Reading with Picard

A guy whose opinion I trust tells me that I should get off my blogging butt and stop posting videos - point well taken.

So...

The thing that has been concerning me lately is the publishing industry - wait, don't yawn - and is it some literary canary in a coal mine? Sure there has been this proliferation of bust out news on ipads and kindles and nooks and the such - but is anyone reading much anymore? Philip Roth, a writer I really admire, has said in interviews that this weird habit of reading novels will soon be a thing of the past - he puts more of an edge on it than that, but basically is saying that book reading is a dying, and maybe even dead art. It makes me think of those episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation where Picard is shown reading an actual book. It creates great respect for the character - so brilliant, and forward thinking, yet still in touch with the past. In other words, only the really brilliant dudes that get to fly starships will be reading novels in the future. I never get the idea that people will read full books on their readers - maybe at first, sure. But as attention spans shrink so will story length. Witness the rise of first flash fiction, then micro and postcard fiction. Soon there will be single letter fiction. "J" by Ernest R. Toobusytowriteawholebook - a long awaited prequel to his longer work LMNOP.

I am far from a luddite... real far. And I love me the technology. Hell, if I had the bucks, I'd pick up a ipad. But I do wonder how far we will drift as a society of sound bite driven postcard readers.

Do me a favour - tell me on this blog the last book you read. Give me hope. It was a whole book right? With a bunch of pages? And you weren't on a starship.

Because you wanted to know...

... where good ideas come from.

Quite a brilliant little video here.

Disappearing into Faulkner

I haven't picked up a Faulkner book for quite a while, years even. The last one was As I Lay Dying - challenging for sure, especially in its structure, but still a favorite of mine. I have to admit that I've been reading a lot of books that would not fall into the literary classic genre - good books, fine books, but not really challenging my noggin.

A few weeks back I started reading Light in August. My brain suddenly woke up from its metaphorical Dr. Pepper and Blue Cheese Doritos stupor, and went, "huh, what? I am actually needed?" Okay, maybe that is too strong, and too critical of the other writers that have written these fine books that I happily disappeared into. But a few pages into Faulkner and I was realizing just why I wanted so bad to write all there years. The language is gorgeous, sumptuous even - the long stream of consciousness paths that Mr. Faulkner takes the reader down immerse me into character, place, time and above all, like beautiful gothic fiction, the mood - or better yet, the sublime experience. My skin tingles as I read of Joe Christmas travelling down a dark country road, and you can hear every cricket and stone under his shoe - not too mention the foreboding light, from a house, from a streetlamp, a fire, or the moon, always the moon.

And to my brain. You're welcome.

Helløø?

Getting in touch with my Scandinavian heritage.

This vid makes me laugh until I hurt. Especially the totally random phone call.

Going to the chapel

This summer I went to the chapel.

Well, in actuality, I took my daughter to the chapel, which was outside, at our place in the country.

I think this was seconds before we were all bawling (bunch of weepers that we are).