"Belle, you 'member Raleigh McClain's boy?"
I was standin' behind Uncle jes' surveyin' the settin' sun. "Reckon so, iffin' ya mean the older one," I said, since his younger boy is still over to the junior collich.
Uncle shifted in his seat, "yeah, the older one--what married that corn-fed gal. With bunnions."
Bunnions?
I said, "Cain't recall her feet, in particular. Funny that youse peekin' a folk's feet, though. Y' ain't started no foot fetish has ya'?
Uncle snorted, "Well, thang is, I was trying not to look at her smirky face, her bein' proud of draggin' that boy off to California--seems they doan wear nuthin' but sandals. Reckon she woan be smirkin' when she grabs onto how many folks is leavin' that place in panic. Dang shame what them tattoed toed people done to California.
A pair of ducks flew over and the crickets started up. Uncle din't say more. Directly we went in to supper.
"Why wuz ya askin' about the McClain boy, Aloysius? He ain't sick on nuthin', is he? "
"Not that I knows of. Leastways, not body-sick. Ain't mentionin' his haid. He sent Raleigh a machine to read books on, thas' all. Fer his birthday. Sent his Daddy some infernal machine wif' hundreds of books on it. The boy said it saves trees. No more paper and ink."
I wuz quiet.
"What do that mean, Belle? California doan even have no books no more? Has machines taken over even the pleasure of readin' a book wif' pages ya turn, an' margins to write in, an' inscriptions from yore friend in the inside cover? "
I cleared the dishes away and shook my own haid.
"I doan know Aloysius. I think thar's somethin' what worries me about that. I reckon if they do away wif print on paper and go only digiread, that could be a road to serious loss of ole books--not all book will be digitized."
Uncle looked out the window at risin' moon.
"Mebbe we's jes so ole we is like the fella who scoffed that tires would overtake horse shoes. "
* *
* * *
Does any of y'all have E Book Readers? What does ya think of it? Is it a good thang? A censorship threat? (Amazon snatched 1984 off the Kindle (s) when it was sued fer copyright infringement--without knowledge or permission of the Kindle buyers--if they can take the books ya download wif'out a by-yore-leave--what else can they do?) or is it the greatest convenience and cool gadget since the cuisinart?
13 comments:
i know one person who has one of the amazon kindle readers. she loves it, although i haven't asked her about it since 1984 was taken off. i think it's kind of a control of the market. you can only purchase books through amazon if you have one of their kindle machines. and it really provides amazon with some major profiling of you ... not that that's not happening anyway if you do searches on there. well, heck .. the profiling happens everywhere actually.
but as far as the kindle goes or other similar machines ... right now i have to say that i'm not into them.
I have several friends who love their books on tape, another with a Kindle. Me? I often wish blogs were acutally paper that I could hold and take with me while I wait at the Docs, etc. And while I DO read blogs on my iPhone, it just isn't the same. I love books. I love how they smell, to hold them at the book store. BUT if a Kindle enouraged just one person to read? I'm all for them.
Don't have one, don't want one. It takes me hours in a bookstore to decide what I want to buy. I love the whole bookstore experience. I guess my stockpile of books might be getting more valuable as antiques.
I don't have one, not sure I want one but the whole 1984 kerfuffle pointed out just how they consider consumers nothing more than ATMs with no rights whatsoever. The way I understand Kindle is that you don't "own" the books you buy for the kindle, you are just renting them. On Itunes you can transfer your songs/movies/tv shows to other computers, only a limited number of times. I'm not really sure what happens to your accumlated library once you've run your course of transfers. It's not like going to buy a book or dvd which you own and can sell again if you wish. I do have to say I think the book publishing industry could be run more efficiently when it comes to paper usage and recycling. I'm not ever going to give up my beautiful kids books or anything highly illustrated. You can pry my books from my cold dead fingers.
Yes, the Obamanation views digi-readers as another tool in their thoroughgoing censorship efforts.
Foamy,
heh--profilin' is DEFINITELY happenin'. I research al kinds of crapola on Amazon--part of me job, ya see...so imagine Aunty's revulsion when an Amazon pop up tells me that "based on your searches" they have a list of trash they have suggested for my consideration--GAG!
Boxer-Babe,
yep--me too. I am too tactile--wanna hold it in mah own hands, feel 'em, smell em--yeah!!
Pam,
eggs-actly! I also spend hours and hours in bookstores. I find thangs I never knowed I wanted to want!
Shamu!
Ditto EVERThang ya said. Absolutely. I collects kid books--fer the illustrations, but for less politically correct slant on thangs, too. Ever read a 5th grade American History book pre 1970? Whole different point of view that the current mind-bending schlock.
Troll-Man,
gotta say, that technology has become the dream tool of the goons of the world.
All y'all, jes a FYI on E-books:
FREE E-books here (but not if you have an Amazon Kindle--but Free to Sony Readers, HP readers, etc.)
http://manybooks.net/
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://books.google.com/
But bottom line, I think we need a basic print library of our own--jes in case. Imagine a world whar' print is outlawed and we's reduced to whatever the whoevers allow to be digitized? That'll be censorship such that whole areas of knowledge would disappear. Yikes
i like paper. im turning into a luddite as more dark controlling conveniences come into our lives.
Snort! Corn fed gal. Fun-neee.
I'm a paper gal too. I'm not diggin that the local paper is on its way to completely online. I need that feel of the paper in my hand. I guess the same would go for books too.
One of friend of mine has one and she loves it. Not for me, though. I love the look, feel, and smell of books. Same goes for bookstores. I make it a point to at least a couple times a year lose an entire day to ambling aimlessly through a good one. One more thing to pry from my cold, dead hands.
Heh--ain't it funny--we has a consensu, I reckon. We's digital cause we is bloggers, but we draw the line at books---amen.
I have pretty much fallen asleep holding a book most of my life.
I do not intend to change... imagine having nothing to read because some satellite became a strategic target and got blasted to oblivion. Ssshhheeesssshhhh!
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