Faded Paper Figures When The Book Ends
These days
the letter's like a freeze frame
All the old ways
get cluttered in the bric brac bones of the day
Now the book lights
They flicker like the fireflies
In the long night
The xerox of our sheets bound back for the day
Will we sit like old friends
when the day of the book ends?
Will we sit like old friends
when the day of the book ends?
Feel the spine bend
the scanners light the loose ends.
When the letter sends,
Our voices become flash, like matches to flame
At your bedside
You're reaching for the outside
In the long night
Our copyrights expire like fires in the rain.
MCLUHAN: Instead of going out and buying a packaged
book of which there have been five thousand copies
printed, you will go to the telephone, describe your
interests, your needs, your problems, . . . and they at
once xerox, with the help of computers from the
libraries of the world, all the latest material just
for you personally, not as something to be put out on a
bookshelf. They send you the package as a direct
personal service. This is where weÕre heading under
electronic information conditions.
