Void Behind the Door

Read this article in this blog named voidbehindthedoor, lamenting the loss of another book store, another little magazine called "Smoke." (Wonder: had all those rejections got to do with the assumption that "Smoke" was about smoking? Most unlikely, but also possibly true. The generation these days is of an extreme kind. Either this or that, no in betweens. Anyway, the blog post is about a little magazine called "Smoke" which wound up and so did a lot of small and independent book shops who didn't stock "Smoke.")

And then serendipity struck because the writing was good, just subtle, just that bit self deprecating, just the right amount of humour thrown in to make you want to go "mmmm." So "mmmm" it is to this blog which ate up a whole afternoon of browsing in its fantabulous prosody.

By the way, it brings me to the subject of the disappearing bookshops. I was sad when my friend Mani wound up "Search Word" near Regal Cinema which was a favourite for a long, long time. I can remember browsing for hours in Mani's bookshop. So what does one do when a bookshop closes and a little magazine too? "Jesus wept," is one of the shortest and most lucid passages in the Bible. I weep. I weep the passing of an era when books – meaning printed words – were all the entertainment we had. We were richer for the pursuit of those printed words, which when placed in a row and fitted into a beautiful cubic-shaped element made of paper that fit in the palm of the hand, would give us hours of joy. There were no ipods, no iphones, no macs and personal computers. Alas!