Chewing Words
My mother had to always remind me to chew slowly and thoroughly. Paper pulp, however, is specially indigestible. It’s for stuffing.
Comfortably posed to endured such ruminations, of course, as long as they last, one has to wonder invariably when printed literature will finally crash. So far, we know that it’s now a matter of speed, of short messages, of an advanced kind of telegraphy. It has to be produced and consumed fast. No more room for introductions, for easing things out. It’s now or never, already passed, irrelevant.
…and then, at one point, booom! …all stays standstill. The crash has made everything tight, densely packed. Now it’s really hard to swallow.
«Budgie stuffed with JG Ballard's 'Crash'», by Mark Edelman Boren, 1991. Appearing in
«Speed. Visions of an Accelerated Age»