Books, words, letters: a post about literary downsizing

We are staying in an incredibly beautiful apartment in Northampton, MA. Though I have not met the woman who lives here, I like her. This is easily explained. What I mean to say is, I like her books.

Nevermind the bedroom shelf, which already has me on board, stocked as it is with Toni Morrisons and Barbara Kingsolvers. And I won't even start counting at the bathroom reading material that includes Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini as well as 1,000 Places To See Before You Die.

The bookshelf in the hallway has enough to make me never want to leave (well, that and there are 53 steps up to this place). The eclectic nature of the gathered books is what strikes you first – Bloomingdale's Illustrated 1886 Catalog down from William Styron's Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. How about the plays of Sartre and Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare? In a pile that looks a lot like college texts we find a fat, weathered Webster's New World Dictionary, Cultures Under Siege and Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life. There is this all-star line-up: All's Quiet on the Western Front, The Scarlet Letter, Little Women, Breakfast at Tiffany's. There is the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Water Trails of Western Massachusetts, Best American Short Stories 1998, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and A People's History of the United States by the late Howard Zinn. Reading Lolita in Tehran is three shelves down from Lolita herself which is propped next to Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? Frankly, just ogling this collection -- it's exhilarating, really.

I am currently reading a book called Reading the OED by Ammon Shea (OED = Oxford English Dictionary) (I think my sister gave it to Mike at some point. Thanks, Rita.) It's amusing to say the least. I thought Shea was a little loony talking about his fervor for dictionaries, but all I have to do is stop and catch my own reflection to see that those who live in geeky glass houses, should probably stay away from anything that looks too much like a rock. Or, something like that.

This man has read thousands and thousands (and thousands) of words and then chosen a few from each letter to share with us and comment on. I, in turn, will share just a portion of my favorites with you...like Porporate – the state of wearing purple; or Paneity – the state of being bread. There is Antithalian – opposed to fun or merriment and Bemissionary - to annoy with missionaries. After Inquilinate - to dwell in a strange place, the author relates his experience living in Los Angeles. I love Onomatomania - vexation at having difficulty in finding the right word. And of course there is Filiism – an excessive bias for one's own son.

Books, words. They are so much fun. Isaac still has a few amusing phrases I am loathe to correct, like “On your March, get set, go!” or “back and forest,” and, that old standby, “Elmo's Glue.”

Books, words. When you break it all down, we end up in letters. Isaac finds them everywhere these days. In tree branches. In his shoe laces. Twisting his craft material of choice – pipecleaners – over and and over again into letter after letter. He is fond of drawing letter combos as one-liners. (Graphic designer, anyone?)

Just in terms of full disclosure of geekdom, I have been writing a series of poems based on the letters of the alphabet and their historical derivation. Yes, it's that bad.

My poem for O is called “Learning to Write” and stars none other than my only son. The letter O is descended from the Semitic “ayin,” meaning “eye” in Phoenician. The poem begins like this:

“Look, Mama. I can draw an O.”

He meets the single, curved line perfectly, then makes another, and another.

If the writer is in love with sentences, she must be just mad for syllables,
have to cast herself prostrate before letters.

We begin here, before “Beowulf” in its squirrelly Old English,
before Dickinson's private genius, before Mandelstam
and whatever the last thing was he scrawled in that exquisite Cyrillic
the night Stalin's henchman dragged him away for the last time,
before Langston Hughes could sing out “Harlem,”
before Sharon Olds held poems “heavy as poached game” in her hands,

letters. O.

May you all slow down enough to notice and cherish the smallest among us.