All Right, I'll Do It!

Continuing in the high tech mode, I’m finally giving in.  After much consternation, lost sleep, internal debate, research, and just plain stubbornness, I am going to join both Facebook and Twitter.

I would probably have done so sooner, but on SNL some months ago, show host Betty White talked about Facebook and declared it “an enormous waste of time.”  I believe her to be correct in the sense that it would be soooo easy to spend most of your precious day glued to both Facebook and Twitter.  I guess I just couldn’t see squandering vast amounts of glorious sunlight checking to see who was doing what….to whom….and why….and so on……  There’s just so much to do in life, that to spend so much time at one activity, to the exclusion of all other possibilities, well, it borders on irresponsible.

But, ultimately, I guess it boiled down to - how can 850 MILLION people (Facebook), or 350+ MILLION people (Twitter) be wrong!

I do not intend to devote much time to perusing either media.  I am probably totally wrong, but I just can’t see myself saying to anyone in general:  I’m at the podiatrist office …. with 2 feet.  But maybe I will.  There is nothing so unconvincing as a person swearing they will NEVER do this, or that.  In fact, I’ll probably end up telling the world when I go to bed every night.  But we’ll see.

In a sense, I’m also doing this to provide an assist to the blog, although at first anyway, I’m not going to link either to the blog directly.  I’m still shy about sharing too much personal stuff with so many people.  Overthink?  Probably.  But I listen intently to all those who rail against posting something that one day could haunt. Those concerns seem directed mostly to people who will be searching for jobs in the future.  In that case, I could care less! And an FBI person I know shudders at the thought of people putting up a billboard of their personal lives right next to the busiest superhighway in the world.  He feels it is a blessing and a gift to every nefarious character with a computer.  But on a road with 850 MILLLION (or even 350 MILLION) people, who’s going to find me anyway?  Or care?

So, off we go.  It should be fun?  In any case, I’ll definitely learn some new stuff, and maybe even make a friend or two, or three……

Tweet alert:  I’m typing a blog, with no other!

Mark Twain Quote:  “…we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.”

Kindle, iPad, Nook......or Book?

The time is fast approaching when I must join the millions who have opted to augment their precious books with a thin, rectangular instrument that looks like it was made for the sole purpose of being very easy to break, and easier to lose.  Notice, I did not say replace, yet anyway.  They are the little, portable things we all refer to as “e readers.”

They are popular almost beyond reason.  But seriously, how could anything like that actually compare to a book, a real live book? 

In many ways, nothing can replace the experience of actually holding a book.  For me, the feel and smell of a new book is half the fun of reading it.  My friend the novelist (more on her in a future blog), who has devoted her life to writing and such, sees the issue this way:  Real readers need to flip back and forth.  Real readers write comments in the margins.  Real readers like to see their old dog-eared books on the shelf.  Real readers like books that are….booky!

But we cannot, nor should we, stop this progress, for we must go wherever it leads us.

A major downside to this progress could be the demise of many, many stores that sell real live books. Borders is history, and some reports say Barnes and Noble is a banana peel away from a similar fate.  An associate at Barnes and Noble told me that book sales are way, way down since the advent of the “e-readers.” 

Such stores must not fail….I have to believe there will always be a place for them.  It is one of life’s little precious pleasures to roam the aisles of a bookstore, coffee in hand, as you travel in time and space to wherever it is you want to go.  They nurture the part of our psyche that seeks a place of warmth, comfort, belonging, and even history.  Just as we cannot live without our favorite coffee stop, or little diner, or restaurant, or vacation spot, or even church, the book store calls us, and we love to answer. We need to answer. I pray that there will always be a need for real live books.  I pray they can co-exist forever, each retaining their special lure for us.

One very important upside to the new way of reading is that is seems to reach those who would otherwise never read a book.  There are tons of younger people whose fingers must be calloused from video games and tweets and texting that will now read simply because the book comes in a format that to them looks like a game.  I don’t get it, but if it entices people who would (how foreign this sounds!) not read one line in a real book to read entire books looking at a bland little screen, then the whole enterprise will be worth it.

Now where’s my paperback?

Mark Twain Quote:  “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.”