Friday, July 2, 2010

paper books are not dead, just wasted.

Every book had a seed embedded in its spine.

The trees were falling for nothing. They sifted through the culture to find the sexiest words this month, and they put these through to the design offices to get the sexiest layout and colorization. The author was found, somewhere, to put a few sentences in, here and there, all sexy. And they wondered how they were going to continue in the new age.

The publishers would not apologize. The readers began to plant the books.

Every day there was one more self-conscious face on the train, pretending that he'd been staring into this little screen for years, and so the publishers worried that electronics will someday, maybe soon, maybe not, depending on the season of the year, replace paper. They printed up ten thousand copies of the book version of the popular website, "Kittyonmypizza." It was what it sounds like.

A well-bound book, printed on acid-free, recycled paper, planted in good earth, given moderate sun and water. Good for something, after all.

2 comments:

brandon said...

Check out these pics of trees growing from books at the abandoned Detroit Public Schools Book Depository (Detroit MI).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/2499717569/in/set-72157603302647339/

Paul Theriault said...

thanks, brandon. that was a beautiful picture. metaphor upon metaphor...