On Being "Late to Trend"

I've always been what marketing people call a "late adopter." My Marxist phase didn't begin until 1987, I didn't buy an Internet stock until 1999.... the fact that I now have a blog makes me wonder whether blogs aren't already becoming obsolete...

In which context, I want to note that I'm reading a lot of novels on my computer lately, on Scribd, and also that my Kindle just arrived in the mail. Which should mean that, if Amazon go out of business in the next few months, I'll be able to make a good living from companies paying me not to adopt their new products!

Or perhaps I'm finally getting ahead of the curve... Although I still think of books as being easier to lug around than electronic devices, I'm noticing that many books I own are in fact significantly heavier than a Kindle. Perhaps, if I live to see the disappearance of literary-works-incarnated-as-physical-objects, it's their aromas that I'll miss... I still distinctly recall inhaling from the pages of a 1930s Louis MacNeice poetry volume in a library in Edinburgh -- resinous, still largely uncut, musty and heady with the glue used to hold it together.

Nota bene: I'm going to simplify my blogging schedule; henceforward I plan just to blog five days a week, so I can get more work done on the weekends.

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2 thoughts on “On Being "Late to Trend"”

  1. I have a feeling you won't be giving up the aroma. I'm still pretty sure that whenever I call you and the phone goes straight to voicemail, it's because you are in the stacks at UC Berkeley.

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