"the post-Gutenberg era — the period from, roughly, the 15th century to the 20th, an age defined by textuality — was essentially an interruption in the broader arc of human communication ... we are now, via the discursive architecture of the web, slowly returning to a state in which orality — conversation, gossip, the ephemeral — defines our media culture."
Birth is difficult, and you're longing for a return to the reading-womb.
But there's no going back.
On 8/2/10 9:48 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The other day, when I was trying to recall Harold Bloom's argument about why
> Yeats's "The Second Coming" is a reactionary poem, Michael Pollak helpfully
> scanned and posted the passage. I tried reading it and felt very frustrated -
> it was all passing me by. I wondered if my brain was atrophying, or if I'd
> become a philistine, or something else horrific. Just before he posted it,
> though, I'd ordered a copy of the book, which just arrived today. I was just
> reading the passage and found it thoroughly comprehensible and stimulating -
> it reminded me of how I was seduced by Bloom's influence and still sorta
> remain under his spell all these years later.
>
> So I'm wondering - what is it about the screen vs. the page? Is it just that
> I'm from a generation raised on print, habituated to the idea that serious
> writing is ink on paper and stuff on the screen is basically just news or
> gossip, totally in-the-moment stuff? Or is it something about the media
> themselves? Anyone else have this experience?
>
> Doug ___________________________________
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