Bibliophilia

Some people squander their money on gambling, others drugs, alcohol...books, books are my vice. I have an uncontrollable impulse to buy and hoard books. The worst thing is that I don't have money to squander...I am financing a compulsive book-buying habit.

Its much worse here in Denmark because every book costs you your soul (its not uncommon to pay $30-$40 USD for a book that would run you $10-$15 in the States). When it comes down to the books I own I am even crazier. I write notes to myself in the pages of books that I cannot find later. If your name and phone number makes it into the title page of a book then that's like making the hall of fame...I really think that someday people will be going through my books trying to connect all the dots and they will note these names.

I also organize and re-organize my books regularly...by genre, author's last name, first name, title. I think that if I keep shuffling the order around then its kind of a security device against book theft...book theft! I have a stereo, computer, television set, etc...my fear is that someone is going to crawl for the window and fill a sack with 18th century continental philosophy.

I want three new books but I am not going to buy them. I have a summer reading list for school that I am quite thrilled about pouring into...but where am I going to get these books? The People's Republic of Denmark? I don't think so! I need cheap books...I need my old La Jolla used bookstore.

Anyone want to guess what one of my biggest sources of anxiety is these days? I will give you a hint, its not the fact that I am halfway across the world with no job and nowhere to live in a month. Its not that I am finally getting back into theory in my education, the realization of a longtime dream, and one I have put off for years because I did not think I was mature enough coming out of undergraduate school. Its not that I have my last set of exams ever in law school looming on the very near horizon. Its that my favorite old bookstore in San Diego may go out of business while I am abroad!

Its been there for decades...and its not like my 3-4 purchases a week are floating the local economy. I have a rationalization...rationalizations with me are a dime a dozen...I could come up with a reasonable explanation for any stupid thing I have decided to do or think...I even have a rationalization for why me and my stomach are in open warfare. I think the business climate in the United States is getting increasingly hostile to small businesses. I think the real estate situation, call it a bubble, has floated San Diego for a little while now. OK, its not going out of business...it can't! Can it?

I know I often plead with people to do things...and I stick to waking up just before dawn, everyone should be doing this...but if you are from San Diego I really encourage you to use this bookstore. Its fabulous, and you can go right next door to the Panniken for tea or coffee while soaking up your newest book. It has that used bookstore smell...goodness, that smell is intoxicating to me!

Bookstores are my favorite places to hang out, even the big bourgeois chain stores. They are the most wonderful places in the modern world...Which brings me to another point. Where do Danish people read books at night? The libraries here are open like 3 days a week from 11-3. The only straight cafes, by "straight" I mean the ones that do not become dark and noisy bars at 9 pm, close at 9:30. I used to haunt the local SD cafes until the wee hours of the morning. I think I was a bit of a personality at the cafes, bookstores and the undergraduate library.

One Valentine's Day I was at the library...of course I didn't know it was Valentine's Day, I never know what day it is, and, oddly, I love the people I love everyday. Anyway I was about to leave and I thought I would grab a few documentaries for the weekend. So I go to the desk (the girl at the desk knows me from my non-stop complaining about how poor the library's holdings are)...she says, "whoa, looks like an exciting Valentine's Day evening at your place Tim." I look down at my videos, I have the two-part Trotsky biography, a bio of Lenin and one about Che Guevara..."My girlfriend is a revolutionary guerilla soldier." I don't think she bought it.

But where do the Danes read at night! I refuse to believe they all sit at home and read. Nobody likes sitting at home. My apartment is like a prison where I feel like I am holding my breath the entire time I am in here. I flee every chance I get. I know they read books. I think every Danish person I have met is either a university student or works at a university...

University students are by no means the world's most voracious readers. I can count on about 3 fingers all the avid readers I have met in the, now 4, universities I have attended. This reminds me, remember all the fuss about the Patriot Act provision whereby the federal government can see what library books you have checked out? How many Americans are seriously affected by such a provision? Five, six on a good day? I blame my mom for the book thing. It was all those book searches at garage sales and used bookstores as a child that made me into this beast!

Maybe I should evaluate law school since its over...I will wait a bit, reflect on it, cause so far I have nothing good to say except that I met a few truly exceptional people and was given the privilege of working for a wonderful professor at the university...and it gave me a good pretext to live in San Diego and Copenhagen on "the dole" as they say.