Reading in Miami Beach

Written by Teresita Blanco (The Artsy Sister)

Aside from taking photos, in the old days we used to read a lot. We stopped doing that because we ran out of good books. One can only read the same thing for so long before it grows boring. Most people I have been in the beach do not read interesting books. They just have one out there, in the same page. It is like they are pretending to read. It is truly quite amusing. Then again, there really isn’t a lot of good books out there. One of the best books I used to read in the beach was a book containing all the novels and short stories of Stefan Zweig. I used to check it out in FIU. The book eventually disappeared one day. I have no idea what happened. I think it probably got stolen or maybe someone threw it away.

Don’t you just hate it when books you like disappear from the library. I suppose I am reading too much into it. He is not well known in the American market. I think I was the only fellow to ever check out his books. I wish more people in the US would read his work. He is pretty talented, for the most past. Some of his books have even been made into movies. He was like a big deal in the 1920s and 40s, but not people barely remember him. I suppose there is a lot of authors that are like that. Still, there comes a time when one gets bored of the so called American Classics. You will never catch me dead reading Hemmingway. The irony is that my writing has been compared to that of Hemmingway.

Now back to my silly book. I was reading the large tome, and someone came up to us and said that it was cute that we were reading the Bible. I thought it was cute. I have read the Bible, but only to make my Chibi Bible. I also thought it was a good a time as any to see what all the fuzz is about. I always had an issue with church. After going to church for like 20 years or so, I was disappointed that they never read a new book. You go enough to church and all the sermons start running together. I mean the Bible is a 2000 page book, it is about time they discussed some of the other material. Then again, there is the matter of dogma and whatever and not all cats are grey. It takes all kinds I suppose to make any progress. Moving along, aside from Stefan Zweig I also read a couple of comics.

The FIU Biscayne Bay Campus had decent collection of comic books. I read through them while I was there. I would also check out a ton, in order to read them at the beach. It was there where I first read the Berserk manga. It was pretty cool for the most part. It got a little repetitive with certain things I will not go into. There was also a lot of cool Ozamu Tezuka comics. I read some of his more adult works like Ayako and Apollo’s Song. Triton was also a fun comic too, though it was really melodramatic in some parts. I don’t know why, the beach is just a really good place to catch up on your reading, not so much for writing. It is really hard to have a creative, intelligent thought while there. Most of the time, I am just dozing off and occasionally reading a bit off the top. It is a nice, peace sort of feeling. It is a genuine feeling of good being that cannot be recreated anywhere else. I suppose this is just about it. Go to the beach, and really sit down to read something. It will be good for you.