The Stuff that Makes Feeny(...Feeny....Fee-hee-hee-heeny....) Cry

reading is sexy.

A Good Read...

addicted to reading and writing

Any of these names sound familiar? They should. Chances are you're affiliated with one of them. Actually, probably not since these are the Facebook (as if you didn’t know--the myspace for college and regrettably high school students) groups for literature, as in books not found in the grocery store. In reality, you're more likely to be part of the "Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good... And Want to Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too" group. In fact, not one of the aforementioned groups boasts more than 5,000 members, let alone a couple hundred. Looking at the first five pages of search results for "reading," the literary group in the lead is "Admit it, you cried at least once while reading Harry Potter 7." Total membership: 1763. Many would say Harry Potter doesn't count when it comes to true literature, but most everyone would say reading it is better than not reading at all. Statistics show that those who do read only read four books a year, on average. Why do most of us chuck reading the classics onto the backburner? Has television made us that lazy? At Berkeley, of all places, there’s even an “I Hate Reading” group.

What sparked my mini research project was the group “No, I haven't read that great literary classic--But I've seen the Wishbone!” Sadly, I have seen every Wishbone episode ever made, and I’m pretty sure there won’t be more since the original Jack Russell Terrier passed away some years ago (RIP, oh scruffy one). (Did anyone else collect the Cracker Jack holograms?) Additionally, the Facebook picture for the Wishbone group is Frankenstein, eh hem, I mean “Frankenbone.” Imagine that. "Frankenbone" has been viewed by tens of thousands of college-aged, WiFi-enabled individuals. However, it's doubtful many have attempted to absent-mindedly skim through Mary Shelley's original text. Evidently, it's cool to dress up a small canine in tri-cornered hats and buckled shoes, but God forbid you check the book out yourself. In any case, I still think reading is sexy. Marilyn must have believed it was so, as well. She did, of course, marry Arthur Miller.

And what would Mr. Feeny say to literature being slapped in the face? ...you bunch of poseurs.

FYI, the Wishbone group membership is up to 86,898 as of Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 9:45 PDT.

... 86,900 even by 10:04pm.