Found Art Friday 155

Dear ones,
Today, as the solstice approaches, we hope you find a piece/ peace of perfectly ripe fruit to help you fully swing into summer. Found Art Friday this week has been superseded by a guessed essay - Uh ... another rant has arisen:  Art Ranger chews upon the topic of why we (personally) haven't yet latched on to the kindle/ e-reader or online newsfeed despite the inevitable. Why are we still so attached to brick-n-mortar books?  And to the touch, the smell, the feel of (expensive and wasteful) newspaper reading? What is it about the physical presence of those already obsolete pages trembling in your own hands? Why does our enthrall with technology not include falling for the ebook nook or ipaddy as a sleek screen of disappearing ink, a veritable space-collapsing wonderland?  What is your experience?

i no cloud  - u cloud too?  resource intensive in a different way

Certainly trees are the lungs of the earth and "we the people" have devoured and scorched the planet at an alarming rate. We know that "the newspaper" is now a ridiculous premise left for largely people over the age of 48 and that it requires too many resources.  As well, we truly consider ourselves to be treehuggers with mothering earth in our life practices as much as possible.  So why have we balked on paper-free living? In fact, husband and (I) have treasured our Sunday newspaper pit every week for 30 years. Comprised of one local paper and the New York Times (in various years, The Boston Globe, or Los Angeles Times).  Hundreds of pages clattering about the room folded and unfolded, rattled and passed back and forth, stacked and restacked and savored with ink smudged fingers and two cups of tea. "It's the tactile experience" says he.  Which starts with physically taking the dog down to the mailbox in fresh morning light and carrying two papers back into the house that have been printed on rolls and stacked and folded and sorted and transported and often stuffed in ghastly plastic bag.  Whew.... so many steps.

Are you tired of the word "platform"?

All in an unacheivable but compelling effort to learn, seek, soak, sort, through the hullabaloo of what all the hell is going on in the universe of humankind.  Maybe, it is that the large physical format of newspaper pages make noise and generally activate more senses. A plus for us, papernews allows you to choose what to read next and what to finish (or not) and when.  Perhaps you can feel more like your own editor/ navigation agent  See "Paper Boat Navigating a Digital Sea"  Without the paper Sunday "newspaper", we may never have experienced this sentence by poet Patrica Lockwood featured in the New York times magazine: "If something doesn't get published." Lockwood said, "I'm like a bear leaving scat in the woods.  I move on."  This reading moment makes our day, which gives us fortitude to rub up against/ absorb all the grim and absurdly stupid news.  Or, for example, Chelsea Manning speaking up from prison: with "The Fog Machine of War":

Okay,  to read online just does not feel as "free" as it does on paper. What do we mean by free? Free to actually think about contents in a drifting way, glue them onto your own thought strings. The reverie of paper is different.  It can be lateral, horizontal, vertical, or entirely daydreamed.  In contrast, we don't wish to be constrained by a screen showing us what we are supposed to see right now.  The light emanating from the rectangle causes us to be hypnotized or transfixed, whereas a paper page you have chosen to look at wears language printed physically upon itself.  It occupies a flexible space that you wrestle with your arms. To boot (?where did that phrase come from), with app reading, there is the entire flashing outer rim of moving distractions, ads more akin to neon lights in the redlight district than they are in glum old staystill print (more easily ignorable).

How, as a blogger, actually very committed to providing a quality online experience, could we not devour with gusto the e-book extravaganza? To be able to carry around an entire library on one little booksizedrectangle lodged under your armpit.  We could nillywilly indulge our flair for dabbling and flitting from one topic cluster to another.  We Imagine ourselves with painted toenails (not really) on a beach somewhere having access to an entire library of literature and other supremely educational materials.  We could care about Proust one second and Rachel Carson the next, then brush up on our obsession with "the economy".

Reading involves at least 15 books stacked in various shifting order on the bedside table. Of what we are reading (slowly), what we are (pretend reading). What we should read. What we will or might read. What we just like to have there. Books Books Books.  Instead, those could all be open windows causing electronic hyper-ventilation and chargecard suction.  And why do we keep books we'll never read again or never did read when we were supposed to - for perhaps decades?  As somehow part of the foundation of our identity.  Why does it feel sad/foreign to us that our children don't care about books much at all and think they could live without them just fine.

Please send us thoughts regarding your own relationship to paper or news, or recommended reading matter.  As of July 1, Art Ranger is at large and on recess.  So have a swell summer in living loving color.  Please find a new cool band for us to listen to.  And we recommend unplugging ourselves soon if you can.

Really - A recent error message while computing - time to leave our desk

Congratulations for reading this far - most don't.
Sincerely, 
The Art Ranger  - we do house calls