At Least JFK had Access to Proper Libraries

From Spring 2005, a “MatchstickCats.com Editorial”

Many years have passed since Ronald Reagan stood on the steps of the library in Dallas, Texas , U.S.A, North America and said “Godammit how the hell could he have done it from that angle?”. And still the mystery of JFK’s death goes ignored and it is assumed by all who get listened to, that whathisname who later got shot did it.

Now, I don’t really care about any of that, but it strikes me that public libraries are far from the wonderful places thaT they could be.

In my youth, a library was a place to which you rode your pedal cycle on a Saturday morning, books strapped carefully to your back carrier, and spent hours and hours joyfully browsing the magical scripts within. Nowadays, they are full of computers and videos and lavatories and smartcards and all sorts of modern and hideous apparatus.

If you tried to shoot somebody from a library nowadays, you would no doubt get caught on web cam by some geek who is busy talking online with a friend at the other side of the world who has the same interests. A love of cheese, perhaps. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m sure President Kennedy might have been with us to this very day, had his alleged assassin been instilled by his parents with a healthy interest in dairy by-products of one kind or another, rather than an uncontrollable tendency to get caught up in alleged conspiracies and / or assassinations and things.

But the point is, it is assumed that something old cannot be made interesting unless it is replaced with something new.

It has never occurred to anyone that instead of replacing the book with something modern and fancy like an electro-book that they put on their i-pod, or whatever the hell they do nowadays, you could instead write a more contemporary book that is relevant to the people who you hope will read it.

“The Cat in the Hat”, for example, should be rewritten in the light of the changes to pet owning fashions that happened after the release of the movie Babe, and should feature a pig in a baseball hat, wearing sports garments and footwear that were made in some far flung hellhole by factory workers who are approximately the same age as the reader.

Or it could at least feature a more modern hat.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, I could open up another window here and look at porn sites for a while, and if someone comes into the room I just flick back to that nerdy site with all the articles, and they’re none the wiser.

And you’d be largely right about that. But the point is, any cat that is presented to our young people as a piece that aspires to become popular culture, must be adapted to the fashions of the time. Otherwise the youth of today will just cower in fear behind their hideous home entertainment apparatus and perspiration-soaked running shoes made, rather ironically if you ask me, in sweat shop factories. Just like the one in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, although that was set in the United States , where it’s called candy instead of sweets for some reason. (2024 note: It was not set in the United States, you idiot)

And there were no cats in either the book or the original film adaptation, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” starring Gene Wilder and that kid who grew up to be, rather ironically I thought given the involvement of teeth-rotting sweets, a dentist. I’m afraid I have not seen the new version, as it has only just been released here, so I cannot vouch for it’s cat contents, or lack thereof. Furthermore, I hear that a newly-found extra chapter of the book has just been published to raise money for charity, and based on my limited information I must assume, until I know better, that there is a fifty: fifty chance of there being a cat in it.

Furthermore, it was with amazement in their eyes that my audience in a local pub a couple of weeks ago heard me reply that I have never seen the movie “Pretty Woman”. I added, although not with any particular relevance to the conversation, that I have also never seen “Bambi”. I will of course keep my eyes peeled in case he turns up though. I’m sure his mom misses him.