Can I agree with Scott now, or should I wait for him to post? 

 

Probably wait, Mike. 
:)

 

Speaking as a reader, I have enjoyed several book-length collections of contemporary haiku. In fact, I have craved them, as fuller expressions of their authors' visions. If this is a question of print vs. online reading, then I still favor print. There is no more elegant and practical a medium for reading. And no more ultimately ecological. Speaking as a library worker for 30 years, this has been an issue we've all thought about for a great long time. Screens are okay for some kinds of reading, and print is okay for others. But I still don't want to spend long stretches of contemplative reading time staring into a big lightbulb. Books are not going away. And good luck to Scott on Turtle Light.


 

I work in IT and appreciate the eccentricities of paper and digital. I hope that this video helps. 

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SigQvQ&feature=kp

‪‬ 


 Helpdesk support back in the day of the middle age with English subtitles. Original taken from the show "Øystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 20...







 

I love getting my hands on "real" books! I write in them ... leave them at the side of my bed to read at my leisure. However, it is quite possible that books will fall to disfavor by the younger generations. Their intellects are geared toward (often developed by) the internet — the digital world. Digital books would make sense for a generation such as this; books could fall to the wayside for this reason alone.

 

Barnes and Noble, in Pasadena, CA, closed. Can you imagine? I couldn't believe my eyes when I observed the empty building. Borders Books (a bookstore chain) is gone. And now, Amazon is the frontline modern bookstore and they will be selling more digital books than actual, in-hand books.

 

A different era is on the cusp.


 

Actually, there has been some recent reportage that e-books are leveling off in sales, and that print isn't weakening. We at our library were talking about this a month or two ago.

 

The big box bookstores are closing because Amazon is doing what they did, but better. They can't compete, can't stock everything Amazon can get, can't afford the overhead, compared with Amazon's overhead, etc. Meanwhile, libraries are buying both e-books and print, and that isn't slowing down. I know this because I see the large demand and the numbers of print books that cross my desk all the time. We are all still buying. 

 

There is also some evidence that e-book and print media function differently in cognitive terms, that the reading brain seems to work differently for each. E-reading tends not to be as analytical and has problems with retention, for example.


 

Interesting, Michael. Thanks for the heads up. I hadn't heard that. It's a relief to me though.


 

Cinema had people speculating that theatre was dead. The advent of T.V. brought the view that the days of cinema were numbered. Sliced bread was thought to be the end for real 'slow' bread. The list could go on. In the modest seaside town we moved to last year there are three artisan bakers shops on one street. On Sat. mornings, early, there's a queue outside each. Shortly, with the support of Saint Eddy Izzard, the town's playhouse and cinema will be back as an independent cinema. There's great excitement in the town. Both my young adult sons and friends of mine in their twenties/thirties collect music on vinyl as well as listening to Spotify/downloading. What's good tends to remain or return when the innovation's novelty has subsided and it has become unremarkable/commonplace. Then we have the joy of more variety, greater choice. Often the biggest fans of the 'old' good stuff are the next generation or the one after that: 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-19611619

 

Eddie Izzard joins a campaign to save a historic cinema in Sussex from demolition.








 

This is a slideshow that quickly covers a lot of detail in a short time on this subject: http://www.slideshare.net.../will-ebooks-replace-printed...

 

Will E-Books Replace Printed Books? www.slideshare.net

 


Essential Info-graphic about E-Books and E-Book readers, advantages and disadvantages of e-books vs print books, increase in use of e-readers worldwide.

 

I asked your questions "Will the haiku book survive? Will Red Moon survive its founder?" to Jim Kacian of Red Moon Press, who replied (and gave permission for this re-post): "[It's] certainly something I’ve been wondering now for years, and I doubt RMP will survive its founder, though I have had hopes."


 

I love books. There isn't such thing as too many books. This is how I feel about books... a quote by Giles on the show Buffy. 

Giles: 

I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly.

 

The art of storytelling will live on whether in books, or digital because it is oratory. People first told stories, tales, poems, songs around a fire under the night sky... like we are now... pondering.


 

Reviving this one a bit, 'does it matter?' is the question I would ask. Basho sat in a small hut with a few students in 1694 and was likely asking a similar question: 'will my work survive?', and look where we are a few hundred years later. 

 

There is a line from the poet Archibald MacLeish that I love:

 

"They also live, who swerve and vanish in the river."

 

That thought alone will keep you writing... 


 

"Anonymous" is the most quoted and prolific writer in the world. Think on that one...


 

Five or ten thousand years on, will any of our literature survive? The longer the time, the less likely. The invention of writing may have changed the dynamics, it's true, but we just don't know yet. 

 

Also, do you think electronic manuscripts will survive the stretch of time? The resources needed are more limited. What we recycle is still pretty inconsequential, too; we'd have to have a regular, widespread, predominant culture of recycling to make those resources continue for us in the long run. While paper...is readily renewable, and its own recycling process is already part of nature and is regular, even automatic, and widespread. 

 

Mark these words: resource depletion is going to be a big issue in the future.


 

Paper will never outlive 'electronic'. You can store every poem ever written on a single hard drive, and that will get smaller and larger in the near future. That said, nothing is forever, ask the Incas. More importantly, as MacLeish pointed out, who cares if it survives? I am in the 'creation' business, not the preservation business. 


 

Personally, I agree about caring whether my work survives.

 

But I think paper is stable and electronics are not. Maybe I'm wrong, and we'll see unexpected solutions, but I'm not so sure of that. Electronic media need a host of secondary technologies to continue. What will happen when petroleum products become more and more expensive and then dry up? What will happen when the rare metals used in electronic devices can no longer be found apart from recycling? Electronics turn over at a fast rate, making their replacement frequently and regularly necessary. The developed and developing worlds are using up resources that are not replaceable. Don't we know where this is going? Anyway...


 

To those of us who live and work in technology, it is as simple as 0 and 1. It will live. Paper has a 'shelf' life. My Librarian wife even agrees with that statement. You are equating the 'means' of using 'data' with 'data'. It just ain't so. 'Light' can read data, and the rare metals have NO impact on light.


 

If there is anything I enjoy, it is picking up and relax with a lovely book of haiku. It comes close to meditation... My current favorite: 

http://www.amazon.com/Haiku-Japanese-Poetry.../dp/0764956108

 

Japanese Art and Poetry (Amazon.com):The strictest and purest of poetic forms, the Japanese haiku contains in its seventeen sound characters a reference to a season as well as a distinct pause or interruption. Cherry blossoms and swallows might refer to spring; red maple leaves and deer usually imply autumn. These seasonal allusions...








 

Nothing equals a print book! I am somebody who keeps buying books. I like to read most of what other haijin write daily because this gives me a quick but general idea about what others write. But reading a book gives you a deep. and intensive idea about a certain haijin.