Internet is for funsies and new werds that make yew miss spell.

The internet is for funsies and made up words, which is a dignified way of avoiding the truth that if it weren't for the taboo of pornography, there would be no internet as we know it--the hyperactive information sharing imaginatorium of sex.
I imagine the internet a bit like the chapter in Hitchhiker's Guide when Slartibartfast gives us the guided tour to Magrathea, with vast staging areas devoted to adorable kittens and 633k 5p34k (geek speak, if you have to ask).
I like the parts of the internet that don't include Comic Sans and believe in a dictionary, or at the very least, little red dots that second guess your aptitude as a good speller.
In homage to hypertext and what hypertext was nonce, the interwebz is good for bopping around like Mario on little clouds of knowledge and bonking your against bricks for extra points.

So, while I was doing some research on Travesties by Tom Stoppard, I bounced around between some Dadaist, Leninist and Marxist Websites, I found a literate blog that had a meme that looked like funsies.
Thusly,


Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardcovers are excellent collector's items. They collect lots of dust.
(I'm sure serious readers amass plenty of each.)


Waterstones, Borders or Amazon?
Whiskeytangofoxtrot is Waterstones? If it is an independent bookseller, I'm into it.

Bookmark or dog-ear?
I dog-ear galleys and bookmark editions in print, out of print or not belonging to me.

Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random?
The progeny of philosophers and booksellers, I first put my books in sections and rearrange the flow between shelves according to my humor. The alphabet is only necessary until the books come home with me.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
And give away. And steal from friends.


Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Screw top or flip cap?


Read with dust jacket or remove it?
Am I reading on the train? Is it a big art book? Does it belong to the library?


Short story or novel?
Both please?


Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Wiz kid.


Buy or borrow?
Just as long as you're not one of those assholes who confuses bookstores with a library where you can sit and take up space sipping your latte, making notes and cracking the spine.


Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
What is this? Amateur hour?


Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
I envy the fact that some people can actually schedule parts of their days for reading. I tend to do it in my twenty-first century version of "spare" time.


Favourite series?
I found this meme on a stranger twenty-something's blog and she is apparently Canadian, which has me wondering, if it's pronounced "aboot" why not "fave-oo-rit?"
And I bet she missed out on some serious Sweet Valley High action.


Favourite YA book?
I wish Judy Blume could re-write Are You There God? It's Me Margaret with cell phones so that these impressionable young things wouldn't have to rely on Twilight for the prelude to their nascent sexual awakenings.


Favourite book no one has heard of?
I hate this question. If no one has heard of the book, then how the hell are there printed copies floating around?

Favourite books read last year?
Richard Feynman.


Favourite book to re-read?
I haven't re-read much since I was 12.


Do you ever smell books?
You don't?


What are you reading right now?
1921 about New York City baseball, but I can't read just one.

What are you reading next?
New Yorker perhaps.

Book man

On Friday, after a late closing, I went to an art auction fundraiser for the next Swimming Cities expedition. I ran into some of the folks who helped build Greenlight, and was able to procure a couple of free tickets to the Armory Show, which ran until this evening.

The exposition was huge, taking place at Pier 94 along the Hudson. The area itself is a bit subway-challenged, but getting there wasn't difficult. I arrived a bit too late to see everything, but I stuck to the Modern Art galleries, which I think are more fun to think about.

If you've grown up with an understanding of religion, it isn't hard to appreciate the driving force behind much Western art. I could spend ages looking at paintings of Maria and her nino, the same basic elements reworked thousands of different ways, brought into the world of artifice by so many consciousnesses.

But when you're at an intimidatingly large art show all by yourself, it is way more fun (and perhaps slightly less pretentious) to peruse a few key booths and wonder not only what gave the artist cause to cast aluminum and steel into a cylindrical shape and varnish it with candy-colored enamel, but how the gallery decided that someone might want to spend $20,000 on a stack of said shapes.
My favorite exhibit was a collection of mens' faces carved out of old Bybels and other black leather-bound books stacked into an appropriate medium.

It was just something to do after a lovely brunch with some lady friends, but any chance I get to pound the pavement down the big blocks in Manhattan, I hop into my comfortable walking shoes and do it. There's an aspect of Manhattan that is hardly appealing--the rampant entitlement to materialism leaves a funny aftertaste (although for parts of Brooklyn to find itself above smacks of hypocrisy). Still, there is a thrill I get from the steel giant, a pulse that is hard to read. I suppose that's what I love most of all, walking out of time with the center of the universe.

70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.