reasons for its assemblage.... What this essentially means isthat you're not letting it touch you, you're very careful not tolet it get its message through or affect you deeply oremotionally in any way. You're in a position of completepsychological and technical superiority to the book and itsauthor... This is a way for modern literateurs to handle thisvast legacy of the past without actually getting any of thesticky stuff on you. It's like it's dead. It's like the nextbest thing to not having literature at all. For some reason thisfeels really good to people nowadays.

But even that isn't enough, you know.... There's talk nowadaysin publishing circles about a new device for books, called aReadMan. Like a Walkman only you carry it in your hands likethis.... Has a very nice little graphics screen, theoretically,a high-definition thing, very legible.... And you play yourbooks on it.... You buy the book as a floppy and you stick itin... And just think, wow you can even have graphics with yourbook... you can have music, you can have a soundtrack....Narration.... Animated illustrations... Multimedia... it caneven be interactive.... It's the New Hollywood for Publisher'sRow, and at last books can aspire to the exalted condition ofmovies and cartoons and TV and computer games.... And just thinkwhen the ReadMan goes obsolete, all the product that was writtenfor it will be blessedly gone forever!!! Erased from the memoryof mankind!

Now I'm the farthest thing from a Luddite ladies and gentlemen,but when I contemplate this particular technical marvel myauthor's blood runs cold... It's really hard for books tocompete with other multisensory media, with modern electronicmedia, and this is supposed to be the panacea for witheringliterature, but from the marrow of my bones I say get thatfucking little sarcophagus away from me. For God's sake don'tput my books into the Thomas Edison kinetoscope. Don't put me