Hey, It's Valentine's Day

Since I prefer to maintain some anonymity and privacy on this public forum, I won't go into my happiness with my true valentine. Instead, I'll dwell for a moment on one of my other loves.

Yesterday at lunch I received one of the most useful messages ever from a fortune cookie: Treat yourself to a good book for a needed rest and escape.

Now--after years of build-up and expectation--that ebooks are finally starting to become a ubiquitous thing, I'm tickled to think that print books were considered old-fashioned and subversive way back in 1993:


(click for larger, more easily readable image)

So maybe we have a few more years before this becomes the norm:

He wipes his hands on a kercheef, then reaches into a deep pocket in his coat an pulls somethin out. He holds it like it's a babby bird or a feather or the most precious thing in the world. It sure don't look like much. Two bits of brown leather wrapped around lots of thin little pieces of dried old leafs or somethin.

It's a book, he says. He gives me a look like I oughta be impressed.

You don't say, I says.

He folds back the top bit of leather. Then the first leaf. Then the second. They're covered all over with black squiggle marks.

Funny kinda leafs, I says. I reach out my finger to touch one.

Careful! Pinch brushes my hand away. It's paper. Pages made of paper. It's most ancient. Delicate. Rare. I found it locked away in a metal box.

I seen them squiggles before, I says to him. On landfill junk. I spit on the ground. That ain't nothin special. Bloody Wrecker tech.

Oh no, it's good Wrecker tech. Noble even! From the very beginnings of time. Those squiggles, as you call them, are letters. Letters joined together make words. And words tell a story. Like this one. . . .

So, the way you talk, I says, all them funny words. That's on account of . . . readin?

Yes, he says. Yes, I suppose it is.

(Heard this morning on the way to work, in MP3 audiobook format.)