I Never Read, Do I?

I never read if i already opened Instagram that day.
I never read if i just had a double shift.
I never read if my Boss is watching.
I never read if im out and about.
I never read if there is someone singing.
I never read if im sleeping with someone.
I never read if a book sucks.
I never read if im writing.
I never read if im drawing. Not true, thats a lie.
I never read if when im talking to someone.
I never read if im doing the laundry.
I never read if shit gets real.
I never read if i have to do what i have to do.
I never read if i go to sleep. Not true, thats also a lie.

I never thought i would be in a bookfair where i would make more money than i spent.

For the last few months i´ve found it incredibly hard to read. Im not only playing with the name of the Basel Art book Fair, these days i literally cant ever read and find it very sad since reading has been my favorite thing to do for ages. In the last years I had the fortune to read so many books its actually difficult to know exactly how much were they. Being in the hospital or in medical rest gifts so much time that if one doesnt have something to absolutely obsess about its very easy to loose ones mind. On the other hand, having something to obsess about would risk insanity as well, its a tough road to travel without a proper sense of balance.

Reading, I think, is an incredibly selfish activity: it requires silence and an atention that is seemingly impossible to achive these days, for me at least. Reading is, i repeat, an incredibly selfish activity that isolates who does it and marginalizes those who commit to it.

Reading steals time from POWER.

!

For the last 6 months reading hasn´t been my main activity, working has. I never worked before, at least not in the sense I do so now. Working, sustaining a stable economy were alien to me since sponti was -in a way- my life´s motto. Reading is a vibe. I mean, reading is something that happens when everything else doesn´t. I am addicted to reading and like any addiction, this one too needs the recovery/relapse routine. Julio Cortázar, the argentinian writer, has a beautiful text about relapsing, anyone worried about how they handle life should take some time apart to enjoy what he has to say about it, because relapsing is one of the saddest activities one can commit itself to, that is returning to a place from wich we were already expelled.

*

Recently I had a week long vacation, i went to Italy with some friends and a hammock. I turned off my phone, i went full flightmode for 7 days, that was an amazing experience. Its amazing how free it felt without the stupid phone absorbing my entire attention spam, I was in awe at how fast I forgot about it and how much I didn´t needed it. At one Point, of course, life as i knew and enjoyed it just came kicking in and i was able to read again, to draw again, to write again. I re-read and finished one of my favorite books in a couple of days, enjoyed and finish some new books i just bought and started making comics about what was happening at an incredible pace once more. I´ve been sketching and preparing a sci-fi comic about how cellphones own and confuse us, its not an original idea and whats original about it i wont say it here, it will depend on them if I finish it and you all can read it.

:)

I never read unless i see that you have a book from a writer I dont know anything about lying around the eating table. In this case I will Pick up the book and start reading some pages, i will take my double coloured pencil and while i read i might make a little correction and leave a note that explains what i just did.

I never read so less in my life, but somehow that makes sense because i know the relapse is at stones throw distance, waiting for me to relapse. Happy.

Reading in silence, indifferent to POWER and everything outside my text mask.