Apparently the next big thing in the digital book world is this thing called Copia. You can check out the website here, but I'd advise you to skip the promotional video. It doesn't actually tell you what Copia does, how it works, what it looks like, or how it could be tailored to your unique reading habits. It tells you 'we're in it together,' and features a lot of smiling people. My favorite is the blonde girl reading Vonnegut and laughing like the book is a shopping mall buddy. Maybe Vonnegut's funny, but he's just not that kind of funny. For all I know, Copia could be the next best thing. You just really can't tell from the video.
Working at the Main Library has surprising advantages. Just now I stepped out of my office, walked five paces across the hall, scanned a badge, and walked under the civic center plaza to the elevator that stretches from beneath the earth up to the mayor’s office on the fourteenth floor. I didn’t have so far to go—just up one level to the utilities counter, where a sympathetic, amused woman named Sue shut down my gas payments. It took less than five minutes. I finished packing up my kitchen days ago. My cake pans were in boxes sometime early last week. But as I walked through the underground loading dock on my way back to the office, I was distinctly aware of the finality of what I’d just done. I would never, from that moment on, be able to bake for anyone out of that kitchen. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a very big deal, but I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of a certain identity, namely being “the person who bakes a lot”. I made a tiered wedding cake for some friends (because...
I never thought Vonnegut was particularly hilarious, either.
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