Last Impressions

Impressions are a losing battle. I had a professor once who won us over by being horrible. It wasn’t his stand-up routine, which, put simply, barely kept us awake in class. Rather, his stand-up, when the prof wore shorts, showed off his purple socks, purple suede loafers, and purple veins. He also regaled us with stories of his stingray attack. But his impressions of famous diplomats are what kept us alive. Impressions haven’t sunk the Kindle: it was Amazon’s top seller this Christmas, which is a good sign for reading, but a bad sign for print. The courts are allowing the suit against Barnes & Noble over the Nook design to continue. I admit my contradiction here: I relish B&N’s struggles since they hurt so many independent bookstores, but I don’t usually gripe against retail-specific e-readers. After all, I gave a Kindle gift card this Xmas, but it isn’t quite the same as old book tokens. The Guardian has a nice article about those tokens, which I knew nothing about. I hope no one stuck in NYC transit during the blizzard planned to do any reading: the MTA  removed all poetry it had placed on the subway. Barry Hannah’s posthumous collection has arrived. As has another book on Voltaire. And, in sad news, Dennis Dutton, who founded the excellent Arts and Letters Daily, passed.  Thank you, Double D, and rest in peace.