Because I Can

Larry McMurtry (if you had to say, "Who?" you're not alone. Wikipedia here; basically he wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain) complains of kids these days not reading:

[I will be discussing t]he end of the culture of the book. I’m pessimistic. Mainly it’s the flow of people into my bookshop in Archer City. They’re almost always people over 40.

I don’t see kids, and I don’t see kids reading. I think little kids love to have stories read to them, but when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they run into this tsunami of technology: iPod, iPhone, Blackberries.

They don’t resist it, and it’s normal that they wouldn’t; it’s their culture. I’m not so sure they ever come back to reading. Some will, but most won’t.

"Those damn kids and their technology. I wrote that screenplay on a typewriter. Why don't kids use typewriters these days? That's what wrong with them - staring at their damn screens." As for kids not reading, tell that to J.K. Rowling. People stood in line at bookstores for the release of those books. But shh, don't ruin his point. Let him do that.

Q: What are you reading these days that excites you?

A: I’m reading this book (of essays) by the late David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster, which is a pretty good book. Mostly I reread books.

He rereads books? In part, probably because he has a terrible memory, but still, why not read anything new? Anything at all? Is he convinced they're all bad? Perhaps what he's trying to say, or should have said if he wasn't a retard, was that books these days suck, and the kids are all right, hell they're honest enough to tell us that by listening to crappy music on their iPods.

Labels: FJM Style rip, Old Dudes Complaining