WALKING BOOKISHLY

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text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nQypaLKYND..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nQypaLKYND..." width="640" /></a> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">So I went to the Los Angeles Times Book Fair at the weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It takes place these days on the University of Southern California campus – a big old spread – 226 acres, so it turns into a walking experience whether you want it to or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VfS70e55G6..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="514" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VfS70e55G6..." width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">You see crowds of people wandering aimlessly, some cheerfully, some less so, and some of them may actually be heading for lecture halls and panel discussions - the line for the Henry Winkler signing was quite long, though not nearly as long as the line for the stand where they were giving away free frozen yoghurt - but the sense I get yesterday was that there were a lot of lost souls, walking, ambling, looking for something, though they didn’t know what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rlRvHc-ZGx..." style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="632" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rlRvHc-ZGx..." width="640" /></a><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">And that’s just fine by me – and with psychogeographers too - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a chance to drift without knowing what you’re going to find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I also suspect that what a lot of people were doing was just walking around looking at all the other people walking around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I’m not sure this really constitutes a bookish experience, unless of course you write a book about it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ki7pAM2smD..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="618" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ki7pAM2smD..." width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Pico Iyer was there, as he usually is – on the Travel Stage - and I stopped to listen for a bit, but all the seats were taken and I always think that standing still for an hour is much, much harder than walking for a hour, so I didn’t stay till the end, but I did remember a quotation of Iyer’s, “</span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I have had long periods of owning cars, interspersed with periods of not owning a car – and you know, I somehow always managed to find plenty of things to worry about.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Orn68GPmd9..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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