Along with disaster movies of the 1970s and all-night bowling alleys, strange little books are one of life’s great pleasures.I agree. And while we’re on the topic, I’d like to nominate Etcetera and Otherwise by Sean Stanley as another entry in the category. It's a little book that is strange, sometimes frustrating, often wonderful, quirky without being too quirky:
"I've marketed loneliness within a crowd and ennui within a bottle. I've marketed no-shoe losers and resolution; electric tai chi and gas-powered toques; ceramic cigarettes and plastic passion; laughable longevity and porous parachutes; water with holes in it and Hollywood movies without; sadness and blandness; blueness and coolness; hardness and throughness; not to mention silence and infra-silence, just to name a few."The problem, if you want to call it that, is that strange and little books rarely achieve a mass audience. As Paterson writes:
Now I’m going to imagine ideal readers for The Olive and the Dawn. The first three that come to mind are:
1. A dude with a red goatee who works at the video store nobody goes to anymore.
2. A 26-year old CÉGEP English teacher who’s anxious about a course on Roman mythology she got stuck teaching this semester even though she knows precious little about the subject.
3. A guy who has tapes dating back to 1989 of himself calling radio talk shows. He goes by the alias “Ron in Chomedey.”
Sounds about right.
