These days
the letter's like a freeze frame
All the old ways
get cluttered in the bric brac bones of the day
Now the book lights
They flicker like the fireflies
In the long night
The xerox of our sheets bound back for the day

Will we sit like old friends
when the day of the book ends?
Will we sit like old friends
when the day of the book ends?

Feel the spine bend
the scanners light the loose ends.
When the letter sends,
Our voices [bad word] flash, like matches to flame
At your bedside
You're reaching for the outside
In the long night
Our copyrights expire like fires in the rain.

MCLUHAN: Instead of going out and buying a packaged book of which there have been five thousand copies printed, you will go to the telephone, describe your interests, your needs, your problems, . . . and they at once xerox, with the help [bad word] from the libraries of the world, all the latest material just for you personally, not as something to be put out on a bookshelf. They send you the package as a direct personal service. This is where we're heading under electronic information conditions.