Ticket to Read

by Eleanor Brown

And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim’s Aunt, Miss Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said: "Would you like anything to read?"

—Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales

Maybe I’ve got too much time on my hands, maybe I’m looking for things to be upset about, but here’s what bothers me — we’re not reading on the train.

Stick with me here. Thousands of people take public transportation in this city every day. And it’s the same public transportation, the same train, going on the same track. The R5 driver doesn’t get bored and decide to take the scenic route through Arizona on the way into the city. The Market Street buses don’t go down Chestnut for a change. There’s nothing new to see out there.

People get on public transportation every day, and they ride for 20 minutes, or 40 minutes, or an hour, each way, at least five days a week. And look at what they’re doing. Go ahead. Look. Just do that thing where you pretend you’re rubbing your chin on your shoulder, or your shoulder on your chin, or whatever it is you’re supposed to look like you’re doing, but would never do in real life unless you were surreptitiously looking around.

Done? All right. What were they doing? Right. Nothing. They’re all staring into space. Can you believe that? Look again. Do the other shoulder this time. Yeah, that’s right. An entire carful of people who aren’t doing anything. Sure, there’s that one woman with the walkman on, the headphones down around her chin instead of on her head (because that looks so much less idiotic), but she looks bored too. And there’s the standard-issue a-little-too-friendly guy talking about his failed marriage or his investments, but you don’t want to listen to that unless you’re the poor soul who’s actually wedged in next to him.

So we’ve got thousands of people taking this system every day, and nearly all of them spend that time staring vacantly into space. Now you could go ahead and try to argue that they’re all solving complicated algebraic proofs in their heads, or considering the precise chemical combination that would produce an easy-to-swallow pill to cure cancer, the common cold and halitosis, but I’m not buying it. Especially that woman with the headphones hanging off her face. She’s not thinking about a darn thing, although she is performing, albeit inadvertently, a complex Newtonian gravitational test.

Nope, these people are spending their time doing absolutely nothing.

And most importantly, they’re not reading.

Maybe they’ve never noticed that when you walk toward the tracks, there are handy machines which dispense newspapers, some of them even for free.

Maybe nobody told them that you can actually purchase books, and sometimes even borrow them. It’s called a library. Big building. Lots of books. You can’t miss it.

We’re decrying the state of education in this city and in the country as a whole, but what do we expect? If you can’t be bothered to read even the latest John Grisham on the train, why do you think your kids will spontaneously become highly literate Rhodes scholars? If you prefer Montel to Oprah’s Book Club, why would you be surprised to read a personal ad and discover that the average philandering Philadelphian is stymied by the difference between "discreet" and "discrete"?

There are people who make fun of romance novels, or mysteries, or any author who isn’t dead already. Screw ’em. Read. It’s not complicated. There are newspapers and libraries and bookstores and websites and … well, you get the picture.

Yo, Philly. Pick up a freakin’ book, will youse?

Eleanor Brown is a freelance writer and fiction author. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (650 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper news editor, 123 Chestnut St., Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.