From My Post Road Window / Nicholas Troilo

I read a lot. Two newspapers come to my door every day. Briefing notes pack my e-mail box each morning. Magazines stuff the mailbox during the week. The plays of Clifford Odets are by my bedside.

I'm re-reading Hamlet for course work at HB Studio in New York. I'm boning up on the problem of providing clean, potable water to the world's poorest of the poor. I'm trying to prep myself for a trip to Africa -- Zambia and Ethiopia -- in May. That occupies hours of reading time.

And, of course, there is the Internet. I am oft tempted during the day to read esoteric data delivered up from a simple search. More frequently then not, I fall to the temptation. There I am. Hours with my eyes scanning words.

Something had to give. I sought a solution. I made a choice -- cut the weekend edition of The New York Times. I would save not only $20 a month but also free hours of my time.

At first the effect was dramatic. Saturday mornings are our mornings in. It's the morning to savor breakfast in bed with newspapers until 10 a.m. -- a privilege long time coming. Sunday mornings are somewhat the same but driven by the decision of which Sunday Mass to attend. Most often we opt for the Noon sung Mass even though I protest.

"We won't get out until nearly half past one," I say. "Let's just go to the 10 o'clock."

"Fine. You get your shave and shower first," is the response.

"I want another cup of coffee. Turn on the TV for the morning news," I say.

It is well after 10 a.m. before either of us heads for a shower. I, already disgruntled by the lack of newsprint in my hands, more disgruntled from hearing the politico's banter our country into inaction on the Sunday morning news shows, find myself quite unready for a religious experience.

"I'm not going to church," I say.

"Of course you are," she responds.

Something had to be done. It took me several weeks trying to resolve my sulky morning weekend humor. I fell upon it as I tackled the weekly task of stacking the dailies for recycling. There, ready to be bundled, were all the sections of the papers that I never read. Eureka! Put them aside and make them your own weekend edition. You've got your Saturday and Sunday morning read.

And so it is how I came to know the British street artist named Banksy. And more importantly, it is how I came to spend this past week beguiled with the relevance of Odets in 2011; unprepared for my class presentation of Claudius, disinterested in the AFL and NFL playoff games, un-twittered, e-mail ignored, avoiding social networks, barely engaged in the State of the Union address and now looking forward to this Saturday and Sunday to see what I might discover in the unread sections of the New York and local dailies.

For there it was, in the Thursday Styles section of The New York Times, a section always ignored, a section always at the top of the trash, there it was for last Saturday's morning stay-in-bed read. The section lead was a story about the men's spring fashion lines being shown in Milan. The story led with the line, "Banksy said it best: In the future, everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes."

WOW! How much more counter-culture can a statement be? Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Craigslist, MySpace, blogs -- all the tools designed to satisfy the insatiate desire for 15 minutes of fame. Have they led us to the new desire of 15 minutes of anonymity?

I'm glad I read a lot. And I'm glad I have a stack of newsprint waiting to be read for this weekends' morning stay-in-beds. Banksy's idea has sent me on a drive. I want to find a place to hide -- be anonymous for 15 minutes during the day. But going private now, with all I have to say, might be impossible for me. It is something I'm not sure I can achieve -- that any of us might attain. Not today. Not without a major cultural foray.