FolioDeux Blog

The Museum of Printing in Massachusetts (its website: http://www.museumofprinting.org/ ) is a worthy organization (and they are in the midst of a fund drive, so if you care about printing history please visit and donate!) BUT, like a lot of other non-profits, they don’t seem to be able to manage their mail very well.  FD recently sent them a (small, FD isn’t rich, alas) donation along with a letter asking to be taken off their mailing list, which feels like another donation to me, since they tend to send very nice magazine type folders, and even at bulk mail non-profit prices, they are probably spending more money  than FD can donate to them! However, instead of getting off their mailing list, this morning FD found two copies of a neat poster of printing presses delivered to our mail box at the post office.  Sigh.  I’ll make some envelopes out of the posters and I’ll write again to ask them to take FD off their lists and perhaps we can at least stop getting duplicate mailings!

FD was out shopping yesterday (everything everywhere seemed to be on massive sale!  a new skirt, two tops, underwear and all for under $100.00!) and stopped into a Barnes and Noble to see if there were any books of Acrostic puzzles — of course I’d rather buy these through my local independent, but it only carries the NYTimes crossword series.  I do the NYTimes crossword every day, and the acrostics that they publish every other week, and I don’t want to do them over again, so I’m not a fan of the NYT series.  Anyway, although there are shelves of Suduko and even wordfind books at the B&N, as well as lots of crossword books (I will sometimes buy the collections labeled hardest from other publishers) almost no one carries acrostic (or doublcrostic, there are various names) puzzles, but sometimes one can find one or two copies at the larger B&N outlets (we don’t have a Borders nearby but they do have a few online).

Anyway, there was exactly ONE acrostic collection yesterday at the B&N, and it wasn’t from the NYTimes, so I bought it, even though I’m not sure if I didn’t do these back in the late 1990s (when it seems to have been first published).

But what really struck me was that despite the fact that it was a Wednesday morning, there were other shoppers and they were shopping — or at least carrying books around in the store.  I do think that there’s a too-easy assumption or usage in a lot of (especially on-line) discussions of reading/publishing that “everyone” is doing all their book buying on line, and/or switching to screen readers.  And, it’s jut not going to be true, at least for awhile yet, and if there wasn’t this constant reiteration of the “everybody’s doing it” meme, maybe buying and reading “real” books would continue to be a mass, not a niche, activity.

FD is writing two different mystery novels at the moment, and doesn’t need this plot, which would work for either a book or a screenplay.  Maybe it’s already been done, in which case, I’d like to read that book…

The plot:  An anonymous fan takes an obscure music group and, via twitter, facebook, a blog, etc ., pushes the group into significant popularity (the early part of the novel/movie would include [perhaps comic] scenes to show how the group’s own publicity attempts aren’t as slick and successful as those of its anonymous fan).  The grateful group makes a point of talking about the anonymous fan when interviewed, and eventually starts their “Anonymous Fan”  tour, complete with “I’m an anonymous fan of [name of band].   BUT at some point, somehow, the “fan” becomes disillusioned or feels personally dissed.  And then, one by one, members of the group start dying.   I’m seeing the lead singer’s girlfriend as the amateur sleuth and some nice FBI guy as her foil/new boyfriend…  As for the fan, he/she could either be an actual sociopath attracted to the group while idly web surfing, or a member of the entourage who isn’t much noticed.

Sound familiar??

On Sundays I read the New York Times, almost cover to cover.  I skim the travel section (we were delighted when the little column on hotels featured The Wit in Chicago — after we’d stayed there!), and the sports, and then Business, the front section, the week in review, sunday styles, arts and letters, and the magazine.  I usually don’t get to the book review until later in the week, but I do the crosswor puzzle, and the acrostic every other week, after dinner .  It’s not all I do on Sundays; I also do some laundry and iron while watching the morning political shows, and yesterday we took a walk, too, since it was a beautiful, classic  fall day here.  But it’s certainly a major part of my Sunday, and one of my favorite rituals.

Now, I’m sure I’d never read as much of the New York Times as I do now if I had to read it on line.  Is this because I’m old, because I came to the news before computers were a major part of everyone’s life?  Or is there something intrinsic to a paper newspaper that makes reading it a joy?  I don’t know, but I worry that the day will come when the paper won’t exist in paper form anymore.

I woke up yesterday thinking about John Donne.  Wondering if one would really have time  to both be so in love and write those poems.  I suspect he was more in love with poetry than with any of the actual women involved, though I’d love to be proved wrong.

There’s been a discussion recently on the SHARP-List (see http://www.sharpweb.org/) about whether a new word is needed to distinguish on-screen reading from on-paper reading.  FD thinks if I word is needed, it will emerge. But we have been thinking about the difference between reading on-line and reading on the page.  We still love our printed version of the New York Times, even as it gets more and more expensive!

And we still (we think) prefer paper books for most reading.  On the other hand, I do try to keep a book going via Daily Lit (see http://www.dailylit.com/), though only those available for free.  Today I finished an old Agatha Christie, and need to think about what to choose next.  I’ve done a couple of other novels and I suspect that I’d be better off with something non-fiction.  Could this be my opportunity to actually read the Federalist Papers?  or Confessions of an English Opium Eater?

There are at least two sites that offer a daily entry from Thoreau’s journals: “The Blog of Henry David Thoreau” at http://blogthoreau.blogspot.com/ and “This Date, From Henry David Throeau’s Journal” at  http://hdt.typepad.com/

I have “This Date” bookmarked, but ” the Blog” is nice, too, and they haven’t (so far as I’ve noticed) overlap in entries.  A little bit of Thoreau is great; a nice addition to one’s reading of the news and the rest of the more ephemeral content of the web.  Though I suspect that Thoreau might wonder why I’m reading his remarks on the natural world instead of going out and experiencing the world myself…

I myself have never been able/wanted to keep a journal (“Know Thyself” is not one of my watchwords) but I like reading other people’s journals.  I have all of Virginia Woolf’s Diaries, but haven’t read most of her fiction, for example.  No one seems to be doing her diaries on line yet, and I’m not volunteering (I wonder if they are still under copyright?).  I think one of the first web efforts was “The Diary of Samuel Pepys” at http://www.pepysdiary.com/ which has been going on for years and is now in 1666.  That’s a major undertaking, and a very elaborate site, with a lot of annotation, “in depth articles” etc.

Mr. FolioDeux makes money as an editor, not as a scientist, but he loves to read about science.  So, naturally, I bought him a copy (from our local independent bookstore) of The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes.  He enjoyed it so much that I decided I’d use it as my infusion reading at my last session.  I, too, was really engaged by Holmes’ wonderful writing, and have continued to read in the volume (indeed, I’m sad to see the end is rapidly approaching).  HOWEVER, I’m not so happy about the fact that the book — which has been gently used! — is already falling apart.  The front cover is pulling away from the spine.  Well, we didn’t buy this as an investment, but, still, it’s sad, a lovely first edition that is going to be worthless by the time I finish reading it. I won’t even feel good about loaning it out or giving it away.

This is, I hope, an anomaly.  I like buying “real” books, but if they are made to decompose so quickly, I’ll soon be sticking with older books — it’s not as if there aren’t dozens of books on my “need to read this someday” list.

FolioDeux has been using Twitter for awhile — but while we post, we’re not really reading much there.  We still find blogs more interesting, though some of our favorites are composed of fairly short postings.  And some of our favorite sites are just aggregators, not really blogs (but we put them on the blogroll anyway).