Stuff

[hazelk]

Leafing through leftover Sunday papers. There’s an article by Marina Warner about books being a superior medium to computers for learning about the world because of their greater physicality. One part of me wants to side with Rupert Giles and wax lyrical about how books smell, how they feel but objectively I’m not sure how strong a case there is. It’s not as if we plug the computer directly into our brains. There are buttons to press, the constant hum of the fans, the click of the keys, the work of moving a recalcitrant mouse around the mat. Maybe it’s a Proust’s madeleine effect. Having learnt to use computers as an adult they lack the web of associated memories that come with books and feel comparatively abstract and over refined. Like a madeleine for that matter if you weren’t raised on French fancies.

In other news David Thomson has the best vid idea evah. Cross-cutting between the Stewart/Novak storylines in Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle. All it needs is a completely obvious song. “I Put a Spell On You?” “Falling in Love Again?” Maybe that Black Cat Bone song from the crack den in Wrecked.