Courtesy of the artist, Xiaoze Xie and the <a href="http://www.cowlesgallery.com/xie/06/XX12547.html" target="_blank">Charles Cowles Gallery</a> in New York.
Courtesy of the artist, Xiaoze Xie and the Charles Cowles Gallery in New York.

Long Live Paper!

November 23, 2007

But the death of paper has been predicted for decades now. Bill Powers, media critic for the National Journal, believes that paper isn’t just an old habit, but rather an advanced technology that is nearly impossible to improve upon.


Listener Comments Leave a Comment | Refresh Comments
[1]
Posted by: B. Marx
November 24, 2007 - 07:38AM
New York, NY

Because of the context I could not resist forwarding - posting - this poem: (though I realized recently I'd like to rewrite - edit, seems they're never done)

A Late Call

There is something so honest

about hanging a door

if I were Jesus

I would have wanted to

have been a carpenter

for a door cannot lie

to work, it must stand

and reflect the hands

that hung it

no philosophical quandary

no esoteric argument

understood or even misunderstood

by those only in the club

the merest clod - or the greatest genius

are on equal footing

when it comes to opening a door

it works or it doesn’t

any hand can feel it

it’s intuitive like

the knowing many call faith

oh yes – they work better and worse

but there’s a feeling when it’s better

that everyone can know

if they are open to touching

to knowing

to recognizing every

threshold

as some different sacred place

where there is something to know,

yes - if I were Jesus,

I would want to hang doors

for those who hang men

can never really be sure

about what they do

[2]
Posted by: C.Griffith
November 25, 2007 - 06:37PM
Ann Arbor

I think books are actually well-suited for digital format, since they are usually just text without graphical content. One other benefit is that they have their own light source, which means you can read them in low-light. Magazines with rich graphics are harder to pass-up for me, but I suppose they could be adapted for e-readers to look nearly as nice. But its the browsing feature, where you're not really sure what you want to read, where printed materials really do offer the bigger advantage.

[3]
Posted by: L. DUNSETH
November 26, 2007 - 08:19PM
SF, CA

loved your show and discussion....and regarding the 'death of the hinge'......don't forget that books have hinges too!

cheers,

ld

[4]
Posted by: Bob sacks
December 12, 2007 - 01:03PM
Copake NY

I wonder if Mr. Powers has ever read an e-book. I understand his case and his sentimental position, as I have been an analog paper-producing magazine man for 37 years.

The real issues facing some of my print friends and pundits, is that they seem to forget that it is actually the words, the journalism, the thinking, and the final distribution of that wisdom, that contains any meaningful importance. I’m sure Mr. Powers would say that the paper adds to the experience of those words. Which is kind of ironic, since most of those written words are produced these days with a keyboard and viewed by the author on computer screen.

Why does it matter so much if it is paper or plastic? What is the difference? Who really cares? Is there really no hope for a significant digital future? Is paper the only way to share information? I think not.

I’m on my 5th ebook now and here is what I have found. The words are a transportation device. The words take you wherever a good author or journalist intended you go. It doesn’t matter to the transportation system, what the substrate is, could be paper could be plastic. Words don't know and don't care how they are read. They just want to be understood.

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