So I went to the presentation on The King James Bible, and The Lotus-Sutra the other night, and something they said sort of reminded me of a quote from The Magus. I can't remember the exact phrasing, or even the approximate page number in the book, but it was something to the effect of (and mind you, I'm paraphrasing) Do you think the novel is dead as an art form? It was something that Nicholas used to joke about with his friends at university, and Conchis brought up the memory by saying he hated fiction, and had burned all of his novels. Anyway, one of the two gents presenting was talking about how it was the end of the printed era, and how the scripture was sort of having its super nova event, where it shines brightest just before it dies out. So I was thinking (and was considering asking the men), how is scripture any different from myth? In fact, I feel like it's probably pretty obvious to most people that scripture is mythology (whether you believe or not, it is in either  case, mythology, a true story). So if scripture is on its last leg, does that mean that all of mythology is? It was sort of a curious thing that this was brought up briefly in class today. But more importantly than simply recognizing that the age of the novel, of the written, printed story, is at an end, is identifying the reason. Why does nobody seem to want to buy books anymore? I think most of us will agree that sitting in front of a computer screen doing homework is no more enjoyable than reading a book. At any rate a book doesn't have that terrible back lighting that can give one headaches after a couple hours. And frankly, do you realize the number of books you would need to have on a kindle to see a return in your investment of $139.99? It's all a bit absurd, really. Anyway, this is more of a fuel for the fire entry, because I would love to hear some input on the decline of the printed text, if anyone cares to share, because I do find it to be an important issue. The loss of print as a media affects many areas of society, socioeconomically as well as aesthetically, so perhaps in class people will weigh in on the subject, or on their own blogs, but the important thing is to just think about it for yourself. I, personally, can think of very few things as comfortable as sitting down with a cup of coffee and a book on a cold, grey morning, so what the hell is everybody else doing while I'm reading? Also perhaps consider how a decline in the physical printed text could change the way people write/speak. Would there be a subsequent decline in all aspects of the language? Would there be any art left to it? certainly there would be people who wrote for the aesthetic purposes, despite the fact that it would no longer be a lucrative career in any way, but we could lose all ability to create new works of genius. How many people read a blog entry compared to the number that read a book? It could take a seriously Sci-Fi turn from there. I would assume it would be a long time before anything as crazy as that would happen, but even when I'm an old, old man, I would rather not see it be so.

            I feel I should also mention, with regards to the Deal/Beal presentation, that the whole thing was really quite interesting, and I would recommend going to the 400th "birthday party" for The King James Bible, and The Tempest. By the way, the mint brownies after the presentation were delicious.