kindle, schmindle

While I browsed Craigslist for bookshelves a couple of weeks ago my friend eagerly unpacked his Kindle. And just like that, a whole genre of furniture was put on the extinct list.

I imagine sometimes how the move from print to online will change the landscape of our lives. All that wall space we’ll have once the shelves are gone.

via Thanks to Kindle, it’s a strange new world | csmonitor.com.

Call me "old skool" but I like books. I like print. If it's really important I print it out or buy it. Why? So I can write on the page. But my love of books and paper goes a little bit deeper. Paper and print media are still the most flexible and durable of media for the written word. This is not by criteria of how easy it is for me to copy or manipulate the text, for that is surely easier to do with a digital image. At the machine level, that is translated into so many 1's and 0's floating around in different configurations to allow the modern bricoleur do what he or she wishes with a given digital object.

I am talking about a different kind of flexibility and durability that Kindle can't meet, at least yet. Until I can drop it, write on a "page", get a little sand in it, maybe even a little water, let it accidentally roast in the car, etc.; until it has the durability, flexibility and interactivity of a book, I will be sticking with my paper before going to plastic.

Wait, what was that you just said? Interactivity? You can't cross reference a page on the web, look for more information on a term, find related articles, etc. with a book! That's not the kind of interactivity I need when I pick up a book. I am talking about the kind of interactivity between my thoughts and the content on the page itself. I am talking about creating my own commentary in each book where I can record in permanent record of my thoughts and then go back each time to see how I read it at one point in my life. It has become a fantastic tool for self-reflection and diagnosis for how I understand things every time I pick up a volume, especially an important one, that I have read before.

Books have a social inventory with each person that picks it up and consumes it. The very subastance of the page retains the memory of its use. The same object takes on the characteristics of where it once travelled. I like sharing books I have read with others, even if those books have taken a mild dip in the bath or by the pool. I can buy used books at a fantastically cheap price. I love looking at shelves of books as well. To see the many spines that represent someone else's perspective on an aspect of living I have not experienced. A "file" just does not have this social depth for me. A file has no real memory encased in its fibres. It is sterile and virtual. It is a symbol of a throwaway culture that decides to suck content and then have it pass right through like a high fiber smoothie loaded with sugar.

Maybe I am a backward cynic who waits to see how the technology will actually meet my needs rather than create a new set of needs that exist just to complicate my life even more than it already is. I rue the day, however, when parents are downloading a book for their kids before bedtime rather than go to that shelf, pick out a ripped up book that has all the signs of love and happiness from another kid, even you the parent as a child. It seems sterile and bland.

So I have at least two books falling apart on my boys' bookshelves. I need to tape them up tonight. A couple are books that were already taped from my wife's extensive reading of them. These are objects that are symbolic of our social unit. They are part of the cultural identity we are creating as a family. They retain memory and give that memory to others. A file in a small plastic box cannot even come close to that social significance right now. And frankly, I don't care if it ever does.

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