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 we're heading under electronic information conditions.