i knew as soon as i stumbled upon this task that i would complete it, and i admit that so far, of all the ones i've attempted, it has been my very favorite. this isn't so much because i particularly love reading books into cheap microphones which i have precariously propped up on the edge of my bedside table. no, it has much more to do with the interesting conversations and questions that arose from explaining to people how and why i was doing it, and sharing it, in bits and pieces, with new friends and interested parties along the way.

for this task, i recorded, in its entirety, a reading of william pène du bois's the twenty-one balloons. this is a book that many people i know remember fondly from childhood, but i myself was woefully ignorant of its existence until about four years ago.

around that time, in a timezone far away, i was very much in love with a fellow by the name of peat duggins. we lived together on a half street in austin, and took very good care of each other for quite a long time. part of this delicate care was reading to each other nightly. we both had a lot of projects going on at that time (and at all times), and by reading aloud to each other in the evenings, we ensured that one of us could get some work done drawing, or embroidering, or cutting things out with xacto knives each night, while the both of us reaped all of the benefits and rewards of regular reading. to this end we traded off evenings, each reading aloud one night and working and listening the next. we would alternate in choosing the books as well, and in this way we made our way through many great works including the lord of the rings, the sun also rises, do androids dream of electric sheep?, the complete works of william blake, njal's saga, and many more.

we kept this excellent habit up successfully for a number of years. in truth, it was only when our relationship began to fall apart that this lovely tradition began to unravel with it. towards the end, there were a few books of my choosing that ended up being being laid aside before we reached their thrilling conclusions. one of these was hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world, by haruki murakami. this book holds a very special and deeply entrenched sentimental significance for me, and in the deteriorating emotional landscape of the relationship, i took it very personally that it was allowed to slip through the cracks unfinished.

thus, when peat suggested that for our next book we read the twenty-one balloons, a treasured tome from his childhood, i agreed (and i say this with sincerest shame), already planning to lose interest half-way through in retribution. and to this i held. after only two nights, i declared that the book was boring and that i wasn't interested in seeing it through to the end.

almost as if in response, the relationship saw its way to its own end very shortly after; and it was devastating in the way that only an era-ending event can be. in the aftermath, upon finding peat's copy of the book in my bookshelf months after he had moved out of the home we once shared, i decided to read the twenty-one balloons quietly to myself. i realized, outside of the context of our troubled relationship, how beautiful the book was, how terrifically suited it was to all of the things i loved most in the world, and how much of this peat must have guessed in choosing to share this book with me during our nightly reading sessions. and i felt like the worst person alive for having kept him from being the one to introduce it to me.

eventually, as time passed, peat and i were able to move past the detritus of our relationship and become friends once more. i confessed to him that i still had his copy of the book and that i had ended up reading it after all and really enjoying it. and he implored me to hold on to it. we reforged the bonds of our friendship over talk of giant diamonds, volcanic islands, hot air balloons, and white morning suits, and though i never told him that i had willfully given up on the book when we had first attempted to read it together, i felt that just by talking about it we were doing good work towards erasing the harm.

all these years later, peat and i remain very close friends. he now lives in prague with an excellent woman that he will likely marry (her name is nadya) and we are in regular contact and collaboration. because he loves audio books (it was he who won me over to their side after years of considering them literary "cheating"), and because he loves the twenty-one balloons, and most of all because i feel he deserves a grand apology for my bad behavior in regards to that particular title (though perhaps he doesn't even know it), i have decided to record the book in his honor and present it to him as a gift.

it is most unfortunate, but due to constraints on the size of files that can be uploaded to sfzero, i am only able to share with you the introduction and first chapter in this praxis. perhaps this is fitting, as those are the only two segments that peat and i made it through in our attempt to read the book together. because i doubt that many people will realistically want to listen to the entire book, i think i will pass on breaking the remaining chapters (which are lengthier than these two) into smaller pieces for posting here, and make this offer instead: should you make it through the introduction and first chapter and decide that you love it, i will gladly send you your own audio cds, packaged with a copy of the insert i made for peat (featuring my own cover art as well as original illustrations from the book). simply send me your address, and i will toss it in the outgoing mail. and don't worry, peat won't mind a bit.

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updates (which everyone of course loves to see):

1. the totally amazing creature known as meta tron was sweet enough to create a site just for me to upload the entire reading of the book to so everyone on sfzero could enjoy it! unfortunately, i have been unable to figure out just how to do this, and it seems that it may cost money to make it happen, which i can assure you nobody wants to spend on the internet. and so, at least for now, we are back to the original dilemma, and anyone who would like to receive the remaining nine chapters by post would be wise to send me their street address.

still, it was a wonderfully thoughtful thing to do, and it really made my night. thank you, mink.

2. the equally fantastic and always resourceful bandit was kind enough to draft up a fanciful insignia for the western american explorers' club (in san francisco) for me, and because it is charming and beautiful, i am posting it below. please enjoy it as much as possible.

whimsy forever!