Thoughts on a morning in early July
Okay, WTF with this weather?? I was woken up on several occasions last night by the loudness of the rain pounding outside. And thunder, of course. I could hear because the windows were open a crack, but only a crack, because it's TOO COLD to open them all the way. In fucking July.This morning it was dark as twilight -- headlights were mandatory -- and it was pissing rain and thundering during my drive and walk. Good thing I wore Teva sandals because I was soaked below mid-calf even with a raincoat and umbrella. It's going to do this all day. Just like all day yesterday. And tomorrow. If these clouds don't get the hell gone by next Friday when we go to Nantucket, somebody's gonna pay. Meanwhile, the Globe is handling the meteorological crisis with a helpful explanation of how to build an ark.
Despite everything, I dragged the kids to see The Nays last night (note the free downloads). I went to grade school with all those guys, but that's not why I like them -- they play excellent Beatles covers as well as other '70s music, and last night under the tent they even played "I Wanna Be Sedated." And also "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot -- quite a diverse playlist. Of course the kids were bored and wanted to tramp around the waterlogged park and then Becky slipped and fell into a huge deep puddle and we had to go home and have baths, but at least we got out of the house.
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In this brave new Kindle/iPhone world when traditionalists are wringing their hands over the fate of newspapers and books, there is a new possibility for preserving paper: books printed on demand, right in your local bookstore. The big-machine-in-the-store image brought to mind the brief Personics era. I still have a Personics tape of soul classics that I made in a record store in New Haven in the late 1980s. Now of course we have various methods of MP3 downloading, and cassette tapes were always doomed to be a short-lived technology, but I'm curious to see if people eventually get comfortable curling up with a good book on a Kindle. Maybe if they include an electronic odor file with every book originally published before World War II or thereabouts, so when you access the pages you get a faint whiff of pleasantly musty yellowed paper.
Despite everything, I dragged the kids to see The Nays last night (note the free downloads). I went to grade school with all those guys, but that's not why I like them -- they play excellent Beatles covers as well as other '70s music, and last night under the tent they even played "I Wanna Be Sedated." And also "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot -- quite a diverse playlist. Of course the kids were bored and wanted to tramp around the waterlogged park and then Becky slipped and fell into a huge deep puddle and we had to go home and have baths, but at least we got out of the house.
****
In this brave new Kindle/iPhone world when traditionalists are wringing their hands over the fate of newspapers and books, there is a new possibility for preserving paper: books printed on demand, right in your local bookstore. The big-machine-in-the-store image brought to mind the brief Personics era. I still have a Personics tape of soul classics that I made in a record store in New Haven in the late 1980s. Now of course we have various methods of MP3 downloading, and cassette tapes were always doomed to be a short-lived technology, but I'm curious to see if people eventually get comfortable curling up with a good book on a Kindle. Maybe if they include an electronic odor file with every book originally published before World War II or thereabouts, so when you access the pages you get a faint whiff of pleasantly musty yellowed paper.
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