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serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

0 posted 2007-05-28 05:58 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070528/ap_on_re_us/book_burning

sigh--and I thought I needed more shelves.

How very depressing...

Drauntz
Member Elite

since 2007-03-16

Posts 2905
Los Angeles California

1 posted 2007-05-28 06:29 PM

saw it on news this morning. Very sad. But the situation is true. I have subscribed Time for years before I canceled it last year. In this Feb, they wanted me back. They offered me 15$ for a year plus Money Magazine too. You know what, I have no time to read them. Money directly goes to trash like other catalog.

Susan Caldwell
Member Rara Avis

since 2002-12-27

Posts 8348
Florida

2 posted 2007-05-28 07:46 PM

Hey! I am out of work next week for 4-6 weeks and pretty much on the couch until I heal AGAIN...

SEND ME THE BOOKS!!!

so sad...

"too bad ignorance isn't painful"
~Unknown~

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

3 posted 2007-05-28 08:15 PM

Yanno? I keep books I can't even understand--one of which I plan on turning into "wall art".

"Basics of Anesthesia"

I'm gonna put a hook in it and use it to hang a hammer, as a companion piece--FRAMED.

shrug

(My nephew thinks it is hilarious--but rumor has it that we are slightly odd.)

Essorant
Member Elite

since 2002-08-10

Posts 4769
Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada

4 posted 2007-05-28 08:19 PM

I don't understand. If he is that desperate to get rid of the books, why didn't he just have a big opening and let people come in and take the books for free, rather than going to the extreme of burning them? And it sounds like he is charging people who want to save some of them from being burnt.

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

5 posted 2007-05-28 08:29 PM

Ess? I don't understand either.

(But it did remind me of our government's refusal of foreign aid to Katrina victims--simply because there was no such agencies in place that knew how to handle/disperse such a gift. But I suppose that would be another thread, and probably addressed more appropriately on another day besides today, yanno?

)

sigh

Frankly, my own room is a storehouse. I have trouble throwing stuff out at all. I have been in that place where I couldn't even afford to shop thrift stores--and I will never forget it. So I have three coffee makers--just in case, somebody needs one.

I am with you.

I question the intent as well.

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

6 posted 2007-05-28 10:16 PM

quote:
The idea of burning the books horrified Marcia Trayford, who paid $20 Sunday to carry away an armload of tomes on art, education and music.

"I've been trying to adopt as many books as I could," she said.

Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames for last-minute bargains.

Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.

"I think, given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it's the best way to do it," Bechtel said. "(Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it."

I once wrote a poem about going into a used bookstore and posted it here at PiP. [Chuckle...I don't post much anywhere BUT here!  That was slightly redundant.]

Point:  The man, given his age, decided to retire, and tried to do the same, give his books away at bottom line prices.  I remember going in and spending $20 apiece on a three-volume epitome of classical writings...if nothing more than to gather time into my space.  Time, thought, senses now past...it it something about word on paper that has always, always grabbed at me.  I cannot let it go.

I am circumspect in my pick-ups of books...like Katrina, if I am at a garage sale and see books for sale, my hand seems to find touch with each one.  I have to remind myself that my home is only "so large" but I do go through them, to find keepers.

When I first saw serenity's initial post, an old Walton's show came to mind, where young John Boy tried to get people to read "Mein Kampf" so they would understand the terrorism of the man's mind.  Instead, out of fear, the people [led by the preacher] decided to burn all books that were written in German.  One lady, who had hidden her heritage, was brought out of her hiding when John Boy asked her to read from one particular foreign book.  It was, of course, the Bible.

While any of us might understand the frustration of this particular shop owner to take out his weariness in such style, it only plays into the hands of those who would believe in Farenheit 451...a read that scared the holy feathers out of me when I read it decades ago.  There was no way in this world that I thought that something so macabre could ever, ever come about in the world that we live in.

I have been proven wrong.  My walls will continue to be lined with books of all ages.

[This message has been edited by Sunshine (05-28-2007 10:51 PM).]

moondogz
Member

since 2007-05-01

Posts 397
Great White North

7 posted 2007-05-28 10:17 PM

I think the intent was to make a
Grandiose statement, which would
not have been accomplished by a
giveaway. Had he done that we wouldn't
even be discussion it now. It is in fact
a sad statement on the state of readership,
I must admit that I am as guilty as the next
person, not having read much since Christmas
when I got my first computer..which in fact gives me the opportunity to also say this;

"The death of creativity"
The cutting edge
on a silicone chip

Never thought you'd drown
just taking a dip

Up to your ears
can't break away

Another revolution
marks the end of the day

The sun and the moon
passing over head

While creativity
sleeps in its bed.

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean

since 2000-02-02

Posts 27738

8 posted 2007-05-28 10:38 PM

May the showmanship of grandiosity never replace the heart of charity.

I buy copies of books, to be given away. I am not a rich woman.

At least I didn't think so until this moment.

And I do understand that this medium, my beloved computer, does indeed replace many books I would have bought and stored. But when I had to do without? My people, these "poet people", and I am laughing now, managed to send me tomes while I was on the run from both Katrina and Rita--and I promise you they are among my most treasured treasures.

I realize we are entering an age of technology that will probably replace the written page--and just as the type-press replaced a scribe, so will this replace the hand-written marble notebook, or books, with notes written in margins...but I'm a purist and I do weep.

On very dark nights (and days) I finger the indentions of my brother's signature in the books that I now own. I breathe in the highlighted sections--and the ones that he actually--gasp--crossed out--and had written in margilia as "WRONG-WRONG-WRONG!!!" (with notations of argument, of course)

But I suppose this is why I felt so drawn to take the second identity, of Hypatia.

Google her.

She's hard to find in press-print.

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