It's a chilly day here in San Antonio. It seemed to me the world held its breath this morning upon awakening until scanning the television, newspaper, internet, and social media for word on friends and family on the East coast after the devestation of superstorm Sandy. I myself received a text from a friend in Maine last night after going to bed, reporting that the winds were up to 65 mph where she was at. That's incredible, and terrifying, considering the space between where Sandy hit and where my friend lives. So, for all on the Eastern Seaboard, I hope you're safe and prepared to ride it out.
Speaking of news and social media, I read an essay called The Trouble with Twitter by Melissa Hart. I have to admit, I can completely see the logic in her essay. She teaches journalism, and we've seen far too many printed medium crash and burn in this new age of instechnology. See what I did there? I combined instant and technology...? Please, stop me if I'm trying too hard.
As a Twitter and FaceBook user, I can see my own hypocrisy in agreeing with everything she wrote. I love reading articles. I love getting all the information. In fact, sometimes I even go back after reading the article to see if the investigation of a story lead to any outcome. For example, there was the story of the mysterious orange goo in Alaska that intrigued me. I had to search after the fact to find out it was a fungus called rust. Still, I do appreciate the microblogs and microreports generated on both Twitter and FaceBook. I like up to date information on important matters, such as what's going on with the storm on the east coast and what those two nefarious characters running for president are up to.
This does not mean that I enjoy reading full-length articles any less. But I did not realize that it was costing people their jobs. Or, at least I did not consciously realize it. It makes sense, since newspapers and other prints are closing down. As a reader, I can appreciate the horror the journalists are experiencing. I finally broke down a few years ago and got a Nook, which I love, but I cannot fathom giving up my masses of accumulated printed volumes of book smelling books. I love them. I even have old issues of magazines and newspapers. The idea of a world without them makes no sense to me.
But we've reached the point of no return and not only crossed it, but dove into the endzone and did a gangnam dance in it. There is no turning back, unless something crashes the entire world system of computers, networks, servers... I'm getting into an area I barely understand, but suffice it to say, we're not going back unless the apocalypse rains upon us. But it was an excellent, eye-opening essay, and I definitely recommend reading it.
Today, I read 55 Days by Black Narcissus. I'm a huge fan of his writing. But I am also a huge fan of Christmas and the image of a personified Christmas was rough for me. However, it felt mildly like A Christmas Carol in its creepy factor and it was a fantastic write. I loved it. Read it, read it, read it. He wrote it on a word bank, and I have to say bravo because my poem from that same word bank would not have been anywhere near this.
The classic poem I read was Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself by Wallace Stevens. I had never heard of him before, but I am definitely going to be OCD on the page for a while scouring his works because I loved this. The imagery in this was profound. I can honestly say I felt on the verge of an epiphany reading this. It reminded me of late winter mornings in Maine; made me long for them again. Ooh. Chills.
Malingerers by Anton Chekhov is the short story I read. At first I was thrown off by the verbiage. It's not language or words I don't know, just a lot of words seldom used nowadays put together. But I kept reading, and it was a pretty good story. I think the author was poking fun at homeopathic practices. In fact, I'm sure he was. In the end, it was quite an amusing story. I felt kind of bad for Marfa...
...
If you are visiting for the first time, please read why I am doing this blog here.
No comments:
Post a Comment