Thanks to my friend Corey Saba, I stumbled upon this video.
This video is a perfect representation of how important and how vital, communication is to humanity. Without it, whether it be electronic communication, print communication, or face-to-face communication, civilization would cease to exist. Fortunately, we live in a world where we don’t have to worry over the total or permanent loss of communication, but in all, we should remember to be grateful for what we have.
Sick in C
In November I grew six inches,
bundled in wool and polyester.
I hear Phillip Glass tapping at my windowpane with his endless treads of piano verse. He plays C Major like a tyrant.
My spine is bruised from cultivating a ditch within my mattress.
As I sit up, E Minor plays a melody down my vertebras.
An array of wonderments outside that window: from behind the frost, the city’s light glares against its glow, and the clouds shield the moon from interfering.
I open the windowpane to cool my breath.
I draw my finger across the glass, making words from condensation.
In the rain, the city loses its glow.
And the clouds overhead
encompass the buildings.
In the wind, I reminisce about my home in the outskirts of the District.
Where home is just a licked stamp away, I write to my mother.
I stand in front of the postal office and unleash my news to Virginia.
In an illness, greater than my runny nose, I retreat to my sleeping arrangement of blankets and pillows.
Sometimes I sit here… waiting, waiting.
Waiting for eternity to pass its course.
And I realize that sometimes sleep is just ready for you.
There’s something about holding a book in your hand. You have the key to a whole other world. The crinkly pages of an old book, and the crisp of the new; they’re irreplaceable.
Yesterday I went to an antique flea market with my friend CJ Richards on either 24th or 25th St., between 6th and 7th avenue. This was the first time I had actually been to a flea market in NYC, even though I’ve lived here since August. Even though I have no expendable money for the time being, I was excited to go. When we entered the garage dedicated to the market I was immediately drawn to the Vintage atmosphere between the clothing, jewelry, paintings, and literature. We flipped through a box of vinyl records that had bands like The Doors, Cat Stevens, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Judy Collins. I wanted to own each one. But what especially caught my eye were the bookshelves and tables of books laid out before us. They had books ranging from Art Nouveau, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, William Blake, Andy Warhol, and more. I was entranced by the variety, yard-sale prices, and good condition. I wish I had bought one of those beauties for my collection, but money seems to always be an issue; even if it’s just shelling out a couple of ones. Nonetheless, I will be visiting the flea market again when I have a job.
The Economist posted an informational video in the fall of 2009 comparing print media versus online media.
-Newspaper circulation is DOWN 7 million over the last 25 years.
-In the last 5 years, readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.
NEW MEDIA:
Americans have access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages, 65,000 iPhone apps, 10,500 radio stations, 5,500 magazines, 200+ cable TV networks
TRADITIONAL MEDIA:
In Steep Decline:
Newspapers: 18.7%
Television: 10.1%
Radio: 11.7%
Magazines: 14.8%
To see authentication:
http://www.visibleu.com/2009/online-media-statistics-from-the-economist-shift-happens/
According to an article published in 2008 by The Nieman Journalism Lab, there is a significant downfall in printed media, even though they are still king. They averaged about 87.1 billion printed page views per month, and 3.2 billion online page views per month. The numbers seem miniscule at this point in time, but there are many people who are excited for the non-print version of the future. Professors and students alike at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City consistently agree that when they purchase the new iPad or iPhone, they plan on also purchasing the app for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Vogue, etc. They exclaim how they are exhausted from print, the messiness of the newspaper ink, the inconvenience of the pages, the organization they go through with their books; they want it all to disappear into one tiny device. I don’t know about you, but this frightens me.
