{ "item_title" : "A Year on Facebook", "item_author" : [" Addie Alkhas "], "item_description" : "The genesis of this book is tied to the completion of my father's book (Faking Honesty by Marduk Alkhas) sometime in June of 2012. By that time I was deeply engaged in my own personal readings on various topics such as art history and politics as a byproduct of the research I had been doing to complete the unfinished manuscript. The emotional residue that remained in the months following eventually turned into Facebook musings simply to vent my thoughts and feelings. Na vely, it seemed to provide a purpose beyond casual usage: I thought provocation would spur challenges and discussions and slowly create a circle of interest. Here was a medium through which ideas, dialogues and community could be readily fostered. I was in need for such dialogue but lacking any understanding of social media nor appreciating its far too often superficial usage I soon realized I was carrying on more of a discouraging monologue. I should know better that in a world filled with distractions the internet will, as Petras asserted, offer little to people looking for more distraction. But in the end even Don Quixote recovered from his stupor before he died. As the months were passing and I had my father's book finally published, the thought of converting my Facebook posts into a short book came to me. And what I found interesting about Facebook and social media writing is that the form is essentially designed and suitable for creating poetic-prose texts; vignettes, aphorisms and brief essays. There is no real room for long drawn out or well-articulated position statements as the content only holds the reader's attention for the briefest moment. It reminded me of a digital version of my own habit of writing ideas or thoughts in the margins of my books that a passage in my reading led me to. Most of my posts came from these as well as reflections on current events depicted in the news. Although Facebook is a public forum, the public has seemingly little patience or desire to participate beyond casual interactions. This is not to be critical of the public but, like the characters of Cervantes book, they live in the far too real imposition of the form on the content. Too much sanity may be madness and maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/49/600/601/1496006011_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "14.95", "online_price" : "14.95", "our_price" : "14.95", "club_price" : "14.95", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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