But I'm 47, and bookstores, that sell actual fucking books, that's what I've known all my life. I didn't grow up wanting to write data, ones and zeros, for Kindles or what-the-fuck-ever ugly hunks of plastic. I wanted to make books. And, no matter how much of my income eventually is derived from ebooks, I will, always hate that format, and always cling to the past, which is my present. The book: which is an object with covers and binding and pages, something tactile, something with a wonderful odor, born of ink. This will all likely be swept away in a few more decades or less, excepting small specialty publishers catering to the antiquarian tastes of people like me. But I'll keep writing, and people will keep reading.
Thank. You.
I actually did give in and get an e-reader, the same way I gave in and got a cell phone, the same way I originally gave in and got a computer (a Mac Classic which I paid for myself with I think a $1500 student loan from the University of Iowa and it's still in a closet somewhere). But.....yeah, I hate it. I hate the way the fonts are all the same, I hate e-ink, I hate how illustrations are gone, I hate how even typesetting and how the margins are set and paragraphs are arranged on the page are all gone (that stuff fascinated me as a kid). I hate how cover illustrations will be going soon. I hate how the apparent MS Word versions are shoved through an OCR so you get shitty formatting and weird letter-numbers and spelling/punctuation errors. And yet....there's over 7600+ books in this apartment at the moment, there's just no room for any more, and actually we should move but can't face it because last time (when there were about 3000 fewer books to pack) was so horrifying. And I miss typewriters. And letters.
On the up side, we ALMOST lost Elliott Bay here in Seattle about a year ago, which would have broken my heart to itty pieces, but apparently a guy who owns a huge historical building right in my neighbourhood cut them a deal on the rent and they're doing pretty good business now. However, nearly every indie or small bookstore in town is in dire straits or already closed. (Said the owner of the first and for a long while only gay bookstore here, Beyond the Closet, "The internet killed my business." People could either order books he sold online, or just even download porn for free - why bother with a story in a book when there's pictures?)
I increasingly feel we're moving towards a post-verbal culture -- everything's going to be graphics and video "blogs" and video "reviews" and life will be essentially YouTube. I actually really hope I'm not around for that. And, as a lot of other people have already pointed out, that's just not sustainable, even if a meteor doesn't hit us.
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apologies for the tl;dr
Date: 2011-09-10 11:57 pm (UTC)Thank. You.
I actually did give in and get an e-reader, the same way I gave in and got a cell phone, the same way I originally gave in and got a computer (a Mac Classic which I paid for myself with I think a $1500 student loan from the University of Iowa and it's still in a closet somewhere). But.....yeah, I hate it. I hate the way the fonts are all the same, I hate e-ink, I hate how illustrations are gone, I hate how even typesetting and how the margins are set and paragraphs are arranged on the page are all gone (that stuff fascinated me as a kid). I hate how cover illustrations will be going soon. I hate how the apparent MS Word versions are shoved through an OCR so you get shitty formatting and weird letter-numbers and spelling/punctuation errors. And yet....there's over 7600+ books in this apartment at the moment, there's just no room for any more, and actually we should move but can't face it because last time (when there were about 3000 fewer books to pack) was so horrifying. And I miss typewriters. And letters.
On the up side, we ALMOST lost Elliott Bay here in Seattle about a year ago, which would have broken my heart to itty pieces, but apparently a guy who owns a huge historical building right in my neighbourhood cut them a deal on the rent and they're doing pretty good business now. However, nearly every indie or small bookstore in town is in dire straits or already closed. (Said the owner of the first and for a long while only gay bookstore here, Beyond the Closet, "The internet killed my business." People could either order books he sold online, or just even download porn for free - why bother with a story in a book when there's pictures?)
I increasingly feel we're moving towards a post-verbal culture -- everything's going to be graphics and video "blogs" and video "reviews" and life will be essentially YouTube. I actually really hope I'm not around for that. And, as a lot of other people have already pointed out, that's just not sustainable, even if a meteor doesn't hit us.