Reading, Out of Our Minds

"Out of Print", a documentary to be seen in a few film festivals this summer, casts doubt on a successful future for reading, believing the internet has changed the practice forever. Calling "digital natives" "digital doofuses" pretty much sums up part of the movies' message: young people's brains are being Googled into nonexistance. Not so fast, I say. How do we know? My very upbeat feeling is that electronic reading is more public than private, as in the past (wonderfully designed to be shared in smaller chunks). And any electronic book today is like abstract art, to be defined more completely by the viewer (reader) than the painter (author). That's not bad, or dumb, or disappointing -- its just different. “Out of Print” screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival May 1, and now moves on to the Seattle International Film Festival on May 22 and 23, and the New Hope Film Festival in July. Odd to see a film about the revolution in reading. But then again, how else to capture the revolution, when the revolution in reading is all in people's heads. We've got to get out of our minds, which is hard to do.