First off, a small example of gratuitous literary flair from an unexpected source: a spokesman for the food conglomerate Cargill.“Salt is a pretty amazing compound,” Alton Brown, a Food Network star, gushes in a Cargill video called Salt 101. “So make sure you have plenty of salt in your kitchen at all times.”
The campaign by Cargill, which both produces and uses salt, promotes salt as “life enhancing” and suggests sprinkling it on foods as varied as chocolate cookies, fresh fruit, ice cream and even coffee. “You might be surprised,” Mr. Brown says, “by what foods are enhanced by its briny kiss.”
I had to double-check the masthead to make sure I wasn't reading The Onion. Who is this guy? Could it be that this quote represents a creative repurposing of an MFA in creative writing? In any event, this fellow managed to enhance the flavor of an otherwise completely pointless article.
The other little surprise is that Verlyn Klinkenborg has an iPad, and is using it to read books. Who knew? One assumed that he sent his editorials in on bits of birch bark. Kidding aside, though, I think he's exactly right. I, too, am reading the new Stieg Larsson (that doesn't need a hyperlink, right?) on the iPad, and am noticing the same damned things about the experience that Klinkenborg does. As I see it, the e-book needs two things, both easily achievable (at least, technologically speaking): one, a new standard for .mobi and EPUB that will allow more elaborate and creative book design. I don't want all my books to look the same way. And two, the ability to lend. Say, for a week. You "give" your ebook to somebody else. During that time, it is not available in your account. A week later (or when your friend clicks the "return" button) it snaps back into your account. Simple.
I believe B&N's reader already has a version of this latter tech--anybody here got a Nook? Does the lending thing actually work?
