"And so the the beginning of arts ends in a gradual return to sanity."

Currently I'm reading "Slaughterhouse-Five". I know, I'm a bit late trying to catch up on all the books I feel I need to read. I'm only twenty-something pages in. And I'm a bit distracted, because the copy I picked up at some charity yard sale a few weeks ago is full of notes and remarks by its former owner, a person by the name of Stephanie. She must have read it in school, wheather High School or early college I cannot really say. It's funny to see how she underlines about everything in the first part of the book. Her remarks are strange. She must have been a very eager student, probably just jotting down everything said in class discussion, unable to decide what's interesting and what not. Later on the notes are fewer and I highly doubt dear Stephanie really read to the end. Last singns of her attention are on page 144, the last third of the book is empty. Vintage books can be very precious things. The fact that someone else already went through them and interpreted what he read makes it seem like there was some kind of subtext. I'm sure I would have liked Slaughterhouse too if I'd have a new copy, but this way it is more important to me and more interesting too, because obviously I check each and everyone of her thoughts and remarks and compare them to my own observations. We don't really gon along, Stephanie and me. But I think about more aspects this, it is almost like reading a text in class again. It must be good for the brain I guess.
I gave my own copy of Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" to my friend who left for Mexico a few days ago. I wanted to get him his own new book but I did not have time to get it so now he has to bear my thoughts on camp and such - thoughts I had about ten years ago. Maybe it'll make him laugh at me. Or think of me and write me a mail every now and then...
I'm tired. That's because Lars called at 4.43am to get me to go and drink "one last beer of the night" with him. Of course I did not leave my bed to stumble out on the streets to drink my first beer of the night actually in the morning. But it took me a while to fall back asleep.
I got inspired to quote William Carlos Williams in the title of this by reading Tom Gabel's blog on Chinese Democracy. Yep, Mr. Re-Inventing Axl wrote about the album that was to never come out but finally did come out. Read about it here.