bookstores are the mortal enemy

…actually, I did pretty well. And this is probably the third or fourth time I’ve been in a bookstore the last few weeks and the first time I bought something, so that’s got to be worth something. Especially since I was technically at two bookstores. From the little local store, I picked up another journal to write in, as well as The Recovery of Wonder: The New Freedom and the Asceticism of Power by Kenneth L. Schmitz, who I’ve never heard of but is apparently a professor emeritus of philosophy and a fellow at Trinity College, University of Toronto, as well as a bunch of other academic affiliations. I picked this up largely because of the topic – I’m curious what a philosopher has to say about recapturing wonder and it’s importance in the world, as opposed to Greenblatt. (All hail Greenblatt and other CHID-related chanting.)

And speaking of CHID, Phillip would be so proud. The last time I was at Borders, mucking around for books on empiricism (which I didn’t find), I stumbled across a couple of Henri Bergson books. I grabbed them, held them longingly, and then put them back and have thought about them ever since. I actually specifically went back to Borders tonight to buy them, and picked up The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, which is actually his last book and more of an autobiography and explanation of choice, as well as Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, which on my copy has a much nicer cover! I justify this as being related to what I think I’m writing my dissertation on – Bergson looks at what laughter is and why people laugh, saying that laughter keeps us human. It should be very interesting paired with the reading I’ve been doing on the function of satire.

Mm, books.