One realizes, no, that there are many a discussion that be deeply enriched by a good dosage of some Jskah? Definitely a fan.

Will make gentle and tactful little queries around my sister's kindle -- there is the oddness of having to untether it from her amazon account, and then perhaps not so much concealing the transfer from my parents but -- tactfulness. Because it sitting unused seems worse, somehow, than her deciding it just isn't for her.

PPS @ Mara can I buy your sister's gently unused Kindle???

PS I LOVE JSKAH.

I am genuinely envious of the search (and frankly now I miss blogging because I can't do searches in my journals). Also wish I could cut and paste out all the words I want to look up! Argh old-skool you will be the death of me.

Okay, I just yesterday for the first time ever used the little "search" button on my kindle to be reminded who a character was in IJ (and it searches against everything on the whole kindle, right, not just the book I'm currently reading, results sorted by book) and that seemed like one more Way That Technology Is Improving Our Lives. Plus, I make all the luddites cry because I tend to read with iPhone in hand in order to quickly look up words (scopophobia!) or, you know, go look at an image of the Passion of St. Teresa. Because I can.

also dudes i love this whole 10 pgs a day thing for IJ!!! it's actually working so well i made myself a bookmark for blood meridian w/ 15 pgs / day & reading both i x out the date when i get through those pages. so much more manageable. turns out - um who knew! - the jskah needed some discipline after all.

from email to john:

slight relevance here but i've been debating typing up my general spiel on why i don't think the kindle's a terrible thing, just because i've had to go through it at least once w/ virtually everyonce i know (except israel, which could be considered surprising given his love affair w/ old & first editions). i find the suspicions more understandable from people who work w/ &/or make &/or distribute things like vinyl, artwork, letterpress, small book publishers, chapbooks, etc but find it indescribably irritating coming from people who, yknow, read mass market paperbacks when they read at all. how can you be pretentious about the vessel carrying a work when those you support are utterly w/out life & art? i guess book-technology's just taken so long to catch up to music technology; it's funny the ideas ipod carriers have about the moral superiority of paper.

&&& a - this is IN NO WAY directed towards you, which should be obvious but i'm pointing it out anyway. people like you & jlyn & fbot etc have kindle issues & i'm like, okay, let's talk... but it's EVERYONE ELSE that i get irked w/.

have tried saying it's like having an mp3 player & a killer record collection instead of a bunch of cds; this works better if you say "killer record collection + listen to music on yr computer" because i mean EVERYBODY does that, & if you do you are in some way recognizing that splitting content from form is NOT the end of the world, esp given the decline of large album art / private press work in the last few years.

i genuinely believe the rise in digital release is actually leading to a RETURN to the physicality of art, because there's no confusion about the necessity of that physicality.... ie, when a cd was what you listened to, everyone put out cds: convenient, standard format, etc etc. also soulless. a cd. tiny artwork, breakable form, few signs of a human anywhere. NOW you can release work digitally, & so if yr gonna go ahead & create a physical form well um - why not really give it life? fact is people are choosing to put out vinyl more now that the quote unquote digital revolution has really hit the scene, the attention to the vessel has come back into play. it's RELEVANT. i think this could also happen w/ books.

& all this beyond the part of me that's always all about increased accessibility anywhere because okay even living the bohemian life i do i am not POOR, i have no children & no car, i'm lucky enough to live near my work, i realized i could afford to take a couple classes this fall (!) w/out going into debt(!!); these things are not normal. we have a duty to work on technology that can make art accessible EVERYWHERE, to people who don't have *space* or cash or time or transportation; right now the kindle is overpriced, but anything the copyright's expired on is FREE & accessible via net & the more widespread ebooks become the more accessibility increases & on & on. these things are GOOD.

& i mean okay obviously i still mostly read paper books; i don't think i could do IJ on kindle just because of how much i interact w/ the text & how the kindle's marking-abilities are still a little immature (like, you can highlight sections, but easily skimming through & viewing & accessing those highlighted sections is a PAIN), & many books are that way for me. i still mostly need to hold & flip & skim; but when working, when folding laundry, when working my inane elementary school job, making copies & chopping, making the text size huge & hitting a button when hands are free? to sheer CONVENIENCE of the thing, god, the mind boggles.

i guess just, old for the sake of old, physical for the sake of physical? no.

when i invest in books now, i'm getting first editions & independent printings & handset letterpress work, i'm able to slim my collection of "well i just picked this old falling-apart shitty mass market copy cuz you know EVENTUALLY," i think it's a good supplement, just like i think an ipod is a good supplement. omg i am ranting so bad. shower time!

And I just thought to myself that being at location 3797 helps squelch competitive angst. So, no, you stick with the paper, I'll stick with the unholy digital book.

I have accumulated bizarre and perverse reasons for loving my digital book, though I haven't given up the paper books by any means... but
1) thanks to feedbooks.com free and instant gratification when I need Henry James, Edith Wharton, Cather, Woolf (though not all available and I covet the annotated versions of all of them to own forever in paper) -- even found New Grub Street.
2) I am carrying a lot of books around with me without damaging my rotator cuffs. Plus when I go spend two weeks with my parents I can carry my books with me and still have room for clothes.
3) I like not necessarily advertising what I am reading to the world.

My sister doesn't use her kindle at all, and I am not allowed to tell my parents who gifted her with it. And I respect her preference for paper, but wish we could discreetly pass the kindle on to one of her nephews who has no prejudice against electronic forms.

Yes yes yes. Like, next three books you read yes, like I drive north to thrust the stack in your hands my very self yes, like I am startled at my own cultish feelings about these books but there you are yes.

Eh, I'm back to doing stupid exercises with giant rubberbands. But they do help, so—

BTW I'm with Mara absolutely on this one—the Incandenzas are descended in a straight (alcoholic) line directly from the Glass family. Off the top of my head and literally out the door, but—I'm thinking 1) Franny and Zooey, 2) 9 Stories, and 3) Raise High &c.—this is the right order, yes, Mara? :o)

Lady! Holy moly with the straining and the muscle spasms and the carpal everything. Be careful with yourself.

And I currently have a badly strained left trapezius and right rotator cuff; so clearly I am going acoustic all the way, to the bitter thousand-page end. SIGH.

Though your advice is wise, I fear I won't be able to comply, since I'm still in denial about that whole "digital book" thing even existing in my lifetime. LA LA LA LA LA etc.

Ah, I can't bear it—I'm already to blame for so much! Or so Pyewacket discontently tells me on the hour....

Mara advises get it on Kindle and I suspect she is right. I seem to have re-thrown-out my back and can only manage to read it lying on my side with both me and book propped up with elaborate and fantastical arrangements of differently sized and shaped pillows. And then I fall asleep.

I start laughing every time I scroll past this. Just FYI. At this rate I'll have my own copy of Infinite Jest by year's summer's end and I'll be able to blame you and Mara for EVERYTHING.