Saturday, March 12, 2011

 

world book day

today i read a facebook status update from one 'fb friend' that this month of march the world celebrates world book day . how stupid of me. as much as i love reading (for pleasure i might add, although in this facefuckingbook era of distraction and short attention span disease , it's getting harder and harder to pleasure myself from reading books) i never realize till today that is, that we have a world book day. but i guess it's entirely understandable. having world book day that is. afterall we have just about world this or that day practically everyday.

it's good to know that book lovers and booktrade people celebrate this day in many different ways. i imagine some bookreading groups having their special gatherings . i imagine maybe sophie fucking kinsella brigade will have their own celebration by baking a cake in the form of the latest book by SFK and eat it. book stores will have special sales. A world book day website says that UK and ireland world book day was on 3rd of march and as the site puts it;

A main aim of World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own.

i never thought the british children have any problem to 'have a book of their own' .that noble aim sounds very much like what countries in africa or fucking bangladesh ought to have. i would have thought for the uk, "opportunity to have a book of their own" should be replaced by say, ipads...

and here, how did we celebrate world book day? i'm not sure if we did anything. unless you count the launching of the ex pm's memoir as a part of the event or a 'game' posted on the status update of one of my 'fb friends'. the rule is to open to page 56 of the book nearest to you and write the 5th sentence and post it as your fb status update.

infantile, but could be quite a fun trivial pursuit with interesting result. the only problem is the nearest book anybody here have is probably in the town library. and this was amply demonstrated by the response to this fb friend's status update. out of twenty or so responses to his post, none did as required. all posted inane and unrelated comments.

but i could easily do this. i have here beside my bed a side table at arm's length away with four books on top of it.at the bottom of the stack is colin thubron's travel book the lost heart of asia,next is a small artbook 'flowers', on top of that is phillip larkin's "Required Writing" Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982, on top of that is Intercontinental's travel guide book 'Best of China' and the topmost and qualified as the nearest is a quarterly literary magazine 'Story' (summer 1996 issue).

i read somewhere sometimes ago that j d salinger's first fiction was published in 'story' and since then i religiously collect this magazine whenever i can find them. which is not easy as you can only find them in second hand payless book sales here. and even then quite rarely. stories in story rarely dissapoint. and the 5th sentence on page 56 of this volume is this . it is from a story "May be autumn is over ' by Jeff Maehre. It is his first published story.

I didn't know if I was standing over his spleen or stomach or eyeball or what.

now, don't say i did not celebrate world book day....

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

 

falling out of love with the internet

i used to like the internet. very much. but not much anymore. the first time i started surfing the net was in the mid nineties. in those days internet use here was still not widespread and even with a slow computer and no broadband you can get fast downloads. not anymore , even with broadbands and better and fast computers. but that's not the reason why i don't like interenet anymore.

when i first started using the internet it was still quite new. but even then the greatest thing about the net that i like most was that most of the useful things you want to read or see , you can get for free. there were not too many super applications like you have today. there were no youtube, or blog or googlemap, or wikipedia or twitter or facefuckingbook then. but hey, even from the beginning there were a lot of porn. and if you're not too stupid you can get a lot of downloads for free. you just can't escape pervesion and prostitution. even in cyberspace. but it is perfectly understandable. human are just human. it is in our nature to exploit women . and in the early days i must admit i did check out some of these naughty sites. until one day when i booted up my computer and there on the desktop was this picture of a woman spreadeagled with a huge dong 'logjammed' in her vagina. no matter how i tried to delete the thing it just wouldn't go away until i finally gave up and brought it to a computer shop to clean it up. and from then on i rarely go into those dark sites again. but that's not really the reason why i don't like the net anymore.

it is amazing how much internet has changed our way of life and i've not met anyone who isn't a net addict to some degree. it is probably the most unrecognized disease of modern days. and the irony is that for many people it doesn't make them much 'happier' than their pre-net days. one of the most insidious effect of the net on me at least is this. it kills my book reading habit.

this is also quite ironic because with the internet an average person probably 'read' more than they ever did in their pre-net life. but it's not the same anymore. like eveyone who is a net addict , i'm now experiencing attention deficit disorder. we want everything fast and brief. we're impatient and easily distracted and easily waylaid by 'links'.

i hardly pick up a book anymore. which is another irony because my book collecting has never slacken down and the library is growing bigger by the month. last night i picked up an outdated biography of The Coen Brothers who are my favorite film directors which i hope will distract me from the internet a bit and stop me from checking out the retarded status updates of my fb friends. ok, may be not stop alltogather but ....oh never mind....

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

<$BlogItemTitle$>