A Forsley Feuilleton: In The Good Old Days You Could Use Books To Beat Your Perverted Boyfriends Into Submission Without A Problem

Everyone’s talking about the future of the book.  Most aren’t actually ‘talking’ about it.  They are Tweeting, Skyping, and Facebooking about it, trading one-liners back and forth over the internet – that collective consciousness of search engine optimizing keyword articles, silicone made and cum covered tits, and rambling raunchy literary blogs written by humorless dyslexic redheads.  Some are still talking about it in the traditional sense, trading vocalized words back and forth over cups of coffee. . . but even these people, while they talk, stare into the glow of their smart-phones, laptops, and tablet-computers.  Everyone agrees: because of our fading forests, insect intellect, and asinine aesthetics – the book will die.

It’s only a question of: when?  And if you don’t live in a city like San Francisco, where the literati breed and your Moms and Pops got shops, the answer is: soon.  Borders is already dead, and Barnes & Noble – unless it can hide in its Nook long enough to recover from its financial stroke – will expire shortly.  Most of the country now only has two sources for books: Wal-Mart and Amazon.  Wal-Mart’s selection is horrific, and the Amazon itself is horrific.  It’s filled with flesh-eating, eye-frying creatures like. . . like the Kindle. 

People are embracing the Kindle.  They’re reading electronic books.  Times they are a changin’, but I refuse to change with the times.  Blonde on Blonde is still Bob Dylan’s best album. I will never read a book, or any text, on a glowing screen.  I have values, beliefs. . . bad-eyes.  The Media and The Capitalists will not brainwash me into buying one of these electronic book-producing devices, especially if it’s from the Amazon.  Trees are all I want from the Amazon. Oxygen is good, but books are better.

Breaking News: The Girlfriend, as I write this Forsley Feuilleton, said it would be irresponsible to condemn electronic books without first reading one.  So, right now, I’m downloading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer on her Ipad and will give it a read before finishing this piece. . .

“The weather will continue bad,” writes Miller on the first page.  But that’s as far as I got.  It was raining outside, and instead of reading the rest of the page, I minimized the glowing screen and clicked on The Weather Channel application to see if the rain would continue.  After hours of reading weather reports from around the world, I reopened Tropic of Cancer, but my fat fingers accidentally started scrolling through the book – Will Hunting style – and when the screen finally stopped moving, this is what I read: “After midnight she stands there in her black rig rooted to the spot. Back of her is the little alleyway that blazes like an inferno. . . Must be strange taking that wooden stump to bed with you. One imagines all sorts of things – splinters, etc.”

Words with such an erotic and forbidden glow should have refocused my attention on the novel, but, as Miller wrote, “each man to his taste”: I minimized Tropic of Cancer, went to www.youporn.com, and a few seconds later I fell asleep.  When I woke, The Girlfriend was standing over me.  She had the Ipad in her hand with an enlarged pair of silicone made and cum covered tits on the screen.  She then beat me with the silicone tits until they vanished into the malfunctioned blackness along with my only copy of Tropic of Cancer.

In the good old days you could use books to beat your perverted boyfriends into submission without a problem.  Do that now, with an electronic book, and you risk losing your entire library.  Also, with an electronic book, you can’t separate your bathroom books from your textbooks from your bedside books.  Your bedside books will stink like your bathroom books, and your bathroom books will constipate you like your textbooks, and your textbooks will put you to sleep like your bedside books.

Not only will your textbooks put you to sleep if they’re electronic, but they will also inhibit you from cultivating that important work-place skill called collaboration.  For thousands of years students across the globe have entered the workforce prepared to collaborate with their peers for the good of capitalism. . . but now, with the death of the traditional book and the rise of the electronic book, students won’t be able to add pubic hairs or veins to the hand-drawn penises of their peers, and our economy will suffer as a result.

Breaking News: I just realized that I don’t write for PANK – I write for PANK’s blog.  All my writing appears and exists exclusively on the internet, in electronic format, and is best read using electronic book-producing devices like the Kindle, that eye-frying creature from the Amazon.  I take back everything I said.  Times they are a changin’, and I’m going to change with the times.  Bob Dylan’s new albums are his best albums.  I love reading books on glowing screens.  The Media and The Capitalists are right: we should all buy and embrace electronic books.

It’s true that you can’t stack electronic books on your car seat to help you reach the pedal, but now you’ll have to take public transportation and can read more books than ever.  Even if you don’t like reading, you’ll still benefit from electronic books because many have built-in Spark Notes, so you’ll benefit from them by, um. . . not reading them.

Everyone will benefit from electronic books, even The Government.  Both book banning and burning will become a thing of the past.  Now The Government can just censor the books they find offensive without us knowing it.  And, contrary to what those traditional book fundamentalists say, electronic books will have positive effects on the publishing industry too.  The major publishers will no longer be able to force inferior books down your throat, and writers will no longer have to waste time submitting their inferior books to the big publishers.  We can just self-publish them with a click of the finger, and readers can read our unedited books without any of that pesky punctuation.

But the best thing about electronic books is that you’ll no longer have to use dog ears to keep your place. . . and PETA will no longer have a hit out on you.