HOT HUMID PAGES

Just heard today of a guy in North Carolina who is spreading the word about Spartan Negotiator to all his friends on-line. This is the new WOM (Word Of Mouth). Reports indicate that these friends who are scattered across the U.S. are making inquiry at their local Barnes & Noble stores regarding Spartan Negotiator. I'm grateful for this outstanding WOM, but, not wanting to be anything but grateful, I'm hoping for more. Hoping this sharing bit goes viral. How things have changed from the old days when books changed actual hands. I'm envisioning a gnarled, soil-stained hand reaching out for an actual artifact and taking it from the fingers of the giver, probably at a camp meeting or a river crossing, or a train station. Now-a-days electrons change screens and downloads are initiated. It's the same concept but antiseptic. No dirt under the giver's fingernails...that can be seen anyway. No musty smell of humid pages wet from being transported in a wool pocket next to a hot body on a warm rainy day. No eye to eye contact. No seeing the smile wrinkles as the gift is given and received. Be these things as they may, I do not deplore virality. I actually enjoy it because...because...well, because it is the modern age and the modern way and the raft at river's edge waiting to transport passengers and mules and produce to the other side is history not modern life. In significant ways the "new" WOM is just as fascinating as a single book exchange in a rural American setting. It just takes place in cyberspace, a place that is also fantastic, mysterious, intriguing, enigmatic, and foreboding.