no sorrow, no stress, that is until we wake up on January 1st. Then life returns to normal and the rigors of the everyman awake with you. So to all of you out there, I hope you had the best New Year's Eve (or start to a New Year) you could have had.

Best wishes.
mb.

Books by the Dozen.

I have constructed a list of "essential books" that I need to add to my collection and have realized that it is fiscally impossible for me to do so via Amazon or Borders or the likes...

I have therefore started hitting thrift store after thrift store (pounding the pavement as they say) in search of the books on my list. Today, I was able to cross three off my list thanks to thrift store in Belleville, Illinois owned by a friend of mine's brother. I was able to secure each book for a staggering two quarters a piece. I have realized this is the only way to buy books anymore; classics anyways. Sometimes you can even find affordable first editions.

Tomorrow, I will post the list.

Change. Is Our Responsibility.

For those of you that try to remain current, like I try to do, on the happenings of the United States we are probably all too familiar with the the current laundry list of ailments that plague this nation. An outdated infrastructure, a trillion dollar deficit on top of our calamitous debt, a poorly regulated health care system, an elite that is growing wealthier, a middle-class that is growing poorer, an ongoing war in the graveyard of empires, a global climate issue which is approaching irreversible, a sensationalist media (and public), and a democratic system that I believe does not allow for our elected representatives to address these long-term issues.
I, probably like you, understand the enormous undertaking our generation is going to have to take to resolve at least a handful of these problems, but I, probably like you, have done very little, if anything to address them. We live in a generation of bloggers, talking heads, inter-connectivity to the highest extent, and in short, brevity (Twitter forces us to summarize our actions in 140 characters or less.) We can analyze and discuss until we are blue in the face but what does that change? I don't have the answers to any of these great questions but I'm positive that we do. I don't have any of the solutions to these great problems, but I"m sure one of us will.
Last November I drove to the Obamapalooza rally in Grant Park. Grown men hugged, elderly women cried, college students sang and danced, and we were excited. I think we realized, far too quickly, that one person, one name, one hope cannot change a system two centuries old, but we can. This great nation is ours to inherit, but so are the problems.

Up in the Air at the Moolah.

Last night, my entire family (on my mother's side) ventured out to the Moolah theater off Lindell in St. Louis (if you have never been it comes with my highest recommendation because I looove drinking beer while watching a movie) to watch the new Jason Reitman film, Up in the Air. If right now you are wondering why my entire family, including grandmother, went to see a movie together it was because my uncle has a short role in it. (In the youtube trailer up top he is the smiling Joe at 27 seconds.) Anyways, the movie was charming, funny, everything it was supposed to except it had a fairly odd ending. An ending that everyone I went with didn't seem to enjoy. Don't get me wrong the movie was very good, but in the last 20 minutes fell just short of being great. I bet it will be nominated for an Academy Award now that they expanded the Best Picture category nonetheless.
One of the highlights of the night was trying the Samuel Smith's Organic Lager, which was delicious. One of the lowlights was getting shalacked at darts.

MTV's Joisy Sho is Grade A Trash TV.

Popped off t-shirts, wannabe pornstars, and a man named "The Situation" make MTV's second episode of Jersey Shore as compelling as the two-hour premiere. Angelina, the house's self-proclaimed cock-blocker, made an early exit when she was fired from her job after her married boyfriend decided to break it off. The teaser for the next episode highlights a girl in the house getting smoked in the beak, more hot tub hookups (which has to be littered with bacteria unknownst to most), and lots of other drama. With my Thursday night lineup of The Office and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ending their seasons tonight Jersey Shore just climbed to the top of my TiVo queue.