Tag Archives: media

A little more digital suckage: It’s not a purchase, it’s a temporary license

Posted on by

For the most part, with physical product, anyway, we like Amazon at this house. It’s really handy for people who live in the middle of nowhere, and also for people who live in the middle of nowhere and hate driving an hour for the non-privilege of spending half a day in shopping mall crowds.

But I’m also aware that digital products are being treated as licensed, rather than purchased, by major e-tailers. I’ve never bought e-books, though I’ll get them for free when they’re on promotion. Tuesday was one of those days, but it was also the day when I crossed paths with the rollout of digital products specifically for Amazon’s Canadian region.

Before I could access the e-book, I got this:

Amazonfail - user cancel

Just to be clear, it says this: Continue reading →

a vice to which we are addicted_romana klee-flickr_CCSA

Story, prose and transience

Posted on by

The other day, my writer friend Rebecca P. Minor said this on her Facebook page:

I’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that I don’t have very sophisticated taste in narrative…I can live with this, and I am going to stop beating myself up for not being more elitist.

Which sent me on a whole three tweets’ worth of literary rant, I will have you know, because I happen to agree pretty strongly.

The medium does shape the message, whether it’s text versus audio, screen versus print, or English versus Russian. But messages — communication from one human to another — transcend those media. There is something more than a biological naturalism to the way words operate.

In Unquiet Opinions…

I think writing prose for the sake of prose is a great way to consign oneself to obscurity. And a great way to fail to connect with readers. Except for the small few who get a kick out of syntactical gourmanderie. (Why yes, I DID just say that, and I meant it.)

Because prose without story is just sentence-making practice. Continue reading →