HST in a Crowded Campus Poster Market
I sat there a long time, and thought about a lot of things. Foremost among them was the suspicion that my strange and ungovernable instincts might do me in before I had a chance to get rich. No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction – toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat.
— Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary
I was pondering this during a 45 minute accidental detour on the #3 subway under the island of Manhattan, because I didn’t know that on weekends the City of NY reroutes the #3 train on the #1 line and I was already on the East Side past central park before I realized why the train seemed to be twisting, turning and moving further underground than usual. With help from some kind locals, I fianlly made it to campus via an alternate subway route.
Sweaty and late, I was walking fast, almost to Butler Library when I saw it. As I turned the corner around Lewison Hall, posted High and Proud was a JUMBO…HUGE…GIGANTIC poster of the cover of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Seeing it hit me so hard that I stopped in my tracks causing two other students to bump into me like dominoes. My husband’s book cover, perched first and center with a massive crowd of people clamoring around to buy it (along with other posters of the likes of the Beatles, Bob Marley, Vincent Van Gogh, John Belushi, etc etc… American (or post-Impressionist) Icons) once again made me so proud of Hunter that I stared frozen, with my mouth open while people with backpacks whizzed past me. But also during these moments, I miss him more than I have words to express.
So do you I suppose, that’s why you read this blog in addition to his books. But I’m happy to write to you at this moment while right outside this library door are tons of HST readers clamoring for a poster of one of his books.
So there you have it.
As for the random HST wisdom at the top, I posted it because I happened to be pondering it as I was stuck on the wrong subway line studying people’s faces and wondering what they were thinking. A few months ago, a reader emailed it to me to tell me it was his favorite quote. I think his name is Cody. Thanks man. Anway, more random notes coming soon.
Your friend, sneaking past the crowded poster market,
Anita Thompson
P.S. Many of you might ask me who gets the money from the sale of those posters, and I’m embarrassed to say I have no idea. Which happens to be ONE of the reasons I decided to finish school… to understand these money details, which Hunter nor I have ever been very good at. For now, I’m just happy to see so many people wanting to hang an image of Hunter on their walls, assuming they also read his work. I’ve said many times that the world is a better place every time someone (particularly a young person) reads a Hunter S. Thompson book. I explain why in The Gonzo Way, but any of you who have ever read anything by Hunter already know why.
