Now they've gone and ruined it. The most deliciously guilty pleasure, the steady source of joy that is private and free and can be done anywhere at any time, the vice that eases anxiety and loneliness, heals old hurts, and transforms bitter lives...is being preached as good for us. A necessary chore. A worthy cause.
"St. Louis County Library, St. Louis Public Library, the UPS Foundation, KMOX Radio, and KMOV Channel 4 have teamed up to sponsor Read St. Louis, a community-wide initiative developed to encourage St. Louisans to read and discuss books," the news release warns. A bureacratic bromide, for a cultural phenomenon as radical as California's new marijuana tax and Obama's nationalization of banks combined? Books get burned. They explode assumptions. They light fires in us.
But now organizations are partnering and holding dual press conferences and making announcements and organizing our pleasure. And if they keep telling us "the Read St. Louis Program is an excellent example of St. Louis Public and St. Louis County Libraries working together to accomplish great things for the region," as county library director Charles Pace put it, the secret, arcane hobby of the electronic age will become as dull as a wheat germ smoothie.
They'd do better to ban the things altogether.
--Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer
