BookCrossing: Don't Cry Now

I'm waaaay behind! Welcome to Slackville, population me! Over a year ago I was in Las Vegas and during my time in Sin City I did some releasin'. Some *wild* releasin'! One book that was left to fend for itself was Don't Cry Now - it was released right next to the lion habitat in MGM Grand on June 23, 2011. Mere days later, on June 29, 2011, I was notified of a journal entry. Here is that journal entry, in all its long-winded glory:

Will be reading soon

whole messy quid pro quo of friendship

We'd rather be at home peering at each other online than putting ourselves out there for friendship, messy emotional connection, and all the responsibilities and frustrations that come with forming attachments to others. We're tired, we're stressed, and we're conditioned now to get home from our daily labors and lose ourselves in virtual environments, whether they be TV, video games, other people's profiles and blogs, or our own.

This puts the success of something like PostSecret in a whole new light. It's not just that we use PostSecret to anonymously get things off our chest and get insight into what other people are struggling with. It's that we actually prefer it that way - why get into the whole messy quid pro quo of friendship, the whole I'll-listen-to-you-if-you-listen-to-me burden of the thing, when we can do it online, no mess, no fuss, no one calling you up next week and saying, "Listen, I need help, can I borrow a hundred bucks?"

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

luscious ice cream pie

In his office, Pridmore pulled out two grocery store newsprint fliers. They were from the same store, covering the same week of specials. Except that one flier had a delicious grilled salmon with rice pilaf on the cover to advertise a special on salmon fillets, and one had a luscious ice cream pie on the cover, to advertise a good deal on frozen treats. According to Pridmore, the first flier was distributed in a neighborhood that had indicated a preference for healthy eating, and the other flier was distributed in an area that had statistically been more likely to go for the processed foods and calorie-laden treats.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

absence is the ultimate terror

So when the age of Peep demands more and more caught-on-tape sensational moments, it's not because we really believe we'll be safer if the camera is on. What we believe is that if we're on camera, we'll be less alone. Under the impartial "regime" of the camera's eye, we'll continue to exist even after we're grabbed by the arms and hustled out of the mall. We'll die, perhaps, but we won't disappear.
...
In a postmodern society that turns everything into an endless recording, absence is the ultimate terror. We embrace surveillance because we're terrified of disappearing "without a trace."

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki