it's just been 2 years, to the day, since michael passed away.
plus, in 2 more days, it would have been his "half-birthday".
so it seems kind of ironic that y'all seem to have forgotten
one of his most important points -- unlimited distribution.
i guess it gives you a kind of thrill to play "master curator",
making your lists -- "top 100", "best shakespeare", etc. --
but as one can put tens of thousands of e-books on a d.v.d.,
and have the whole library as close as an internet connection,
it's obvious that kind of thinking belonged to the last century.
which is the prescient vision michael had _4_decades_ back.
so while you guys are discussing what the best restaurant is,
michael hart is busy at the heavenly buffet, sampling all of it,
heaping big piles of _everything_ on his tray, and _loving_ it.
and lest you think your esoteria denotes that you're cultured,
let me remind you that it wasn't that michael hart lacked taste.
when i was with him at his local buffet, he insisted to a waitress
that she replace a glass of water another waiter had given me,
saying "he filled it from the spigot by the yogurt machine, and
everyone knows that that spigot gives the water a rusty taste".
well, that waitress just gave us a wry smile, one that imparted
that while this regular _might_ be a slight pain in the rear-end,
she did acknowledge that he knew what he was talking about.
and it wasn't just in the buffet either; it was the library as well.
heck, he could argue the merits of any number of classic books.
and that's because he _recognized_ those merits, and decided
to focus on the strong points of each, and not on the weak ones.
you wanna argue about versions of shakespeare?
michael was raised by parents who did that at the breakfast table.
so go ahead and pick your "top 100".
but michael would never be bothered with such patent nonsense,
as he was busy distributing trillions of books to billions of people.
_unlimited_distribution._ one of michael's most important points.
-bowerbird
