found photos (1 Viewer)

I get it. I keep things I find in used books I buy. people use the strangest things for bookmarks, including old photos. isn't there a mag called Found? or some such, where people send in things they've found, etc.?
 
there's certain things that are captivating about other people. and i dont mean that in any philisophical or spiritual or artistic way, but rather, i get a big kick out of strangers. I dont want to get to know them, just the little tidbits that make up their day.
I also love books-with-things-in - i've been known to buy a book just for the scribbles some person has made in the margins.
One of my best finds was at a thrift store, it's one of those photo-mugs someone had made of two little mexican children, and one has a hairlip. Obviously made for some relative, who maybe died, and the mug went to the thrift store, or maybe it was some aunt who couldn't keep looking at her ugly nieces, but in any case, i bought it for a quarter and it holds my tea.
i think this is also why i like jonathan safran foer.
 
I'm working on "On the Road" right now, a school library copy, and it has clearly been marked up by one reader, which is amazing since it's so old and crumbling apart now. I guess everyone has just used these notes and underlines and asterisks, and no one has bothered with making their own notes. But it's like reading two books in one! Or maybe one and a half books in one or something...
Some sample margin notes:
* "the essence! if this is it, it explains why the dream/quest is rather hollow"
* in response to the passage -- It made me think that everything was about to arrive - the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever -- "?? is there one ??"
* "killing the simplicity of the dream, the authenticity of it -- having realised its pointlessess?"
* "rootless is now endemic"
* and the strangest of all, in response to -- 'Fine, fine, there's nothing better for you. I myself haven't eaten for three days. I'm going to live to be a hundred and fifty years old.' -- "30 years before Michael Jackson, icon!"

and etc. etc.
It makes me wonder what this person was like...
 

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