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ardeegee · 07-08-2010, 07:36 AM

Ugh.

I see where Dan got the term Frankenbooks-- from none other than Alan Kaufman, who has-- apparently-- shifted from calling ebook supporters Nazis to calling us the Taliban. Don't know the source for the quote (nothing I can google up yet) but here it is.

(Edited to add-- wow-- it looks like Dan has taken an excerpt from a Kaufman essay already mentioned here back in December and edited it to include himself. Stay classy, Dan!)

http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2010/0...-of-books.html

Hi-tech corporate destruction of books and book culture: The Coming of the Digipocalypse, Digitstein and Frankenbooks
Alan Kaufman writes:

It's no coincidence that the three authors in America who have stood up to sound the alarm about the Hi-Tech corporate destruction of books and book culture, Danny Bloom, a blogger in Taiwan, Sherman Alexie, a Native American, and myself, are sons of idealists and dreamers.

No other authors have stood up to vocally protest what is happening to the book in our society: a fact that I anticipate will some day consign a good many writers to a less than proud place in the history of letters. Only Bloom and Alexie and I have taken taken an unequivocal stand against the book's future. Otherwise, the writers, and our representative organizations, as well as a majority of the publishers, have bowed, shamefully, to Hi-Tech and corporate market pressures, or stand silent, as the Brave New Bookless World unfolds Not for them Kenneth Patchen's vow, made in one of his poems, to: “ fiercely defend the things I love.” I accuse them all of collusion in the death of the book.

Bloom's views, and Alexie's views, and even more so mine, appear to baffle a large number of people. I cannot speak for Bloom or Alexie, but I have spent a lifetime in consideration of this.

Today's Hi-Tech Taliban are mobilizing to decimate the economic base of print publishing, while at the same time destroying the validity of the book as a sacred cultural artifact and finally, seeking, by any and all means, not only to gain control of our reading matter but to violate the act of reading itself, the very ways in which we read. All this sets my nerve ends a-tingle with Frankenbook signs and warnings.

07-08-2010, 07:36 AM	#11
ardeegee Maratus speciosus butt Posts: 3,292 Karma: 1162698 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: PRS-350	Ugh. I see where Dan got the term Frankenbooks-- from none other than Alan Kaufman, who has-- apparently-- shifted from calling ebook supporters Nazis to calling us the Taliban. Don't know the source for the quote (nothing I can google up yet) but here it is. (Edited to add-- wow-- it looks like Dan has taken an excerpt from a Kaufman essay already mentioned here back in December and edited it to include himself. Stay classy, Dan!) http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2010/0...-of-books.html Hi-tech corporate destruction of books and book culture: The Coming of the Digipocalypse, Digitstein and Frankenbooks Alan Kaufman writes: It's no coincidence that the three authors in America who have stood up to sound the alarm about the Hi-Tech corporate destruction of books and book culture, Danny Bloom, a blogger in Taiwan, Sherman Alexie, a Native American, and myself, are sons of idealists and dreamers. No other authors have stood up to vocally protest what is happening to the book in our society: a fact that I anticipate will some day consign a good many writers to a less than proud place in the history of letters. Only Bloom and Alexie and I have taken taken an unequivocal stand against the book's future. Otherwise, the writers, and our representative organizations, as well as a majority of the publishers, have bowed, shamefully, to Hi-Tech and corporate market pressures, or stand silent, as the Brave New Bookless World unfolds Not for them Kenneth Patchen's vow, made in one of his poems, to: “ fiercely defend the things I love.” I accuse them all of collusion in the death of the book. Bloom's views, and Alexie's views, and even more so mine, appear to baffle a large number of people. I cannot speak for Bloom or Alexie, but I have spent a lifetime in consideration of this. Today's Hi-Tech Taliban are mobilizing to decimate the economic base of print publishing, while at the same time destroying the validity of the book as a sacred cultural artifact and finally, seeking, by any and all means, not only to gain control of our reading matter but to violate the act of reading itself, the very ways in which we read. All this sets my nerve ends a-tingle with Frankenbook signs and warnings. Last edited by ardeegee; 07-08-2010 at 07:42 AM.