I certainly agree with the sentiment at the
Thalia of lamented memory (where else could one
see Alexander Nevsky and Citizen Kane as a double
feature?). But let's back off a moment. Amazon
will certainly want to extend Kindle's coverage
beyond the major population centers, because the
more coverage the greater the profits. This will
happen fairly quickly. But let;'s remember that
within 40 or 50 miles of NY there are places with
bo cellphone coverage, let alone wireless. And
that huge numbers of members of minority groups
of all income levels live in the areas covered.
In my neighborhood in NYC, for instance, 70% of
the potential audience is Dominican, and a tiny
percentage of the whole has a lot of pennies to rub together.
The device itself is way too expensive but will
probably come down. It will never replace the
pleasure of books and libraries for me. On the
other hand, as the books available increase
convenience for research will be overwhelmingly
improved. It took me three years of constant
searching to find the books I needed for my Cuban
anthology. Some I never found. Even if I'd had
interlibrary loan available the situation would
not have been greatly improved. I of course was
luckier than most, because of the concentration
of great libraries in the northeast. At some
point the collection of Cuba's central library
will be digitized, along with all the other major libraries. Wow.
At 02:27 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Two things strike me about this.
>
>
>
>The first is the price, which is even more
>preposterous than a MacBook (confession: I own one and I Â love it).
>
>
>
>The other is the coverage area map at least as
>it pertains to the US. That is to say, this i s
>a choc hka designed for RWP (Rich White People).
>It's all about the two C oasts (not Mosquito and
>Ivory ) . It's right out of "Things White People Like" only this is true.
>
>
>
>In 1969 I sat in the Thalia Theater on 95th
>Street watching Les Enfants du Paradis. It was
>preceded by a short feature (I know: WHY?). It
>showed Japanese can-can girls in nightclubs on
>what I assume was the Ginza(?) entertaining
>drunken American and Japanese businessmen.
>Someone in the audience yelled out "F--- Capitalism!" Now I get it.
>
>
>
>ken
>
>
>
>
>-----O riginal Message -----
>From: "Angel Robert Marquez" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 2:07:16 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>Subject: kindle
>
>kindle<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015T963C?ie=UTF8&tag=uxma-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0015T963C>
>
Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban
Poetry (University of California Press).
http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
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