LIMOUSINE FOR FREEEADING 10
MONET CHRISTO
What a complete buffoon, cabot, moron and usurper one must be to call his book: “God: Life and Creativity.”
Napoleon X Dzienis
The word is important. The letter. Book. Important inventions of man. Who knows if not the most important altogether. Who knows. I learned to read at a very early age, at about 2-3 years old. That’s what my mother told me. I grew up in the countryside, so the first letters, books were from my grandparents, from my father’s library, from Young Technicians magazines and old books from my father’s studies. From electrical engineering with a specialization in energy. In these books I also found cut negatives of my father’s photos. So when I was a few years old, sitting in a dark attic I would look at the negatives under the light in the crevices between the boards and snoop between the letters. My father was born on the same day as Napoleon Bonaparte, and one day late in my life he told me that the last book he read by oil lamp was “The Count of Monte Christo.” But this information at the time couldn’t help me much. By the way all, unfortunately, had to happen. Or maybe it was precisely the …pen.
In the bookcase, books of various kinds, as in the communist shortage. A lot of small Catholic books: prayer books, song books, stories about saints, about Father Bosco, illustrated in a larger format “Heart” by Edmundo de Amicis. Also a great deal of small war books from the so-called “Tiger” series, some “Sensations of the 20th century” processes. Also a lot of post-war propaganda of the late 1940s, for example, “The Seventh Cross.” One of the publisher’s series of dozens of works, in a beautiful navy blue hardback with an embossed image of Lenin in the center. “About a man who did not bow to bullets” and such twisted oddities. Some books for his father and his brothers for their academic performance. I don’t think anyone read it. But in the Polish People’s Republic, no matter was disposed of, unless it broke down, then for parts. Poverty, simply put. In time, if I focus well, I’ll remember the rest 😉 There was also a four-volume ‘History of Art’ by Mikhail Alpatov, but there were few illustrations in it, you know, because what for.
Typical communist concrete housing estate, ten-story buildings with first floor and drying rooms on the last 11. 12 in total. 3 on Lenina Street, including mine, 2 on Warszawska Street. Nothing special. By the sewage called the White River. We had to organize our own fun. Ah millions of ideas. For books one went to libraries. For magazines one had to hunt, as for almost everything. My dad, going to the store every morning to buy bread, always bought me ‘The World of Youth’ with a comic strip at the end. Mom, by virtue of the fact that she could set up a folder at the Ruch kiosk in her job at the Provincial Office, bought me books by Charles May in notebooks. Later a computer magazine ‘Bajtek’ and ‘Komputer’. For the magazine ‘Together’ with a photo of a football player and the ‘People’s Daily’ with a poster of singers at the end, one had to queue up at the Ruch kiosk on Saturday morning. Circulations were small so not everyone got what they wanted. Photos and posters were barter currency in the yard. Many hunted for them. We used to go to scrap paper stores, if you talked to them well, they would let you in and you could bushwhack. These were completely awesome moments in these heaps of newspapers. It used to be all bustling, hundreds of kids outside playing.
At Maria Konopnicka Elementary School No. 22, books could be borrowed only from the 3rd grade. I remember that I won some kind of competition, because I borrowed a lot. About 80 books. Funny. We had such a mathematician, which sipped from a thermos to himself. Cool guy in general, he was in Solidarity. Well, somehow he took a liking to me and used to send me during lessons to get the ‘Evening Express’, a daily paper like that. But thanks to that, I could go to the bookstore near the school on Mickiewicza Street and sniff out books. After martial law, after 1984, when the post-communist thaw slowly began, so-called subscriptions were introduced in bookstores. Such vouchers authorizing the purchase of books. Prepayments, you could say. I remember hunting for them, too. I bought myself then the Little Encyclopedia of Antique Culture, for example. I once did a trick on this mathematician and bought this Express beforehand, and as he was sending me off, I took it out from behind my claw and gave it to him. He couldn’t get out of the impression. And it was so simple after all. What did he have in that thermos? 😉 I read a lot of fantasy. Also Polish. A favorite was Adam Synowiec’s volume of short stories “Return with Change”. Howard’s Conans were collectible. Relaxes, collection books of various comics in episodes. Captain Wildcats, Titus, etc. What was available. It was said on the yard that The Lord of the Rings could only be read once. For copies to borrow one stood in an ordered queue.
Adam Mickiewicz High School I was said to be the best in Bialystok, part of my family studied there and praised the pedagogues. I chose it because it was relatively far away and I could go back and look in all the bookstores and antique shops along the way. Such a daily ritual. I knew all the vendors, they would leave me books. Super relations, for a kid. Along the way I also met various people with whom I could chat. High-five, etc. Many of these bookstores are no longer there. In the scientific and technical one on Swietojanska Street is the Tax Office. Medical is empty, only the neon sign remains. Thanks to this habit of puzzling antiquarians, I often learn interesting tips. For example, in my favorite antique shops in Warsaw I learned who among the famous people is a spy. After all, this is priceless knowledge. For example. In college, one reads mainly plays, dramas, comedies, new texts in theater magazines, reviews 😉 There is no time especially for books, unfortunately. Unlike at DRT or the Department of Rejected Talent. There one only reads and watches, and then what some go on to direct study. For that there is plenty of time for r