`Let Freedom Read’ are words to live by
Springsteen reschedules concerts in Albany, Syracuse for April 2024
By Ken Tingley
The words moved me and reminded me of how books shaped my own life.
Ball Four showed me that home-run-hitting heroes could also be leering, drunken buffoons fond of using expletives.
Catcher in the Rye made me realize the pain of adolescence was universal while setting a goal to be better person than Holden Caulfield.
They were important lessons allowing me to be comfortable in my own skin. And I never had to leave my bedroom.
The words flew at a furious pace at the Saratoga Springs Library as the “Let Freedom Read” event unfolded in celebration of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week event.
I was hosting.
I was there to bear witness.
So were another 75 or so people worried about the times we are living and the trend to limit access to books.
We heard about the despicable anti-hero Rabbit Angstrom, the horrors that Billy Pilgrim witnessed at Dresden and Celie’s dismissal of religion because God had to be white.
John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut and Alice Walker all had the work banned in Rabbit Run, Slaughterhouse Five and The Color Purple.
Ironically, even Fahrenheit 451, which deals specifically with the burning of books, has been banned and challenged. As Patricia Nugent read the words from Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel, I was startled. The story gave relevance to current events.
Growing up, my wife read the Harry Potter books to my son before bedtime, opening the door to his own love for reading and books. Just three years ago, a Catholic school in Nashville banned the Harry Potter books because a clergyman claimed the books included passages about “evil spirits.”
To Kill a Mockingbird, which tackles racial injustice in the South, is still being challenged throughout the country. It was local author James Preller who put the evening in perspective for all of us after reading a passage from Harper Lee’s classic.
On why we were there.
On what we feared.
“When we ban books, when we eliminate certain stories - for whatever reasons, fear or discomfort, prejudice or closed-mindedness - we lose our ability to step into someone else’s shoes,” Preller said. “We surrender our ability to build empathy, compassion, and understanding. Those attributes are the foundation, the heart, of story. It is why stories have persisted through all of human history. It is why we read and how we learn.”
It gave renewed importance to books, to libraries and to reading.
We can’t ever limit that.
We can’t ever put up roadblocks to discovery.
A reader once called me called me a “pornographer.”
The subject of his contempt was the photograph on our television page of a middle-aged actress who was showing some cleavage.
By my experience, it was modest, but the reader insisted there was a lack of community values and he was canceling his subscription.
I reminded the audience in Saratoga Springs that the library just up the road in Lake Luzerne was closed. Two of the three employees no longer felt safe there and had resigned. Censorship can take many forms and I wonder if the Rockwell Falls Public Library will ever open again.
Who would work there?
Will it be the same?
What will happen to its books?
We all need to be concerned if our library is next.
What gave the event its heart and soul were two songs.
Reese Fulmer, a Saratoga-based singer-songwriter who is also on staff at Caffe Lena, sang his song “Pity for Prisoners.” He had been asked to write the song specifically for this event and he delivered.
Dan Berggren opened the event with his song “Free to read,” which celebrates the value of open access to information and books.
I urge you to click on the link and listen to it for yourself.
I’ll let him play us off while I put in my order for “Fahrenheit 451.”
Free to Read
By Dan Berggren
Free, free to read, free to read
Free, free to read
The books you choose
Are a walk in someone else's shoes
We need to be free to read
Grapes of Wrath, Midnight's Children, Brave New World,
American Psycho, Invisible Man, Diary of a Young Girl,
Beloved, Lawn Boy, The Handmaid's Tale, Of Mice and Men,
The Kite Runner, Alchemist, To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Free, free to read . . .
The Color Purple, A Clockwork Orange, Maus, The Bluest Eye,
Beyond Magenta, All Boys Aren't Blue, Thirteen Reasons Why,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
New Kid, Ghost Boys, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings.
Free, free to read . . .
Slaughterhouse-Five, 1984, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Out of Darkness, Gender Queer, Her Body and Other Parties,
Last Exit to Brooklyn, City of Thieves, Lolita, Animal Farm,
The Great Gatsby, Captain Underpants, A Farewell to Arms.
Free, free to read . . .
Bruce rescheduled
I was supposed to see Bruce Springsteen perform in March, then again in September. But the March concert was canceled and rescheduled nine days after the Syracuse show.
The night before the Syracuse show, it was canceled as well, and the Albany show soon followed as well as all of Springsteen’s concert for the rest of the year because of an ulcer.
The good news is that both shows have been scheduled for April 2024. That is more than a year since I first bought the tickets.
The Albany show is on April 15 and the Syracuse show on April 18.
They offered me a refund, but a lot of the Boss is better than no Boss.
Book on the way
The Last American Editor, Vol. 2 - my second collection of columns from my years at The Post-Star - has been sent to the printer and will be here in a couple weeks.
Early reviews have been good and I believe the second book of columns is just as good as the first.
If you are looking for some inspiration, if you are look for great stories about local people, I hope you consider volume 2.
You can still preorder the book from my publisher - Something or Other Publishing -and have it in your hands soon.
Saratoga Book Festival
The Saratoga Book Festival will be held this coming weekend. There is something for everyone at this book festival and most of the events are free.
It is scheduled Oct. 12-15. Last year, I did a program with my colleagues Will Doolittle and Mark Mahoney in conjunction with the release of my second book The Last American Newspaper.
And we had a great turnout.
Thanks again, Ken, for pushing my buttons and sharing Preller’s insight: “When we ban books…we surrender our ability to build empathy, compassion, and understanding.” I concur.
I would add that it all comes down to a lack of humility. By humility I do not mean a “Casper milquetoast” kind of mentality or attitude.
Humility, for me, means creating an empty space in our lives where others can enter in. We are so full of our own ideas, opinions, feelings, experiences, and stories, that we have no room in our lives for the stories, experiences, feelings, opinions, and ideas of others—whether we agree with them or not.
Banning books arises out of a lack of humility, of not creating space in our lives where others can enter in. Where there is no humility there is no “empathy, compassion, or understanding.”
I have read many, many of those “banned “ books over the years. As far as I can tell, I turned out to be fairly well rounded adult.