Alright folks, now that we’re out of election season, we can begin to really address the important issues close to home. While we could begin tackling little issues—such as the U.S. finally clawing itself out of this recession and resuscitating a suffocated education system—let’s instead set our sights on the big issue facing modern America: finding and persecuting the people who write notes in the margins of library books.
No longer can we allow this domestic terrorism to run rampant in our universities or counties. Who are these people? Why do they brainwash themselves into thinking their handwriting will be unobtrusive additions to the work at hand? What sort of egomaniacal issues are they dealing with to believe their thoughts on a writer’s work are worthy to grace the same page with such “crystalline thought” and “genius criticism?”
Without your assertion on how mirrors in “The Great Gatsby” represent self-evaluation, I never would’ve been able to dissect the protagonist’s identity crisis. Also, your note, “Green light = symbol?”
I don’t know what I would’ve done without this landmark to help guide me through the complex workings of the plot. The least you could’ve done is return to the page and write what you’ve so cleverly concluded about the green light to help the rest of us. Where’s the follow-through?
The most disappointing thing for a reader is to crack open one of John Steinbeck’s novels to find a tangle of black scribbles where blank spaces are supposed to be. What was so ephemeral about the thought “Eden is paradise” that you couldn’t put the book down, find a sheet of paper and write it there? To those of you who aren’t readers, imagine your favorite album. Now, occasionally Ke$ha, Chris Brown and Toby Keith get to interrupt when they please and lay down their own versions of the songs right on top of the original.
Yeah. It’s terrible.
Here’s the deal. Before you write down your genius brainstorm on the author’s work—a work which, no doubt, took many years of true creative process—take a moment and assess the legitimacy and applicability, the quality of your thought and if it truly needs to be there. I’ll do the work for you: It absolutely does not need to be there. Leave your terrible ideas for your Twitter followers, not the rest of us on campus. Honestly, there has not been one illuminating comment I’ve read in a library book in my seven years at San Diego State, let alone my lifetime. Every time I’m forced to read someone else’s pithy thought, I feel mentally violated.
The sense of self-entitlement and wanton vanity these people possess astounds me. I can never decide if the offender doesn’t realize there will be other readers after him or her, or if they just don’t care.
And really, the whole loaned-book issue presents itself as a microcosm for the larger issues our world faces. In life, we often have to deal with people who are wildly apathetic or infuriatingly arrogant. Those who won’t show up to fight for what they believe in, and those who will show up to anything just to fight someone who doesn’t have the same ideals.
Whoever these animals are, they need to be hunted down and publicly shamed. Let’s organize a committee—or better yet, a posse. How can we get the attention of the community for new posse members? Social media is too mainstream and canvasing is too anti-green. Instead, we’ll write a note in big permanent markers on the back page of every library book: “New posse! The Defenders of Love Library! Meet down at the turtle pond at 6 p.m. sharp. Bring pitchforks and torches. Oh, and a vegan-friendly dish for the potluck. See you then.”
The best punishments out there aren’t the ones that make you think about what you’ve done, but publicly shame you, as my mother always said. That’s why we’ll tattoo offenders with our pithy, critical thoughts about them. If I were an offender, I’d have, “Hairy” “Thinks he’s god’s gift,” and “Disappointingly below average” tatted on me. All true, all so redundantly obvious, there’d be no need to permanently pen them into my skin.
So let’s remember there are other people around us. Let’s be considerate of one another, and leave the note-making for the experts.
