Radicalism of reading

[Greg Montalbano]

To which we should add the perpetual mistrust of people who "are always
readin' them daim' BOOKS" -- anti-intellectual feeling seems to be at an
all-time high in America these days (or am I just being PARANOID?).
The Gump-like perception that "dumbness will see you through" can be found
everywhere in the media, from politics ("Now, ahm just a simple country
boy...") to the arts (don't need no education;  native enthusiasm & just
plain GUTS will do the job).

Might even be a tie-in here with the current "Propaganda" thread:  laziness,
high-tech distraction &  mistrust of virtuosity of any kind can keep the
consumers in line better than any police action.

Hoping you are the same...

~G~


>
>The quoed reaction of a bookseller who was surprised to find
>M&D being bought caused me to think about the new, altered nature
>of the act of purchasing such a volume and reading it.  Whereas
>hefty postmodern tomes were once seen as establishment icons, and
>the reading thereof a somewhat "reactionary" folly, now that
>academics and the general public are hopping aboard the trendy
>visual input/WWW/pop culture boat, buying and old-fashionedly
>reading every single word of a book like M&D has begun to seem
>like an act of radical defiance, some kind of Thoreauvian spanner
>in the works of mass culture.  To the barricades, M&D in hand!
>Typo above:  "quoed" = "quoted"
>
>--
>Paul Di Filippo & Deborah Newton/2 Poplar St./Prov., RI 02906
>"So far as the interests of the capitalist go it does not matter
>whether he invests his money at home or abroad; it does not matter
>whether his goods are manufactured in London or Timbuctoo." HG Wells
>
>