25 January 2008

Can you sort of pretend you are reading a book, then go think about it.


The shelf. It is overflowing with the actual books. For real. Also, can you see it is of a brisk temperature here in the room of books to preserve them to be better accessed by our ancestors of the future? It is just sort of a brisk temperature everywhere. In the house. Out of the house. January, you are trying hard to kick my ass. This is California damnit. By the beach.

So there was this article in the New Yorker a little while back called "Twilight of the Books" and it was sort of about how living in the googled world doesn't give time for concentrated analysis of stuff you read or the motivation to think beyond all the information sort of barfed out there. Sort of like if you read blogs and stuff and junk mostly your mind becomes jello-like and soft. Like maybe if you read blogs like mine. And ones that are even better. Or ones that are even worse. Written by someone of already questionable brain matter. "The digital world is the greatest threat yet to the endangered reading brain as it has developed over the past five thousand years," is what these nice, smart people have decided-one of them is a Professor of Citizenship and Public Service and one is a Director at a Center for Reading.

Now I am going to hell for sure. I am sorry polar bears. I am sorry Heath Ledger. Once again I am doing something that has a dark side when I thought it was all rainbows and marshmallow spewing cats in baskets. I spent some time yesterday living in a googled world and reading some blogs and stuff on the internet. Due to the weather. You saw. I was in my jammies. Mostly I was in dog agility blog world. Us dog agility ladies we sure like to write about our dogs. I could have been reading a book. And doing critical analysis. Here's one right here on my desk that I am even mentioned in the acknowledgements on About Species meeting. We've discussed. I've quoted. But instead I am clicking around on the internet reading about a bunch of dogs. Blogs freak me out.

So here is my question to you. Yes-I am talking to You! Did you read all the way to this sentence? Because you thought I was going to tell you of some magic of how to make some running contacts spectacular and fast and a thing of breathtaking awe and you could wear ballet flats whilst running them? Or you were searching for small asses or dead rat toys and you found this little ditty? Or you just like looking in someone else's living room at dusk when it's light inside but dark outside and you can see all their stuff. Even their antler collection. Or maybe you thought I was going to tell you Project Runway things but I am not today, even though it involves denim. Or you were just ready to wish dog agility was the star of your life but you were just wishing it was happening in a better way because your life just seems to be getting so Specific? Cuz I welcome you! You is my people!

1 comment:

Elf said...

Nope; because I have some really pressing deadlines at work and, as Karey Krauter said to me recently, "the day job's gotta go." So I'm practicing.

-ellen