Ur-Text-ish: A "Cannery Row" Story and Miscellany

I just wrote a more focused post on my favorite chapter of "Cannery Row," (to be posted soon, after a bit of polishing) but I wanted to relate another story that just couldn't fit into that post. First, though, a few notes:

I) David Wax Museum featured in this interesting article. It makes me wish I had the kind of house I could host concerts in.

II) As you may have read before, I'm also blogging for my place of gainful employment, and I wrote the two most recent posts (two links!). I've added that blog to my blogroll (at right) so when it updates, you can read it there. I'll stop posting about it now. Thanks to all y'all abroad who read it; my managers, upon viewing the google analytics report, were impressed by the international audience. I was able to account for all the countries except for a small northeastern European country (Estonia? Latvia). If any of y'all are there and reading, please let me know. I am curious.

My photo of "Doc's Lab." (Western Biological, in real life)

 III) All right, the story about "Cannery Row":

Like "Moby-Dick," I read this book while studying in the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program. Unlike "Moby-Dick," this reading was not the first time I had read this book. I knew I loved this book coming into the program, so during our field trip to the west coast, my literature professor, Rich King, invited me, as we sat on the docks next to the (defunct, now tourisit-ified and gentrified) canneries, to read aloud the introduction to the class. It was a surprisingly moving moment, in which the power of place was incredibly evident. I read the "disclaimer," the dedication, and the introductory passage, and by the end, was almost choking up. I am not typically moved to tears by books, yet sitting there, mere yards from Doc's lab, the Palace Flophouse and Grill, Lee Chong's, etc. I could barely help myself.

I am also not usually connected to particular books as physical objects, but my Penguin paperback of Cannery Row now contains a map of the row, sketched while I was there, and it accrues new underlinings and dog ears at every read. Both in terms of place and the book itself, "Cannery Row" is, for me, a book of physicality.