I cringe when I see someone highlight something in a book, unless they’re doing it very gently with a soft pencil that can easily be erased afterwards. I like my yellow marker myself, but always copy before I highlight, so I never highlight in the book itself. If someone tears a paper from a book, part of me dies. If someone burns a book, well, that’s on them!
But, I have now come across a story in which someone do tear books apart. And, I believe this will be the only time I’ll ever say anything like this: The person makes these books unreadable but yet doesn’t ruin them. Now, you must think I’m out of my mind, but have a look at this:
Now, if you don’t like the artwork in itself, then let me tell you a wee bit more of the story. The artwork you see above was evidently left inside the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. A note said: “This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas…”, but the artist was anonymous.
Then it happened again, in the National Library of Scotland. A note said: “A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas…(& against their exit)”, but the artist remained anonymous. Five more appeared and the story, of course, hit the news. And then the most magnificent thing happened:
Edinburgh Evening News claimed to have cracked the case and could reveal the artist. Except, they didn’t! Instead they took a poll and asked their readers if they wanted to know. The readers answered that they would prefer not to know, and rather let the artist keep his/her anonymity. Consequently the paper did not tell and the artist is still not known.
I’m blown away, just as much by the artworks as by the story. However, I only read this story here, after Stan here linked to it, so it might not be real at all. I don’t really care, it made me smile 🙂
