I wish somebody told me, don't take candy from strangers when I made my first tax-free Internet purchase. I wish that I had remembered the first one's free, which is how dealers make new junkies. I wish that every cliche humanity acquired to protect itself from its history of bamboozlement and trickery was sewn on every shirt pocket by a smart mom.
I won't enumerate each new snare in the house of virtuality, enclosing what remains of our human bodies as the net tightens and we, the fish, thrash about. But here's a new one. I'm reading a new book I downloaded on my Kindle and I noticed an underlined passage. It is surely a mistake, I think. This is a new book. I don't know about you, but I always hated underlined passages in used books. They derail my private enjoyment.
When somebody offers perception of what's important, something moronic, usually, which is why I always prefer buying books new so I could make my own moronic marks. But moronic or not, it was all between me and my new book.
And this thing on my Kindle is supposed to be new. And then I discovered that the horror doesn't stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who's defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station.
So now you can add to the ease of downloading an e-book the end of the illusion that it is your book. The end of the privileged relation between yourself and your book. And a certainty that you've been had. Not only is the e-book not yours to be with alone, it is shared at Amazon which shares with you what it knows about you reading and the readings of others. And lets you know that you are what you underline, which is only a number in a mass of popular views.
Conformism does come of age in the most private of peaceful activities -reading a book, one of the last solitary pleasures in a world full of prompts to behave. My Kindle, sugar-coated cyanide.
--From NPR news, March 7, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Three Views of the Borders Bankruptcy
From the American Bookseller's Association:
Though Borders is not a member of the American Booksellers Association, we are always saddened when any bookstore closes. The industry – whether independent bookstores, publishers, or readers – does not benefit from the diminishment of places to browse, discover, and buy books.
However, despite the doom and gloom expressed by some about the future of full-service bricks-and-mortar bookstores – and, while we don’t underestimate the challenges that lie ahead – ABA believes that the indie bookstore model is well positioned for the future.
ABA membership numbers have stabilized; the vast majority of ABA members are coming off the best holiday season they have had in years; and, we’ve partnered with Google to allow our members to offer e-books through their websites.
As book buyers and readers are facing a skyrocketing number of books vying for their attention – with more and more demands on their time – our members’ customers are telling us that, now more than ever, they appreciate the care independent stores take in choosing the titles to stock, and that the curated selection in our stores can’t be found elsewhere.
In addition, more and more consumers appreciate the fact that our members are locally owned and have long-standing and close ties to their communities. They understand that by shopping in an independent store they are making sure that far more of their spending dollars recirculate back into the community. Shopping locally supports the small businesses that are creating jobs, directly fuels local growth, and helps preserve the special things that make each American community unique.
Looking ahead, we know that indie stores will have to continue to work hard and stay nimble and innovative. No matter what may appear in the headlines today, and understanding that the circumstances leading to the current situation facing Borders is very different than those of independents, we believe that our members will continue to offer their customers a unique shopping experience they can’t find anywhere else.
From Paul Kozlowski, a long-time, serious book person, currently working for Other Press:
10 reasons Borders should croak
1. To remind publishers that their industry consists of making books first, spreadsheets second.
2. To allow a host of talented book people to get back to work in adapting to new technologies and financial terms, instead of nursing a sick and contagious retailer.
3. To serve as an object lesson in the consequences of bad management.
4. To reduce the amount of linear shelf space devoted to books in dozens of overbuilt markets across the country.
5. To vindicate all of the fine book people who originally built Borders and worked for the company during the first three decades of its existence. They are the ones who watched in horror as a succession of greedy fools and outside operators -- men and women with no feeling for the culture of books -- presided over the company's decline, with no thought except for their own compensation.
6. To give independent booksellers a chance to reestablish beachheads in communities that were overrun by chains.
7. To prove, yet again, that repeating the retail sloganeering of the day -- "category management," "just-in-time inventory," "synergistic merchandising" -- accomplishes nothing unless you actually do what you say you're going to do.
8. To show exactly how worthless a highfalutin mission statement really is. (One sure sign that a corporation is sick at the core -- the bullshit mission statement. An honest mission statement would read: "Our mission is to make a profit, pure and simple." Unfortunately, Borders couldn't even carry out that mission.)
9. To illustrate the pernicious effects of untrammeled growth, the same "growth is good" ideology that led to the mortgage meltdown and financial crisis of the last four years.
10. Finally, to end the silly speculation, the enervating news stories, and the distracting pronouncements of impending doom. We don't need to be reminded these are tough times -- we're living through them. But it's bracing and ultimately inspiring to see the wheat properly separated from the chaff.
Borders plight redux, from Paul Kozlowski a day later:
The other day I gave ten reasons why Borders should go under, all of which remain valid. Even so, there is always another side to a story. Here are some reasons why Borders’ demise is bad news:
★ Loss of jobs. It is shocking and depressing to contemplate the human cost of having so many people thrown out of work, especially those hourly employees who kept faith and took pride in their individual stores even while management was selling them out. They deserve sympathy and aid, especially given the high number of unemployed already out on the street. Then there are those poor souls who have been selling and servicing the account for publishers. What will become of them?
★ Loss of common space for readers to gather. Borders' superstores had become community social centers, where people from all walks of life, united by their love for books, could sit together, drink coffee, read, write, converse, and enjoy each other’s company. Despite the rhapsodizing of the techno-savants over the creation of an “online commons,” it is nothing compared to the real thing -- a shared physical space and a shared physical experience. Shuttering these spaces will impoverish the communities who depended on them.
★ Lost sales at healthy retailers due to the dumping of inventory in a liquidation sale.
★ Loss of diversity in the retailing eco-system. As poorly managed as Borders was, it did provide an alternative for those who didn’t like Barnes & Noble’s cookie-cutter merchandising or live near an independent bookstore. Borders did bring physical books into the otherwise barren wasteland of American big box retailing.
★ Loss of tax revenues for local jurisdictions.
★ More power accruing to Amazon. Amazon already owns the largest slice of the retail book business pie by far, a condition it exploits to extract favorable terms from publishers and bully states into backing down on sales tax collection initiatives. Amazon is a big, efficient virtual selling platform but a lousy marketer (except for their own products, i.e. the Kindle) and it couldn’t care less about the content it hawks, only the profits it generates. It adds nothing to the browsing experience and relies on algorithms to make customer suggestions. It has the personality of an ATM. Who wants Amazon to control half of the trade book market?
★ An increase in vacant storefronts, those filthy eyesores strung along America’s highways.
★ An increase in the odds that Books-A-Million and Hastings will survive and limp along doing what they’ve always done. That these two backward-looking and unappealing retail chains are still in business is a sure sign that inertia is the most powerful force acting on the marketplace.
★ Loss of display space for the fine handiwork of all the talented cover artists and designers who make books look good. Jacket art is still one of the most compelling factors in getting consumers to pick up a book. A thumbnail online doesn’t come close to the real thing.
★ A substantial ratcheting up of the fear about the future of books and a new wave of mournful, or celebratory, articles, blog posts, and ‘think pieces’ stating that physical books and bookstores are dead. Ugh.
Though Borders is not a member of the American Booksellers Association, we are always saddened when any bookstore closes. The industry – whether independent bookstores, publishers, or readers – does not benefit from the diminishment of places to browse, discover, and buy books.
However, despite the doom and gloom expressed by some about the future of full-service bricks-and-mortar bookstores – and, while we don’t underestimate the challenges that lie ahead – ABA believes that the indie bookstore model is well positioned for the future.
ABA membership numbers have stabilized; the vast majority of ABA members are coming off the best holiday season they have had in years; and, we’ve partnered with Google to allow our members to offer e-books through their websites.
As book buyers and readers are facing a skyrocketing number of books vying for their attention – with more and more demands on their time – our members’ customers are telling us that, now more than ever, they appreciate the care independent stores take in choosing the titles to stock, and that the curated selection in our stores can’t be found elsewhere.
In addition, more and more consumers appreciate the fact that our members are locally owned and have long-standing and close ties to their communities. They understand that by shopping in an independent store they are making sure that far more of their spending dollars recirculate back into the community. Shopping locally supports the small businesses that are creating jobs, directly fuels local growth, and helps preserve the special things that make each American community unique.
Looking ahead, we know that indie stores will have to continue to work hard and stay nimble and innovative. No matter what may appear in the headlines today, and understanding that the circumstances leading to the current situation facing Borders is very different than those of independents, we believe that our members will continue to offer their customers a unique shopping experience they can’t find anywhere else.
From Paul Kozlowski, a long-time, serious book person, currently working for Other Press:
10 reasons Borders should croak
1. To remind publishers that their industry consists of making books first, spreadsheets second.
2. To allow a host of talented book people to get back to work in adapting to new technologies and financial terms, instead of nursing a sick and contagious retailer.
3. To serve as an object lesson in the consequences of bad management.
4. To reduce the amount of linear shelf space devoted to books in dozens of overbuilt markets across the country.
5. To vindicate all of the fine book people who originally built Borders and worked for the company during the first three decades of its existence. They are the ones who watched in horror as a succession of greedy fools and outside operators -- men and women with no feeling for the culture of books -- presided over the company's decline, with no thought except for their own compensation.
6. To give independent booksellers a chance to reestablish beachheads in communities that were overrun by chains.
7. To prove, yet again, that repeating the retail sloganeering of the day -- "category management," "just-in-time inventory," "synergistic merchandising" -- accomplishes nothing unless you actually do what you say you're going to do.
8. To show exactly how worthless a highfalutin mission statement really is. (One sure sign that a corporation is sick at the core -- the bullshit mission statement. An honest mission statement would read: "Our mission is to make a profit, pure and simple." Unfortunately, Borders couldn't even carry out that mission.)
9. To illustrate the pernicious effects of untrammeled growth, the same "growth is good" ideology that led to the mortgage meltdown and financial crisis of the last four years.
10. Finally, to end the silly speculation, the enervating news stories, and the distracting pronouncements of impending doom. We don't need to be reminded these are tough times -- we're living through them. But it's bracing and ultimately inspiring to see the wheat properly separated from the chaff.
Borders plight redux, from Paul Kozlowski a day later:
The other day I gave ten reasons why Borders should go under, all of which remain valid. Even so, there is always another side to a story. Here are some reasons why Borders’ demise is bad news:
★ Loss of jobs. It is shocking and depressing to contemplate the human cost of having so many people thrown out of work, especially those hourly employees who kept faith and took pride in their individual stores even while management was selling them out. They deserve sympathy and aid, especially given the high number of unemployed already out on the street. Then there are those poor souls who have been selling and servicing the account for publishers. What will become of them?
★ Loss of common space for readers to gather. Borders' superstores had become community social centers, where people from all walks of life, united by their love for books, could sit together, drink coffee, read, write, converse, and enjoy each other’s company. Despite the rhapsodizing of the techno-savants over the creation of an “online commons,” it is nothing compared to the real thing -- a shared physical space and a shared physical experience. Shuttering these spaces will impoverish the communities who depended on them.
★ Lost sales at healthy retailers due to the dumping of inventory in a liquidation sale.
★ Loss of diversity in the retailing eco-system. As poorly managed as Borders was, it did provide an alternative for those who didn’t like Barnes & Noble’s cookie-cutter merchandising or live near an independent bookstore. Borders did bring physical books into the otherwise barren wasteland of American big box retailing.
★ Loss of tax revenues for local jurisdictions.
★ More power accruing to Amazon. Amazon already owns the largest slice of the retail book business pie by far, a condition it exploits to extract favorable terms from publishers and bully states into backing down on sales tax collection initiatives. Amazon is a big, efficient virtual selling platform but a lousy marketer (except for their own products, i.e. the Kindle) and it couldn’t care less about the content it hawks, only the profits it generates. It adds nothing to the browsing experience and relies on algorithms to make customer suggestions. It has the personality of an ATM. Who wants Amazon to control half of the trade book market?
★ An increase in vacant storefronts, those filthy eyesores strung along America’s highways.
★ An increase in the odds that Books-A-Million and Hastings will survive and limp along doing what they’ve always done. That these two backward-looking and unappealing retail chains are still in business is a sure sign that inertia is the most powerful force acting on the marketplace.
★ Loss of display space for the fine handiwork of all the talented cover artists and designers who make books look good. Jacket art is still one of the most compelling factors in getting consumers to pick up a book. A thumbnail online doesn’t come close to the real thing.
★ A substantial ratcheting up of the fear about the future of books and a new wave of mournful, or celebratory, articles, blog posts, and ‘think pieces’ stating that physical books and bookstores are dead. Ugh.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Talkin Books with Barack
The first surprise was that Barack Obama opened the door to the Oval Office himself, smiling, inviting us in, shaking hands, asking for names and hometowns.
No, let’s back up a bit. The first surprise was certainly that I was at the White House at all. How I got there starts way back on Herbert Hoover’s first night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. March 4, 1929. The story is that Hoover’s books had yet to arrive, and as Calvin Coolidge had left no books at all on the White House shelves Hoover had to borrow a book from a night watchman for his bedtime reading. Picking up on this story in the newspaper the next day, the enterprising head of the American Booksellers Association quickly arranged delivery of a selection of current titles, intended as the beginning of a permanent White House library.
Pretty much every year since then, the ABA has made a delivery of books to the White House. During George W. Bush’s eight year term an ABA representative generally just dropped the books off, though on a couple of occasions there were brief meetings with Laura Bush, a former librarian.
So here it was January 2011, and as a member of the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association I was in D.C. for 7 days of meetings. Board meetings, meetings with folks from other kinds of independent business alliances, meetings with other booksellers, publishers, authors. Going in I had no idea I’d also be meeting with the President. But on Tuesday word came down that we’d be doing the annual donation of books on Thursday morning. The whole board would be going, and we each needed to pick a book. We’d be meeting with Obama himself.
Thus it was that about 11:15 in the morning on Thursday January 20th I found myself in the Oval Office with 7 other board members (great booksellers all!), and with Barbara Meade, the co-owner of Politics and Prose bookstore just outside of D.C., and Oren Teicher, the ABA’s CEO. Books in hand, we were standing around with Barack in front of the big Presidential desk. We had been told the appointment would last for only ten minutes, so I expected we would just hand him our books, they’d take some pictures, and we’d be out of there. I know Obama is a reader, but he had just finished hosting the Chinese Premier the night before. He is a very busy man and there was no political capital to be gained by hanging out with the likes of us.
But it was time for me to be surprised again. Obama asked questions about almost every book we gave him. He was especially interested in the books that the two children’s booksellers among us had brought for his daughters. He lamented the fact that he could no longer just walk into a bookstore and browse. Talking about books for his daughters, he said that the best books were ones that really engage them, but that they have to “stretch” for. He related reading aloud “Life of Pi” to his 8 year old. She kept insisting that they continue, even though the book “deals at some points with some pretty serious ideas and theology.” He was immediately drawn to Abraham Verghese’s marvelous novel, “Cutting for Stone,” and a number of us talked about the book’s richness and depth. Obama was clearly enjoying being with us, talking about books and reading.
I was the last person to hand him my book. “I figured somebody had to bring a political book” I said as I handed him a copy of Matt Taibbi’s “Griftopia,” a jaundiced, startling view of the financial meltdown. “Oh I know who Matt Taibbi is,” Obama said. “He sometimes doesn’t have a very high opinion of me.” As if to prove his point, he opened the book to an early page and read aloud the chapter heading, “The Biggest A**hole in the Universe,” a portrait of Alan Greenspan. “He’s not talking about you there,” I joked, giving him a pat on the shoulder.
After a group picture, Obama said that since we had each given him a book, it was only fair that he give each of us a book in return, and he handed out signed copies of “The Audacity of Hope.”
Now it was time to go. We filed out into the hall, and I started to walk toward the door where we had come in. But I stopped when I heard Obama’s voice again. He was standing in the doorway, talking about how hard it was to find good books for his daughters. Maybe we could help him, send him some recommendations? Oh yeah, we could do that, we all agreed.
Then we walked once more past the Marine sentry, who for the second time that morning did not move a muscle and failed to reply when I thanked him for opening the door for us. The better part of 20 minutes had gone by. But who was counting?
My 20 minute take on Barack Obama? For what it’s worth::
He’s young, smart, and handsome. He clearly has a sense of himself, and he has to have a fair amount of ambition or he wouldn’t be where he is today. Yet he also seems to understand that there is always more to learn. In my experience people that think they already know everything aren’t readers—witness our last president. Obama was engaged in talking with us, engaged in talking about books, and he is clearly engaged in the work of being a father. Many politicians become just “operators” who have long forgotten how to relate to people on a basic human level. That’s not Barack Obama.
I’ve certainly had my disappointments with him during his first two years in office. He has seemed surprisingly slow to lead, slow to frame the issues facing the country, and he has let many of the same folks who created the financial mess advise him on how to respond to it. But against this I left his office feeling he was indeed young, smart, open to learning, and still connected to the basics of our shared enterprise of being human together. All of this bodes well.
Maybe folks trying to influence him might try talking to him in a different way? Like:
--Hey Barack, when those girls of yours grow up, are you gonna want them dating people like those sleazy guys from Goldman Sachs?
I’ll bet this would get his attention. And then those sleazy guys at Goldman Sachs would probably get some more critical attention from President Obama as well...
Tom Campbell
No, let’s back up a bit. The first surprise was certainly that I was at the White House at all. How I got there starts way back on Herbert Hoover’s first night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. March 4, 1929. The story is that Hoover’s books had yet to arrive, and as Calvin Coolidge had left no books at all on the White House shelves Hoover had to borrow a book from a night watchman for his bedtime reading. Picking up on this story in the newspaper the next day, the enterprising head of the American Booksellers Association quickly arranged delivery of a selection of current titles, intended as the beginning of a permanent White House library.
Pretty much every year since then, the ABA has made a delivery of books to the White House. During George W. Bush’s eight year term an ABA representative generally just dropped the books off, though on a couple of occasions there were brief meetings with Laura Bush, a former librarian.
So here it was January 2011, and as a member of the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association I was in D.C. for 7 days of meetings. Board meetings, meetings with folks from other kinds of independent business alliances, meetings with other booksellers, publishers, authors. Going in I had no idea I’d also be meeting with the President. But on Tuesday word came down that we’d be doing the annual donation of books on Thursday morning. The whole board would be going, and we each needed to pick a book. We’d be meeting with Obama himself.
Thus it was that about 11:15 in the morning on Thursday January 20th I found myself in the Oval Office with 7 other board members (great booksellers all!), and with Barbara Meade, the co-owner of Politics and Prose bookstore just outside of D.C., and Oren Teicher, the ABA’s CEO. Books in hand, we were standing around with Barack in front of the big Presidential desk. We had been told the appointment would last for only ten minutes, so I expected we would just hand him our books, they’d take some pictures, and we’d be out of there. I know Obama is a reader, but he had just finished hosting the Chinese Premier the night before. He is a very busy man and there was no political capital to be gained by hanging out with the likes of us.
But it was time for me to be surprised again. Obama asked questions about almost every book we gave him. He was especially interested in the books that the two children’s booksellers among us had brought for his daughters. He lamented the fact that he could no longer just walk into a bookstore and browse. Talking about books for his daughters, he said that the best books were ones that really engage them, but that they have to “stretch” for. He related reading aloud “Life of Pi” to his 8 year old. She kept insisting that they continue, even though the book “deals at some points with some pretty serious ideas and theology.” He was immediately drawn to Abraham Verghese’s marvelous novel, “Cutting for Stone,” and a number of us talked about the book’s richness and depth. Obama was clearly enjoying being with us, talking about books and reading.
I was the last person to hand him my book. “I figured somebody had to bring a political book” I said as I handed him a copy of Matt Taibbi’s “Griftopia,” a jaundiced, startling view of the financial meltdown. “Oh I know who Matt Taibbi is,” Obama said. “He sometimes doesn’t have a very high opinion of me.” As if to prove his point, he opened the book to an early page and read aloud the chapter heading, “The Biggest A**hole in the Universe,” a portrait of Alan Greenspan. “He’s not talking about you there,” I joked, giving him a pat on the shoulder.
After a group picture, Obama said that since we had each given him a book, it was only fair that he give each of us a book in return, and he handed out signed copies of “The Audacity of Hope.”
Now it was time to go. We filed out into the hall, and I started to walk toward the door where we had come in. But I stopped when I heard Obama’s voice again. He was standing in the doorway, talking about how hard it was to find good books for his daughters. Maybe we could help him, send him some recommendations? Oh yeah, we could do that, we all agreed.
Then we walked once more past the Marine sentry, who for the second time that morning did not move a muscle and failed to reply when I thanked him for opening the door for us. The better part of 20 minutes had gone by. But who was counting?
My 20 minute take on Barack Obama? For what it’s worth::
He’s young, smart, and handsome. He clearly has a sense of himself, and he has to have a fair amount of ambition or he wouldn’t be where he is today. Yet he also seems to understand that there is always more to learn. In my experience people that think they already know everything aren’t readers—witness our last president. Obama was engaged in talking with us, engaged in talking about books, and he is clearly engaged in the work of being a father. Many politicians become just “operators” who have long forgotten how to relate to people on a basic human level. That’s not Barack Obama.
I’ve certainly had my disappointments with him during his first two years in office. He has seemed surprisingly slow to lead, slow to frame the issues facing the country, and he has let many of the same folks who created the financial mess advise him on how to respond to it. But against this I left his office feeling he was indeed young, smart, open to learning, and still connected to the basics of our shared enterprise of being human together. All of this bodes well.
Maybe folks trying to influence him might try talking to him in a different way? Like:
--Hey Barack, when those girls of yours grow up, are you gonna want them dating people like those sleazy guys from Goldman Sachs?
I’ll bet this would get his attention. And then those sleazy guys at Goldman Sachs would probably get some more critical attention from President Obama as well...
Tom Campbell
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A Good Story From the General
Retired General (and North Carolina native) Hugh Shelton told a great story during his appearance at The Regulator back in October. I've been repeating his little vignette ever since, so I thought I'd write it down here.
Shelton was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the end of the Clinton administration and the beginning of Bush's term. His position gave him a seat on the National Security Council, and these events transpired at one of the first meetings of the Security Council that he attended, during the Clinton administration.
The meetings were held around a long table, and Shelton was sitting at one end of the table, next to an (unnamed) cabinet member. During a period when a lot of side conversations were going on, the cabinet member leaned over to Shelton and asked if it were true that U-2 reconnaissance planes were flying over Iraq on a regular basis, and that these planes flew too high for the Iraqis to be able to shoot them down.
Yes, that was true, Shelton replied.
The cabinet member than asked if could be arranged for one of these flights to fly lower, so the Iraqis could shoot it down, giving the U.S. an excuse to "do something about Saddam."
Shelton thought for a moment, and then said that yes, he thought it could probably be arranged.
Really? The cabinet member asked.
Yes, said Shelton. "Just as soon as we teach your sorry a** how to fly one of those planes."
You can read the full version of this story in Shelton's memoir, Without Hesitation; The Odyssey of An American Warrior.
Tom Campbell
Shelton was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the end of the Clinton administration and the beginning of Bush's term. His position gave him a seat on the National Security Council, and these events transpired at one of the first meetings of the Security Council that he attended, during the Clinton administration.
The meetings were held around a long table, and Shelton was sitting at one end of the table, next to an (unnamed) cabinet member. During a period when a lot of side conversations were going on, the cabinet member leaned over to Shelton and asked if it were true that U-2 reconnaissance planes were flying over Iraq on a regular basis, and that these planes flew too high for the Iraqis to be able to shoot them down.
Yes, that was true, Shelton replied.
The cabinet member than asked if could be arranged for one of these flights to fly lower, so the Iraqis could shoot it down, giving the U.S. an excuse to "do something about Saddam."
Shelton thought for a moment, and then said that yes, he thought it could probably be arranged.
Really? The cabinet member asked.
Yes, said Shelton. "Just as soon as we teach your sorry a** how to fly one of those planes."
You can read the full version of this story in Shelton's memoir, Without Hesitation; The Odyssey of An American Warrior.
Tom Campbell
Monday, January 10, 2011
What a poem says..
"What a poem says is not what the words of the poem say."
"The very first thing a poem says is that it is a poem."
"The meaning (of a poem) is in the lilt of the words, in the meter, in the rhyme."
--From translator and poet David Slavitt at his marvelous reading last Friday night.
And there was this as well:
"The point of (reading) literature is not to improve yourself. All reading should be pleasurable, engaging, delightful."
"The very first thing a poem says is that it is a poem."
"The meaning (of a poem) is in the lilt of the words, in the meter, in the rhyme."
--From translator and poet David Slavitt at his marvelous reading last Friday night.
And there was this as well:
"The point of (reading) literature is not to improve yourself. All reading should be pleasurable, engaging, delightful."
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Regulator's"'Twas the Week Before Christmas"
'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the shop
Keith Richards is rockin’, his book sales won’t stop.
Cleopatra’s in pearls and Bill Bryson’s at home,
While Mark Twain dishes dirt in a weighty old tome.
Bestsellers are placed on the bookshelves with care,
In hopes that our customers soon will be there;
Squirrels meet Chipmunks all snug in their beds
while Crafts for Poor People dance in their heads
There’s Griftopia Grinches and Jon Stewart’s Earth
Franzen’s Freedom, – just see what they’re worth!
With Southern Pies and La Cuisine for the belly,
Keys to Good Cooking with a bowlful of jelly.
A pair of Sedarises can be bought by the half,
we’re settling in for a long winter's laugh.
Then out on 9th Street, there arose such a clatter.
We sprang from the store to see what was the matter.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
A Sustain-a-Bull bull and eight tiny reindeer!
And we heard the bull roar, as the team rose ascendant
Happy Christmas to all, and Shop Independent!
Keith Richards is rockin’, his book sales won’t stop.
Cleopatra’s in pearls and Bill Bryson’s at home,
While Mark Twain dishes dirt in a weighty old tome.
Bestsellers are placed on the bookshelves with care,
In hopes that our customers soon will be there;
Squirrels meet Chipmunks all snug in their beds
while Crafts for Poor People dance in their heads
There’s Griftopia Grinches and Jon Stewart’s Earth
Franzen’s Freedom, – just see what they’re worth!
With Southern Pies and La Cuisine for the belly,
Keys to Good Cooking with a bowlful of jelly.
A pair of Sedarises can be bought by the half,
we’re settling in for a long winter's laugh.
Then out on 9th Street, there arose such a clatter.
We sprang from the store to see what was the matter.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear,
A Sustain-a-Bull bull and eight tiny reindeer!
And we heard the bull roar, as the team rose ascendant
Happy Christmas to all, and Shop Independent!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
We have met the future and it's lost the ability to read and concentrate
Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's famous Media Lab, quoted in the New York Times a few weeks back:
I love the iPad,” admits Mr. Negroponte, “but my ability to read any long-form narrative has more or less disappeared, as I am constantly tempted to check e-mail, look up words or click through.”
A few weeks before this, Negroponte was quoted as saying the physical book will be dead withing 5 years, when all reading will be digital.
Or is it deep reading itself--and the concentration that makes it possible--that's going to be dead, as it obviously is already for Mr Negroponte?
But what the heck. The ability to concentrate is SO overrated. With constant access to the net, you can learn to be a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, a computer programmer even, all without ever having to seriously concentrate.
"I never really learned how to read texts," says a character in Gary Shteyngart's prophetic new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, "just to scan them for data."
Of course we can't expect Nicholas Negroponte to have read this. It's 277 pages into a long-form narrative..
I love the iPad,” admits Mr. Negroponte, “but my ability to read any long-form narrative has more or less disappeared, as I am constantly tempted to check e-mail, look up words or click through.”
A few weeks before this, Negroponte was quoted as saying the physical book will be dead withing 5 years, when all reading will be digital.
Or is it deep reading itself--and the concentration that makes it possible--that's going to be dead, as it obviously is already for Mr Negroponte?
But what the heck. The ability to concentrate is SO overrated. With constant access to the net, you can learn to be a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, a computer programmer even, all without ever having to seriously concentrate.
"I never really learned how to read texts," says a character in Gary Shteyngart's prophetic new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, "just to scan them for data."
Of course we can't expect Nicholas Negroponte to have read this. It's 277 pages into a long-form narrative..
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