When I went to sit down at the coffeeshop at Powell's Books today, the guy next to me was thrilled to see that I'd grabbed the illustrated Strunk & White (which is beautifully executed, by the way). He said he'd been carrying around the nonillustrated version for the past month, meditating on the ultimate goal of any piece of writing: to have the reader understand exactly what you meant.
Anyway, this guy really wanted to chat, and I really wanted to read an essay in the new Tin House about following poet Richard Hugo's footsteps (good fodder for Montana nostalgia), so I politely withdrew from conversation. But a bit later he persisted.
"Look around," he said. "Don't you want to know what everyone here is reading?" I scanned the room and understood exactly what he meant. Like a NYC subway car, the coffeeshop at Powell's always has an amazing number of people who are completely engrossed in printed materials. If I'm in the right mood, I do wonder.
"I'm gonna find out," he said. He stood on his chair and cleared his throat. "I've never done anything like this before," he announced, "but I'm reading a really good book, and I want to tell all of you about it. And I'm wondering what you're reading. I'm going to sit right here at this table and if you want to come find out what I'm reading, and tell me about what you're reading, I'll be right here."
I was instantly transported to Ecuador, to the public buses, platforms for salespeople (who many times were under the age of 10) who would give speeches about amazing new products--juices for energy, candy that captured the flavors of jungle fruit, hair loss solutions--and everyone would ignore them. But the guy in Powell's had better luck than those salespeople in Ecuador. When I left, he was discussing a book about teaching writing with a curious stranger.
