The video that I wanted to embed above was a recent episode of Charlie Rose about the future of books, but Charlie has one of those obnoxious sites that doesn't allow embedding, so instead you're getting the ever-thoughtful Glenn Danzig discussing his bookshelf.

The bad tech encountered on Charlie's site, a bluster of broken pages and video players that spin spin spin, is one of our greater new media paradoxes, because if we invented Charlie Rose today, it would most surely be a web show. With the minimalist set, the low-production camera work, and a theme song straight out of an '80s sitcom, it's practically Between Two Ferns.

[We interrupt this message to bring you Danzig's "Mother," the best music video involving a satanic chicken slaughter of all time.]

Anyway, back at the roundtable, we have seated around the sphere Tim O'Reilly, Jane Friedman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ken Auletta, and David Kastan. They turn in one of the better discussions about the future of the written word since at least Glenn Danzig gave a tour of his bookshelf.

No one has ever said "Charlie Rose asks the hard-hitting questions," but that never seemed the agenda. He just sets the table for a good discussion, here about whether printed books will survive the digital revolution and how the book industry must change.

It's almost as good as the time that Charlie interviewed Charlie.