Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
Last chapter we saw Pocket Vinyl start their goal of 50 states in 45 days (unofficially breaking the 50 day record) with the local states. Now it’s time to truly venture from home. 3 states down, 47 to go.
I’ve never been interested in beating a world record. Some records sound really cool and other seem to exist just to exist, but I’ve never wanted to be the best at anything. I’m not against becoming the very best like noone ever was, but if I ever achieved that it would be a bonus, not a goal. I just want to be better now than I was then and better later than I am not. I do find trying to achieve a record interesting and I’m rooting for them…even though it actually already happened and what the result was they’re still active and together. If someone else has that goal, more power too them and I wish them luck provided no innocents are hurt in the process and no damage is done to the attempters. It’s just not for me.
In this case I would think some of the nuance of the travel would be lost just trying to perform every state, sometimes twice a day. If I was going to go cross-country (and me being me that would require an RV with a decent bed, toilet, shower, and kitchenette) and visit every state, I’d like time to really enjoy the place. In Kino’s Journey, the title heroine only stays in a town three days, enough to understand the place but not enough time to settle down and miss out on the rest of the journey. I might go a week, then depending on the state just go to a different part of the state (Texas and California are huge) or just move on to the next one. It might be fun, but I know I’d miss being home. I never even had a sleepover more than a day because I just wanted to go home that bad, probably obnoxiously so (little brat that I was). I’ve stayed in a hotel for conventions over the weekend but nothing was better than sleeping in your own bed. And not getting up early for a press junket.
Enough about me, though. The homepage is filled enough. Let’s get back to our performers.










