The Readers of Park Slope

Found and pocketed, last night, on the way home from Freddy's:

1 copy of Dante's Inferno, on a lamppost
1 copy of John Updike's Rabbit, Run, on a stoop

Seen and resisted:

The contents of a depressed intellectual's renounced life, in a cardboard box. Contents included Dostoyevsky and Thomas Mann novels, and a single black eyepatch. Hurrah! The Wicked Witch is Dead!

Elsewhere, a brownstone homeowner on 6th avenue has clearly had the dream shattered. Her stash of Daphne Du Maurier novels (and it was exhaustive) lay on her stoop's second to last step, naked and offered to the world.

It's a neighbourhood of readers, reading and releasing, reading and releasing, furiously.

Trash treasure hunters, def.

Those of us who have half an eye cocked permanently on the kerbs (curb for the Americans, kantsten for Danes) of new york city for riches, especially on garbage days.

Good Intentions

I found a page from a book sitting on the ground on my block two days ago. Just reached down and picked it up. You never know what might be incredibly interesting in this town, and where you might find it. Here's what it said:


HERE WE GO QUIETLY NUTS IN MAY

Do you hanker for April showers
Or a rarefied day in June?
Give me a grade-A May day,
And please deliver it soon.
I am weary of branches naked,
Creaking like lovelorn cats;
The earth underfoot half bak`ed
And the sun overhead ersatz.
Send me a balmy zephyr
To play me a rigadoon,
And I'll gulp of my grade-A May day
Till my hiccups hammer the moon.


On my big walk yesterday, I walked the block on the other side of the street, and spotted several more dogpissed-on and new york shoe'd on sheets of the same book, and my response was ecstatic. More book, more book! I left one page there, because it had fresh dogpiss on it, and that was just a step too far for me on that occasion. I will, however, have a look out there today, see if it's dried.

One of the pages is, luckily enough, a cover page, with the words Good Intentions written on it, so I'm guessing that's the name of the book.

So I'll be posting what I have of this anonymous book in intervals over the next while. I have five pages, printed on both sides.

Prospect Heights News: free book offering riches unclaimed!

Book in cardboard box outside a Brooklyn brownstone:
"WEALTH, without risk, going out on a limb, or making any effort whatsoever"

It stuck around highly visible in the little box on the block for about sixteen hours yesterday.

The book was reported having disappeared finally, around 10. The nice bowling shoes are still there.

Hurry.