Today, I purchased a rather worn out book at the Strand, _The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century_, which reprints the cartoon strips from 1929 to 1968. Hiding underneath the jacket flap is an inscription in the lost art of actual script, dated “12/72”:
“My darling, Enjoy the past of the hours you spent with Buck Rogers and the future he lives in and think every now and again of the future, your future, our future, of what it is, of what it can be, and remember always that I love you, P.”
More than just about anything else in my life, books — physical texts — are the embodiments of our complex emotional greatness, even when saccharine, but especially when sincere. P’s gift to Darling is proof. Will our iPads, Kindles, many other electronic gizmos carry the same personal and historical weight? The iPhone I’m writing this post on sure as shit doesn’t.
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