I wonder what the dynamic was between the connection that reading can provide vs. the alienation that having no one to talk about said reading with was like in the past. Like if I read John Gregory Dunne contemporaneously, lacking an expectation for mass communication, would I not feel melancholy that I probably wouldn't be able to find someone to chat about him with? I wish I knew more old people, the only ones I know either had the privilege to be parts of literary scenes that most of the country has always lacked or don't really care about reading in a social sense. Cached? Dubs and I smoke in the rain.