Monday, February 27, 2012

Creation's sunrise and the sunset of ink-paper books

Monday, clear and blue skied. Of course, that also means a bit colder than freezing when the skies are so clear at this time year. Much lighter are the skies than they were at this hour only a couple of weeks back, too.

It's good to be back on campus this morning. Apart from attending this weekend's College Foundation auction and dinner, it has been almost a full week since I was last here.

This past week took me to a conference in Portland (OR) which, in turn, means a trip to Powell's City of Books. Powell's is an awesome and huge emporium of books. In a stroke of genius they place used and new copies of every book side by side on the shelves, and if you can't find it at Powell's you're probably not going to find it. Newbies to the store are well advised to grab one of the helpful maps to the multi-story block-square store.

I found several books I had been planning to read, a couple hardish-to-find, and all at less than I would otherwise have had to pay. Some Stephen Fry, a pinch of Douglas Adams, one Neil Gaiman, and a few old paperback Ngaio Marsh mysteries. I also picked up a couple of classic gems (A Wrinkle In Time, My Side of the Mountain) for our oldest grandson, already a voracious reader at seven.

It was a case of an old habit, old pleasure, kicking in, buying all those paperback books. I've gradually, over the last couple of years) shifted over to reading almost everything digitally, and it was actually (noticeably) jarring to switch back to the old technology of ink on paper. At one point I pressed my finger on a word on the printed page to see a definition of the word (needless to say, this didn't work), and was momentarily flummoxed when I put the book down and realized I needed to find a way to mark my place. When my wife and I retired to bed and finished reading for a bit there I had to adjust my bedside lamp to provide more light for a page that wasn't back-lit. Odd how quickly things can change, really, and how quickly we can embrace (or at least settle into) those changes.

Pulling onto campus, Bruce Cockburn's wonderful tune Creation Dream popped up, all raggae rhythm and poetic imagery:

Centred on silence
Counting on nothing
I saw you standing on the sea
And everything was
Dark except for
Sparks the wind struck from your hair
Sparks that turned to
Wings around you
Angel voices mixed with seabird cries
Fields of motion
Surging outward
Questions that contain their own replies...

You were dancing
I saw you dancing
Throwing your arms toward the sky
Fingers opening
Like flares
Stars were shooting everywhere
Lines of power
Bursting outward
Along the channels of your song
Mercury waves flashed
Under your feet
Shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn...

A beautiful tune for a sun-rising drive into campus on this crisp Monday morning.

Today's Full soundtrack:
- Sigur Rós: Voka (Live)
- Bruce Cockburn: Islands In a Black Sky
- Hayley Westenra: The Water Is Wide
- Bruce Cockburn: Creation Dream

- Posted via Hermes.

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