Book mashup

A lot of people read on the bus and you all know how I feel about books. (If you don't, I love them.) Since I'm always on the hunt for something that fits into my strange taste in literature, I look at what other people are reading. Let me warn you now that this is going to spiral pretty quickly into very nerdy literary territory.

As this is Utah, there are always people reading scriptures on the bus. That's not so much my style, so I'll move on. There are also people who enjoy the mass-market thrillers, whether they're political, military, or murder mystery books. Again, not me. But I read over their shoulders every now and then in case there's something I might like anyway. Some of those kinds of books are compelling, like The DaVinci Code.

And then there are the people reading the classics, which I usually do. Today, though, I saw a book out of the corner of my eye as I stalked around the stop that completely caught my attention and made me take a closer look. I saw "The T-something of the S-something-else-
ending-in-rew". My brain automatically dug through the book titles I knew that fit and mashed two of them together. In my head, I had The Taming of the Screw, a comedy by Henry James that no one was going to laugh at, as it involved an outsider taking a bet that he could make these children think that they were going crazy. That and it was written by Henry James, who ranks up there with Emily Dickinson for me in the list of people you couldn't pay me enough to want to become an expert in and I'd prefer not to read. (Anybody catch that Herman Melville reference? Way inside and dorkier than dorky, I know.)

Sadly, I realized when I looked closer that the book was really Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, which was admittedly the best of the options there, but I was sad because the thought of a mashup between those stories made me laugh. Not that I'd read it, if it existed.

And while I'm on the subject of mashups, I saw this guy wearing this outfit. If you don't remember how freaking hot it was or if you're reading from somewhere else, it was about 95 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's kind of tough to tell because I was trying to be sneaky, but his jacket (covered in fringe) was a sturdy-looking leather. As was the hat.

My head gets hot in my hat and my hat's cotton canvas, not leather. I was also standing in the shade here. I can't imagine wearing my leather pants in weather like this. Uncomfortable isn't even the right word there. It would be downright miserable. So what was this guy thinking?