the tech view

Gadget Duo

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:19:00 +0000

iPad posture

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:32:00 +0000

@ Cayman's Pad
in Amagansett;
his finger poised
above the World Wide pulse
interfaces are encountered
from a sea-side perch. Are we faithful to his tablet generation; his mobile imagination?

Starling has its sights set on September.
http://www.gomonews.com/new-social-media-app-for-tv-shows-starling/ Cayman's classroom; his return to school, a social scene of seekers; this we know: his play-time will be re-defined. http://www.corestandards.org/

Digital Natives will teach us. Are we willing to learn, adapt? Will we guide Cayman's hand in the deep seas of e-knowledge, where content doesn't yet know how to swim? http://www.fosi.org/index.php/resources.html

e_mancipation

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:31:00 +0000

7th grade brought with it a challenge: Select a speech; memorize it; present it in real-time, Saint Mary’s stage, auditorium full, spotlight on — a cadre of classmates, self-selected by ability and ambition sitting politely silent while I summoned Abraham Lincoln’s words, his defiant strength, his last hurrah.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/scsmbib:@field%28TITLE+@od1%28Emancipation+proclamation+of+President+Abraham+Lincoln,+freeing+the+slaves+of+the+United+States,++Daniel,+Sr++++%29%29

****
The Emancipation Proclamation massaged by my inexperience and ignorance of the past [a historian’s obsession] generated a document-specific transformative circumstance whereby my historical countenance and consciousness blossomed as if Emily Dickinson had done the planting [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/arts/design/30dickinson.html]

Lincoln lulled me into a just and fervent patriotism; whereby my life’s emergence from 7th grade onward was shaped by this universally applicable Republican:

http://www.myspace.com/miraclesofmodernscience
http://memory.loc.gov/ndlpcoop/nhnycw/af/af01/af01002/001v.jpg
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/nhihtml/cwnyhsarcm.html

We need another e_mancipation.

Let’s dig in; let’s reach into ourselves; let’s begin thinking about the Other; let’s get in the habit of being considerate [again]. Let’s resume the posture; not of Pontius Pilate or of the Roman Army, authorized to terrorize. Rather, let us endeavor to strike a pose, with our movements synchronized toward confessing to our confessor this non-negotiable: To withdraw so completely as to be absent; our Blackberry, iPhone, Droid or Palm Pre our chief distraction is to admit to our slavery, our defeated selves — flush with the world’s wealth @ our fingertips, while embracing blind revelations downloaded @ speeds we cannot comprehend alone.

During our occupation of climate-controlled dwellings; where we arrive with vehicles emitting consequences we count by carbon increments, crazily dependent — let’s get distracted by the length of time required to look our neighbor, our colleagues in the eye and plunge into her/his reservoir of ‘knowing.’

There is a seat @ the table; the empty chair ought not be our empty concern but our strident daring to know the Other.

“On the far side of the subjective, on this side of the objective, on the narrow ridge, where I and Thou meet, there is the realm of ‘between.’ [Martin Buber, Between Man and Man]

Beyond Petroleum

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sat, 15 May 2010 14:39:00 +0000

Brooklyn’s sky
rests
upon its peripatetic
people
clusters of children
intertwined
spheres of passage;
prestige
advancement
sojourns
escorted
through digital domains,
hard-wired, hard-pressed.

****
Yet
I must tell my story.
I must teach my truth.

Rabbi, fear not, I do not presume to be you.

Forgive me Jesus; I suffer not, as you did.

Let us pray:

Buoyant upon the sins
Of we the unthinking,
Unprepared,
No back-up plan
Deliberately-projecting
Petrol pumped
cheaply
Reaping deep profits
Influence

Yo.
Listen up: [if I may say it as a Queens-girl;
Shea, in the distance]
resources
are not infinite.

Sally sells sea shells
By the sea-shore.

Who will pay?

Are you breathing?

Beyond petroleum?

BP?
http://www.greenbergresearch.com/index.php?ID=473

It’s time to burp.
Belch.
Fart.

All-knowing
Our infinite hope, refuge and strength
We know the sea’s tide;
that its polarity
equals
a sponge.

The shit has really hit the fan.

Print that: New York Times
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-14/obama-sends-bomb-mars-experts-to-fix-bp-oil-spill-update1-.html

Ask any fisherman:

Which is it?
Shrimp cocktail?
Today’s traffic report?

Mom, are we there yet?

Not quite honey, not quite.

©2010 right_hook/gadget girl

Coney Island : Not Just for Mermaids

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:04:00 +0000

In the grip of a Brooklyn dude; who sees things in black and white; his gadget glides toward Coney Island; keeping time [see left wrist] as if Michael Jackson could still thrill us in real-time.

Suitable for a King

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:25:00 +0000

[dedicated to everyone who believes in the dream]

Coretta,
@ first you were
a veiled widow;
Black upon Black
when first
my child’s eyes
noticed you
http://www.cdcan.us/cdcan_reports/2008/13_25_king_scott_coretta_funeral2.jpg
...

Then, as I became
a woman
I saw some of me
in you — each inheritors
of his Kingdom.

What in God’s name
Was your husband thinking?
Talking theology
Systematically
Amongst sons of liberty
And daughters of revolution
while Cambridge
politely breathed
its sighs
of
privilege
relieved
you weren’t dumping tea
in Boston harbor

Did they ever imagine
You’d walk
upon the Charles?
http://www.bu.edu/mlkjr/news/

I wish I had a river
That I could row away on
Now that CNN
Interrupts my REM

Today
Is a double-bill
A new kind of currency

In God We Trust
emblazoned with the Caribbean sun
the poorest nation
in the Americas
Cracked into pieces
like a bowl of nigger toes
http://urbansemiotic.com/2007/10/09/hand-me-that-bowl-of-nigger-toes/

Turn it over.
will Geithner
gain
A percentage point,
an up tick
when
his John Hancock
begins flying off the presses?
http://www.moneyfactory.gov/
http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/geithner-e.shtml
http://wheresthechange.blogspot.com/2009/02/civil-disobedience.html

Bring on the Red Stripe
http://www.redstripebeer.com/custom_signs.php
http://www.meas.ie/page.php?intPageID=118
let’s Skip along
carefree
like a white girl
in Birmingham
or Biloxi
or Charlestown
http://www.4littlegirls.com/boston.htm

But be careful
Not to whistle
That sort of air play
will cost you
Fingers.
Toes.
Gone for good

Those digits
Add up
In the rubble.

We must begin
our sojourn
your legacy suggests;
Leaning on
Doctors
Without Borders
http://www.livinginemergency.com/

Meanwhile,
grieving Park Slope pseudo-moms
push strollers,
past Brooklyn
Brownstones
Worry —
families pressed
beneath chunks
of concrete
slabs of metal
shards of glass
While we pay cash [health care not included]
So as not to leave a trail

If the IRS ever decides
to sniff around
(pulls a Zoe Baird)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n3_v45/ai_13599262/
We’re prepared
To re-assign those
bureaucrats

Mission:
Search & Rescue
Port Au Prince.

Dog-day afternoon

Post 9-11
We go on the hunt
Strange fruit
http://www.discoverlynchburg.org/135_attractions_anne-spencer-house-and-garden

Saddam swings
Butcher
of Baghdad?
Osama
rhymes
with Obama

We are now
Afghanistan’s hope
The Russians
must think
we
harvested
a fertile valley
of poppies
defying
Nancy Reagan’s
Suggestion:
“Just Say No.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/07/couricandco/entry4999323.shtml
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/18/lessons-from-soviets-in-afghanistan/

Where is Billie?
On Holiday?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Can she see Alaska
from the all-inclusive
opportunities
in the Dominican Republic
skin
glistening.

Such a beauty
Yet so heavy
in her silence.

Have we forgotten Humpty Dumpty?
Read it to me again Daddy
Before you’re re-deployed

So long I have loved your voice:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

May his
memory
be for blessing
http://survivorthriver.blogspot.com/2003/10/may-his-memory-be-blessing.html

May honor
seize him
by any means necessary.

Believe.

© 2010 Julie Holley

One Small Step

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:28:00 +0000

The first records I possessed were hand-me-downs. My eldest brother, Richard, whose natural, nurtured and self-developed musical talents were (and remain) considerable, passed them on to me; not in a formal way, but unconsciously, leaving certain records behind, when he left home and began a new life as a husband bound not only by his love for his wife but for music.

***

There were a few 45(s): Chris Smithers (“Old Kentucky Home”), Dave Clark Five (“If Somebody Loves You” “Bring It On Home To Me”) and my all-time 45 favorite; a double bill (of sorts): James Taylor (“You Can Close Your Eyes”) and Carole King’s (sung by James Taylor) (“You’ve Got A Friend”) as well as a 78: Blood, Sweat & Tears (whose “Variations On A Theme By Eric Satie” “God Bless The Child” “Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” were not only immensely pleasurable to listen to but assisted in educating, shaping and inspiring me musically).

A mention, or discussion of records, to those born into the era and culture of Napster, iTunes, MySpace and musician-approved websites (with a “pay as you like” download option) may be viewed as perplexing, esoteric, or, flat-out incomprehensible.

A Digital Native (with parents who have admitted to owning or using records) might ask: How could anyone tolerate listening to music in a format prone to warping, hissing, skipping, crackling; each exacerbated by the physical maneuvering required of phonographs? Without question, in view of music’s digital transformation, the question is not only sane, but is to be expected.

Space Oddity a 1969 album by rock musician David Bowie (originally released by Philips in the UK as David Bowie, by Mercury in the U.S. as Man of Words/Man of Music and was reissued by RCA Records in 1972 under its current title) is not only a marker in the history of music (and Bowie’s irrefutable contribution to music) but was featured by the BBC during its television coverage of the lunar landing. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67kmFzSh_o]

On Sunday, July 19, 2009 the eve of the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 11's successful mission — the first human landing on the Moon, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum welcomed the Apollo 11 crew, as well as Mission Control creator and former Johnson Space Center director Chris Kraft as the speakers for the Museum's 2009 John H. Glenn lecture in space history.

Due to rapid online sell out of tickets to previous lectures of this type (which have been and remain free), the museum used a random drawing to provide more people the chance of attending. All requests in the random drawing had equal chance of receiving theater seating, overflow seating, or standby. Tickets could only be reserved online and could not be reserved through the Museum Box Office.

The Lockheed Martin Imax Theater, located at the National Mall building in downtown Washington, DC, where the Glenn lecture was held, has entertained and educated many by design; specifically, its capacity to project films on a five-story-high screen with six-channel digital surround sound.

At this year’s Glenn lecture (which was made possible by the “generous support” of the Boeing Corporation) [http://www.nasm.si.edu/webcasts/archive.cfm] Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Michael Collins noted that the venue he found himself in was not meant for speeches. Nevertheless, he took to the podium, with apparent humility and sincerity and both educated and entertained in a dimension uniquely his own.

Collins is, arguably, the least famous among the Apollo 11 astronauts: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin possess a bigger share of the media moon pie. But evaluated by his persona and presence on Sunday, Collins is my favorite among the three men.

Collins shared with the audience, a conversation that took place between himself and one of his daughters: “What would you have said?” he asked his daughter; referring to Neil Armstrong’s (the first man to walk on the Moon) now famous assertion: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” [http://www.freeinfosociety.com/media.php?id=13]

As Collins reported, his daughter shot back this answer: “Do I look fat in this suit?”

Many in the audience reacted to the answer given by Collins’ daughter in the way I did — with a small, moderately audible dose of laughter. For those aware of and sensitized to the serious problems many girls and women face managing self-image with the manifold representations and images of what is deemed ‘beautiful’ ‘feminine’ and aesthetically ‘ideal;’ the daughter of an accomplished man proved herself not only endowed with a sense of humor, but capable, with just one question, of bringing to Collins’ audience, the serious subject and legacy of gender within NASA while simultaneously drawing attention to women’s achievements and contributions in the forty years since Armstrong took to the moon and asserted his gender’s near lock on space travel and exploration.

On August 4, 1999, the Chicago Tribune published a piece by Professor Martha Ackmann of Mount Holyoke College which she penned very close to the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11 [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/Collins.shtml]. Professor Ackmann’s piece is necessary reading if one claims to be the least bit interested in the multi-level discussion invited by Collins’ daughter.

After all, space suits are a feminist issue.

“Among our greatest national resources,” Ackmann notes, “for imparting understanding of the space program is the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The most-visited museum in the world, Air and Space attracts 10,000,000 visitors annually.”

The closest I have come to visiting Air and Space is through its website. Alas, I was not one of the randomly selected attendees at this year’s Glenn lecture. Though the museum’s website maintains a video archive (making Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins available for viewing when the moon is full, waxing or waning) I experienced their respective presentations and perspectives during the 2009 Glenn lecture via C-SPAN.

While I watched, I thought of one of the 45(s) in my possession, which, if evaluated by its surface and its shape, seems to promise a melody, rhythm or arrangement of one genre or another; but when maneuvered carefully upon my Bang & Olufsen phonograph, the 45 escorts me back in time to July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong gave voice to his special place in space travel by taking “one small step.”

I hope and pray humanity can move gracefully forward by stepping into the ‘final frontier’ of planets and galaxies with space suits flattering to all astronauts.

Can you hear me Mission Control?

©2009 Julie Holley

Buffalo Boy

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Steven’s birthday had always been easy to remember. It fell on April 15; a moment in time when the United States government grants its citizenry an opportunity to account for their respective good fortune, wealth or absence thereof.

***

April 15 is a deadline accountants and tax attorneys need not be reminded of — their professional livelihoods rest in the bosom of the day’s arrival.

My friendship with Steven commenced in the late eighties (through a friend of a friend). Ever since, I have made certain to extend birthday wishes to him in person, by phone or with the assistance of the United States Postal Service (known, in our digital age as: ‘snail mail’).

Steven was not a technophobe. But he refused to join the ever-growing, multi-billion- worldwide-populace of web surfers; and by extension, he lacked an email address. “I can’t be bothered with computers,” he once said, during a conversation some years ago. “If you need to get in touch, you’ve got my cell number,” was how he deflected my best attempts at getting him on the Information Superhighway.

Steven was not liberal in his politics or with dispensing the digits that determined our cellular connection. Sometimes, when I opted to phone him, I felt like a member of his inner communication circle; but the geometry of that circle, of that friendship, sometimes felt skewed by the seeming fragility of those digits — What if he (in an act of consumer revolt) changed his cell phone provider/plan — consequently claiming possession of a new series of cell phone digits — falling short of comprehensively informing his inner communication circle?

This past April 15 was an unusual one. I was, uncharacteristically, self-absorbed; the preparations and circumstances of a June bride (me), trumped history — my previously unrelenting recognition of Steven’s birthday was in 2009, an example of the human capacity to forget amidst a flurry of emotion, anticipation and planning.

It was the middle of May when I remembered that I had forgotten Steven’s birthday. So, I swiftly chose a male-themed, aesthetically-sensitive card from my diverse collection, took pen in hand, expressed my apologies at sending a belated birthday greeting, stressed that Steven phone me (on my cell phone, if he preferred) and sent the card to his residence in Buffalo, New York.

Buffalo, New York is where Steven was born, where his childhood took root; it is where his mother and three sisters (with their respective husbands) live. And Buffalo is where Steven (as he sometimes put it) “escaped from.” Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, California and Boston, Massachusetts have been cities where Steven journeyed, to live; each one (obviously different in their destination draw) part of his “escape” plan.

Boston was our common urban link — his South End condominium a nucleus for close friends, a micro-repository of carefully selected, purchased and displayed art. Steven’s armoire was filled with clothes arrived at by Neiman-Marcus purchases. He was strident in his opposition to filth — disdainful of dirt in any shape, manner or form — making his stemware spotless, visitors subject to shoe removal and his vacuum the ultimate item in his household arsenal.

The day the movers came to Steven’s South End condominium to facilitate his return to Buffalo in the mid nineties, he was, naturally, pre-occupied with the mechanics of returning ‘home.’

Although he made sure to hire ‘the best,’ the movers, he determined required copious amounts of supervision. This move, this return to a place he once “escaped from,” would be his final move, Steven asserted as I watched him meticulously wrap one of his prized lithographs. The conventional wisdom is: Something always gets broken in a move. Steven wanted to defy those odds, this one last time.

When Steven got settled in Buffalo and I needed to get away for a few days, in the wake of circumstances that catapulted me, inelegantly, from one life, to the unknown of another, I drove, from Boston to Buffalo upon Steven’s invitation and urging.

We ordered in the first night of my stay; from a Chinese place a few blocks from Steven’s apartment. When we had our fill, Steven lit up a Marlboro Light, a brand he had been dedicated to since our first flicker of friendship, leaned back in his brown leather armchair and stroked Zephyr, his Siamese cat.

Thirst had found its way to my palate so I made my way to the kitchen to quench it. I took a guess where Steven’s water glasses were kept, opening the cabinet to the right of the sink, tentatively. A massive amount of prescriptions were revealed; the whole of which illustrated a dimension of Steven’s life I had only minimally, until that moment, understood.

The face of HIV/AIDS was manifest in my life before my friendship with Steven. I made sure to educate myself about the virus (and its associated consequences) as soon as it became a public health menace. But with Steven’s HIV positive assertion, what was an ‘abstract’ awareness and concern became an intimate fact between friends.

“You have to swallow all of that, each day?” I asked Steven, referring to my discovery. “Yeah,” he said. “All of that is keeping me alive.” I took a sip of water, swallowed hard and wondered how long Steven’s life would be sustained by such a daily regimen of pills. And I wondered too, how I would know when the pills stopped working; when the respective dosages would become no match for the complications sure to arise a man of Steven’s medical category.

When my belated birthday card was returned and subsequent calls to Steven’s cell phone indicating the number was no longer in service — I recalled our last phone conversation, a few months preceding his birthday. “I saw this Art Deco piece (a style he knew I was fond of) and thought about buying it for you so you’d have something to remember me when I die,” he said. “Don’t talk like that,” I shot back.

Even though everything seemed to point to Steven’s death, I wanted to be sure.

Sometimes, Google is a dead end, I discovered, upon locating Steven’s death notice in The Buffalo News.

Founded in 1998, Legacy.com is an online media company that collaborates with more than 700 newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia to provide ways for readers to express condolences and share remembrances of loved ones. The Buffalo News is one such “collaboration.”

Legacy.com is visited by more than 10 million users each month. It partners with 76 of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S. and features obituaries and Guest Books for more than 60 percent of people who die in the United States.

“Combine memorable stories, photos, videos and more to honor and celebrate the life of your loved one,” suggests the Legacy.com website. They attempt to entice ‘mourners’ with a 14-day free trial.

Steven never did like “free.”

Hyper (Medication Optional)

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:27:00 +0000

The Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) (http://www.personaldemocracy.com) is the world's largest and best known conference on the intersection of technology and politics. For the sixth year (from June 29-June 30, 2009), more than 1,000 opinion makers, political practitioners, technologists and journalists came together to network, exchange ideas, and explore how technology and the Internet are changing politics, democracy, and society.

***
Though in its sixth year, I attended PdF for the first time, this year. My motivation was more than professional, it was personal. My attendance became mandatory after learning my Cambridge-culled friend Mark Pesce would be presenting “The Dangerous Power of Sharing (Power)” to PdF’s second-day, mid-afternoon, pre-Networking lunch audience at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall, steps away from Columbus Circle in New York City. The venue is popular for those as famous or more famous than Pesce (Jazz great Wynton Marsalis is an example of the latter).

Pesce, whose six-year-long, real-time-residence is Sydney, Australia, has Northeast, United States roots. Indeed, New England was once our mutual geographic anchor; the topography of which was distinct in our shared social network (some of Pesce’s closest friends became gold-mines of conversation at parties Pesce promoted and at which I was present and participated to the fullest extent).

While both of us enjoyed the dynamism of Cambridge, Massachusetts for its obvious and storied intellectual repositories (look no further than Pesce’s alma mater, MIT) Pesce and I once shared and enjoyed a cadre of people that was far removed from the virtual (one of Pesce’s passions); it was a social network that accentuated the actual.

As a ‘green’ tech-journalist, I sought Pesce’s presence and accepted his invitations to party at his MIT- adjacent apartment because I observed in Pesce, a sure-footed geeky masculinity which had not completely revealed itself, but was nonetheless part of Pesce’s panache and prestige.

Pesce’s expertise and insight into virtual reality/virtual worlds made my association with him during my live television days at Cambridge Community Television good for my show’s ratings. Pesce was described by many of my Talk Tech viewers as “the most captivating and dynamic” of all my tech-infused guests.

So Pesce’s arrival in New York City as a participant in PdF 2009 represented a reclassification of sorts — he went from being VHS archive material shelved safely amongst my VHS library to a tangible example of the phenomena Pesce eloquently emphasized (with above average visuals not standardly employed via PowerPoint) at PdF 2009: ‘hyperconnection.’

For the last four years, Pesce has practiced "digital ethnology", observing the behavioral, cultural and political changes wrought by the new technologies of sharing and communication. In his writings (both hard copy and e-thereal) Pesce has used his considerable talent for making logically-rendered, inspired, utopian terrains possible.

“We are so much better connected than we were even a decade ago, and this connectivity breeds new capabilities. The first of these capabilities are the pooling and sharing of knowledge – or ‘hyperintelligence’. Consider: everyone who reads Wikipedia is potentially as smart as the smartest person who’s written an article in Wikipedia,” Pesce portends.

The methodology of Wikipedia (which allows anyone to be an author or editor), is similar to the methodology of Wikileaks argues Pesce. Such an organic cyber-propelled community, a vast hyperlinked world of accurate intelligence fused with a collective knowledge and respect for statistically rendered demographic differences disrupts the ‘power grid’.

The success of Wikipedia in providing accurate and up-to-date information has been stunning and surprising to many. Wikipedia shows that the collective wisdom of an informed community of users may produce massive volumes of accurate knowledge in a rapid, democratic and transparent manner. Wikileaks aims to harness this phenomenon to provide fast and accurate dissemination, verification, analysis, interpretation and explanation of leaked documents, for the benefit of people all around the world.

According to Pesce, hyperconnectivity also means that we can carefully watch one another. We learn from one another’s behaviors “at the speed of light” he notes. This new capability – ‘hypermimesis’ – means that new behaviors can be seen and copied very quickly. Hypermimesis means that communities of interest can form around particular behaviors, ‘clouds’ of potential.

A f2f (face-to-face) with Pesce delivers a confident intelligence (notably lacking in conceit); which isn’t successfully transferable to the Web; no matter how many dimensions one imagines in virtual space. Notably not transferable, as well, is the glimmer in Pesce’s eyes when he considers the possibility (as he seemed to with me) of a conversation come full circle — a conversation that has been gurgling between Pesce and I since Google — whose SEO (search engine optimization) network infrastructure insists there are about 161,000 results for mark pesce..

At PdF 2009, I had an opportunity to assess if Pesce’s real-time persona is any less hyper than when I last saw him — at a party — where the dynamic of the room was elevated by intellect, computer-centered-conversation and many occasions when Pesce and I couldn’t help but laugh in each other’s presence.

My human architecture; the very one that forced me to stretch upward to a once frequent place on my time-space-continuum — where the body says what words cannot — when my affection for Mark caught up to him in the form of an embrace as he emerged from backstage — was a paradox drawn to human scale: A man credited with co-creating VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) and who has a record of evangelizing about it was forced to get real — in a New York second.

Thanks to futurists like Pesce, the odds of democratizing the future enjoy a greater likelihood. Pesce (and his futurist allies) understand that citizens, domestically and globally can upend present-day, closely-held hierarchies. The power of political change, its very motion (the ‘push back,’ (as some in the cyber-scene identify it) is actualized and manifest on devices (choose your telecommunication talisman) that drive the visual narratives of resistance in places seemingly disconnected to us (e.g. where Islamic law claims absolute authority).

For some, a mathematical approach to Pesce’s bottom line is contained in this Tweet:

Hyperconnectivity = hypermimesis = hyperempowerment

Kindly direct any Twitter-based-technically-viable-utopian-driven tweets to me @right_hook

Momma Mia

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:26:00 +0000

JibJab Media Inc., a digital entertainment studio born in a Brooklyn basement in 1999 was fathered by brothers Evan and Gregg Spiridellis. Today, it operates in Los Angeles and its 35 employees work to bring its brand of political satire, sendable eCards and viral videos to those Internet users in search of the company’s unique creative sensibilities and accompanying sense of humor.

*****

Nearly one week before Mother’s Day (which in the United States occurs today, this Second Sunday of May) I received an email from JibJab anticipating my Mother’s Day participation. “New Mother’s Day e-Cards” read the subject line. I demonstrated my interest in JibJab’s e-offerings by clicking; revealing the following text:

“Pay tribute to mom, and make her laugh in the process! With Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday, our majorly matriarchal eCards will bring a smile to her face!!

It was the “majorly matriarchal” description that caused me to focus further on JibJab’s e-offerings. I spent a few minutes exploring the execution of JibJab’s promise — eCards that were “majorly matriarchal.”

But there was another reason my click rate increased. JibJab had isolated one of my constants; that I like to make my mother laugh. Put another way — My mother’s happiness, especially when I am its source, brings me satisfaction — Self-serving, but true.

The modern Mother's Day holiday was created by Anna Jarvis on May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death. Jarvis held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. She succeeded in making this nationally recognized within the United States in 1914.

Anna Jarvis grew to despise what the holiday became. “She hated the way candy shops and greeting card companies commercialized the day. Prices for carnations skyrocketed during the holiday. Jarvis verbally attacked the florists for raising the price of carnations,” says Bringhurst Funeral Home’s description of Jarvis. Bringhurst is a funeral home whose services one can encounter at Jarvis’ final earthly resting place — Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania’s West Laurel Hill Cemetery; which borders the western edge of Philadelphia.

One of the things history affords us is the opportunity to assess the present utilizing the framework of the past. Presently, companies like JibJab, Inc. seek creative success and monetary reward by drawing upon a 20th century development credited to Anna Jarvis. While JibJab.com looks to the past, thereby summoning Jarvis’ ghost, I conclude by clicking, that this year, I will pay tribute to my majorly matriarchal mother by declining JibJab’s assistance and declaring this 21st century fact: The Internet can be a means to a non-commercial end; an end I propose would have won Jarvis’ endorsement.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom.

Goodbye Maria: A Facebook Fissure

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:04:00 +0000

I let Maria go with a mere mouse-click. She was a shameless self-promoter who often wrote her Facebook status updates in Spanish; a language I can neither read, write or decode via my God-given sound processors (unless, of course, I hired Maria to translate her Spanish into English — which happens to be her core professional competency). Around the moment of her “departure” from my group of 98 Facebook friends, the media spotlight was fixated upon Twitter — journalists held the micro-blogging social utility aloft as a news item; Oprah, it was reported, sent out a Tweet (a 140-character-or-less communication at the core of Twitter’s operational framework). What can be said about Maria in such an abbreviation-mandated milieu? — Goodbye.

© 2009 Julie Holley

My mother's generation

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Jean Grossholtz belongs to my mother’s generation. My mother turned 81 on February 14; Jean will be 80 on April 17. Statistically: elderly. But neither woman embodies the category.

In fact, each is extraordinary — in their youthfulness.

....
There’s no denying the lived-in skin. Wrinkles from feeling what Jean and Mom have felt over the span of their respective lives — wrinkles that have become more numerous as the days have multiplied.

Children of The Great Depression, each can claim, as fundamental to their character a deep well of strength and resolve — and courage — especially in this Information Age.

When revolutions like the Internet come along there is always the danger of the “old guard” being left on the roadside, the Information Superhighway, whizzing by, confusingly. Not so with Jean and my mother.

“I love my computer, I’m in love with my computer” Jean says, followed by a smile, sunlight pouring in, on a recent afternoon in her living room in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Professor Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College, Jean was one of my favorite teachers while I was an undergraduate there.

“How do you know what you know?” Who benefits from what you know?” she would (and still does) ask. Jean prodded her students and everyone around her to think critically, to be ever watchful of the Patriarchy, to resist injustice. Today, in this era of instantaneous information and hyperlinks she worries that most of us don’t question enough. Considering how many of us rely on search engines like Google to ferret out websites that appeal to our online appetites, Jean’s concerns are, in my view, legitimate.

Jean relies on email to communicate with those far and near; maintaining a world-wide network of those for whom the Internet has altered the means and methods of her political activism. Jean’s efforts in the domains of geo-politics and the environment have been enhanced by her ability to organize globally and to collaborate with allies internationally. Ideas, criticisms, suggestions embed themselves in the email, the conversational threads transported via Jean’s Macintosh; a machine she embraced early on.

Utilizing email, my mother fills my inbox with jokes, prayers, patriotic verses and most importantly personalized messages inspired by the mother-daughter relationship. When she and I began making use of email I created a folder named: “Mom’s missives.” Ever since, I have amassed an archive of emails I have deemed noteworthy, worth saving. It is one of the ways I honor her. One of the ways her life is embedded within mine.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008. Jean and my mother are representative of the least represented (older Americans 73+) group of internet users. Comprising 4% of the United States internet-using populace acquiring the capacity to email has been the activity they relish most.

Just a few days ago my mother emailed me a Woolworth’s menu circa 1950. I was a child of the sixties so while I was not a beneficiary of a 30 cent egg salad sandwich or a 10 cent king size Coke, the economics of memory were ignited by the mere motion of my mother’s hand upon her keyboard; an effect enabled by her AOL account.

Economics of memory?

Simply, a supply of memories — whereby I am entering a Woolworth’s — as an unaccompanied minor — in pursuit of presents for my mother. Known as “the five-and-dime” Woolworth’s sold inexpensive, useful items — Items within the reach of my allowance-enabled budget.

Some older Americans like Edith, a silver-haired Brooklynite and grandmother of two prefer the phone to email. As her grandchildren grow up, immersed in a downloadable, interactive world will something as “basic” as email become more appealing to her?

I’ll bet my inbox on it.

Interview with Professor Emeritus Jean Grossholtz

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:08:00 +0000

Part 1

Part 2

Links:
Wikipedia page

Interview with Helen Wheelock

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:52:00 +0000

Part 2

Links:
Creative Arts Team
Helen's blog

Interview with Kyra Lanchester

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:28:00 +0000

Links:
Gotard City (Kyra Lanchester's blog)

Social Context

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:54:00 +0000

It was peer pressure. My gateway drug — the Internet. More precisely, email — that electronic conduit whereby I received numerous invitations to join Facebook.

For weeks I resisted. But I began to feel anti-social, the more I held the invitations at bay. And I like to work a room. Why not virtually?

.....
According to comScore, an Internet market research firm, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008. comScore reports that Facebook attracted 132.1 million unique visitors in June 2008, compared to MySpace, which attracted 117.6 million.

How individuals use and interact with Facebook is a matter of personality; philosophy; online persona; technical proficiency and personal notions of privacy. For the voyeur, the News Feeds and Status Updates (two Facebook features) make observing the actions, opinions, thoughts and emotions of one’s “friends” as accessible as fireworks on the fourth of July — provided you’ve been “friended” adequately.

Like fireworks, some news feeds and status updates leave more of an impression than others. The looming query on Facebook: “What are you doing right now?” When the medium was new to me, the question was an affront to my sense of privacy. Why advertise the minutiae of my life to my “friends”?

It is fair to ask: Why the careful placement of quotations around friend in the context of an essay about Facebook? A few reasons:

I cannot count on every one of my Facebook “friends” to care about what I post.
Confidentiality on Facebook is an oxymoron.
Some of the people I’ve “friended” I know remotely (in the case of one person — she was recommended by a college friend).
Some of my “friends” are relatives.

I’ve spurned a few individuals; recently, to protect myself from a certifiable weirdo — made all the more convincing by a crass message he sent to my Facebook inbox. Michael Jackson, it seems, has some competition.

To date, I’ve ignored two “friend” requests. For me, having “friends” in common is not a good enough reason to add an individual to my Facebook “friendship” network. No matter how good-looking they may be.

Despite my best urging, some of my Facebook “friends” have opted not to post a profile picture. What’s in a face? Apparently, not nearly enough.

Recently, I changed my relationship status from “In a relationship” to “Engaged.” The congratulations I received on Facebook were plentiful — a boost to my sense of how things should be irrespective of sexual preference.

“Friendships” require work. Facebook is no exception. Keeping up, maintaining one’s online persona demands a willingness to interact in imaginative, representational, nostalgic and political (depending) ways. The snowball wars I’ve been participating in lately are one example. They are all but political. Otherwise, calling upon the imagination (real snow falls from the sky), snowball images (representation) and childhood memories (nostalgia) of urban snowball fights where I fought back, despite the odds (two-handed snowballs are easier to form).

A registered Independent for many years, having no allegiance to one particular political party, my Facebook profile reflects this. Many of my “friends” identify as left or left of left. What can I do? Politics is a pendulum.

One group I joined recently is Lexicon which aggregates and analyzes millions of Facebook Wall posts every day to provide a searchable database of trends over time. Too Big Brother for some I suppose but the anthropological possibilities resonate with me.

Meanwhile, this just in:

Betsy is “channeling Marilyn Monroe.”

Interview with Joshua M. Greenberg, Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship at the New York Public Library

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:56:00 +0000

Part 2

Links:
http://www.nypl.org/
From Betamax to Blockbuster

The Veteran Within

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:07:00 +0000

“Welcome back,” said the black man dressed in fatigues. He was standing on the corner of Nostrand and Atlantic, a few doors down from my apartment building in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

I was returning from the grocery store laden with bags in my left hand and bags in my right hook when our eyes met. I did a quick linguistic calculation — he was welcoming me back from Iraq.

***
It was not the first time I have been mistaken for someone who has served in the military. Considering that since the Global War on Terrorism began, more than 800 men and women have returned home without arms or legs, thanks in part to modern body armor (which saves lives that would in earlier wars have been lost), it is not surprising my upper extremity amputee status is linked to military service.

The black man, I’ve come to discover is Ed, a veteran of Vietnam, receiving monthly disability checks for his service in the Army.

The corner of Nostrand and Atlantic is his spare change perch.

I offer Ed conversation, not money.

I explain to Ed that had things been different, had I not been born an amputee, I would have given serious thought to enlisting. “Back in high school, the Army attempted to recruit me, “I tell Ed. “I took an exam and scored well enough that they began calling my house.”

In the end, my mother made it clear that I would never have been able to pass the physical. “Stop calling, you don’t want her” is how my mother put it to the recruiter on the phone.

Recently, I initiated a conversation with Marine Staff Sergeant Richard Velazquez at the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station, located, strangely enough, in the heart of Manhattan’s theatre district. I wanted to explore the military’s current policy on admitting men and women with disabilities.

“Only if the disability can be corrected,” Staff Sergeant Velazquez informed me. “Then I guess the Marines don’t want someone like me!” I exclaimed. “I’m sorry,” he said, fixing his eyes briefly on my prosthetic.

“What if I’m already serving and I lose a limb — what then?” I ask. “There is one guy I know of who lost both legs below the knee and he’s on active duty.” Staff Sergeant Velazquez reports, with a kind of optimism in his voice.

I didn’t walk away empty-handed. I now possess a Marine Corp bumper sticker: Semper Fi it says (in school bus yellow). Latin for: Always Faithful.

“I’m a fan of the Marines,” I assert to Sergeant Velazquez; justifying my possession of the bumper sticker.

As our conversation concluded, Sergeant Velazquez offered me his business card. Three words figure prominently on it: Honor. Courage. Commitment — three qualities required to be a Marine. Sergeant Velazquez exudes these concepts; these ideals.

I can claim 43 years worth of amputee civilian life.

What, you may ask has tested my ability to soldier on?

Curiosity.

“What happened to your arm?” is the perennial question.

And the stares — eyes cast in one direction for far too long.

The stares, to some degree, are self-induced. I could get an I-limb, the latest in robotic hand technology [http://www.touchbionics.com]. The I-Limb has the look of a hand enabling the user to move fingers and control grip while freeing the amputee of the harness system which accompanies the conventional hook apparatus.

But I’m an old-fashioned prosthetics sort of gal.

And I think the steel hook holds a certain sex appeal.

Whatever one’s choice; a conventional hook or an I-Limb, it is a fact that veterans maintain an advantage. They have a war story, something to pin their pride on. I do not. Mine is a tale of normalcy. I was born. End of story. No heroics.

I have found that humor has been the most effective strategy against the relentless curiosity of people: “I was scuba-diving in Bali and I came upon a family of sharks.” Or, “I got hungry one day and I ate it.” These are some of the tales I’ve told — tales that have evoked gasps of “Really! Did that really happen?”

“Go to law school,” a cane-assisted, stout, bald, Navy veteran of the second World War said while sitting beside me as I traveled by train from Manhattan into Brooklyn. “Otherwise, the VA will screw you,” he added, pounding his cane for emphasis.

I wondered what the VA (Veterans Administration) would have to say about this man’s counsel and observations. So I emailed them and received a response within 48 hours: “Based on your inquiry, it appears that the veteran may have had an unfortunate experience when dealing with the VA and we regret that he has developed that perception.”

Regret is such a downer.

In the summer of 1984, I was a member of the United States team at the International Games for the Disabled. Some of my teammates were amputees; veterans of Korea and Vietnam — men proud to have served; proud of their physical difference. I think of them sometimes, especially on Veteran’s Day; a day dedicated to taking time out to reflect on our nation’s warriors — wounded or otherwise.

It is my hope those for whom the Global War on Terrorism has demanded the body’s sacrifice are and remain proud. But be mindful that the everyday aesthetic is not in their favor.

That is why I am so at home among ancient ruins. For it is there, among the women and men with severed hands and arms that I am able to escape.

©2008 Julie Holley

The Acquisition of Identity

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:35:00 +0000

I like to get it right. You name it: a relationship, a belief, a cause, a hunch, a story, and today, in this world of computer-based reality; my online identity.

An online identity is an online social identity that Internet users establish in online communities and websites.

Before the Internet (when paper was my journalistic default) I used a pseudonym. Why? I wanted to accomplish a gender-blind effect. It also shielded me from stalkers.

But blogging has made me bold. Today, the more “real” I am the better.

***
Accurately presenting who I am, putting forth the facts, is essential in my mind — genuineness, authenticity, truthfulness — the underbelly of online capital — these are the jewels in my digital crown.

LinkedIn, a social networking site for the business set relies on the willingness of their more than 29 million users to accurately post online identities. Work experience, its scope and scale is just one of the data sets gathered amongst LinkedIn’s participants.

Not long after LinkedIn made their Internet splash, I set up a LinkedIn profile, putting forth a work summary which I believed was accurate.

“If you do not completely remove or accurately revise your profile, I will begin taking appropriate steps with LinkedIn” read a recent email. It was from the Director of an organization where I once volunteered my professional services.

The work had no relation to my core online identity — that of a journalist committed to reporting and commenting on technology. Nonetheless, I chose to include the work in my LinkedIn profile. Since the organization’s central mission had figured so prominently in my life history and mirrored values I held so dear, not including it seemed wrong.

As a condition to access LinkedIn, there is a User Agreement whereby one of the stated obligations of the user is to “provide accurate information.” But what of hyperbole — those Al Gore instances (“I took the initiative in creating the Internet”) some claim (especially on a resume/work synopsis)?

Was I a participant of hyperbole?

“We hope that users will not post inappropriate or false content,” says LinkedIn’s PR Manager, Krista Canfield. “However, if you notice that someone has created a fake or inappropriate profile, you can visit their profile and flag their profile. The profile will immediately come down and our customer service representatives then review the situation.”

“Let's say someone "flags" my profile. I get contacted by customer service and defend my profile as accurate and true. What happens then?” I ask. “Customer service deals with those on a case-by-case basis listens to both sides of the story and then resolves it in a way that works fairly for both parties,” Krista explains.

“Hold your own, and know your name, and go your own way - everything will be fine,” sings Jason Mraz on his 2008 album: We sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

Yes, everything will be fine.

I stand behind my name, my truth, my online path.

And I’ve got a good lawyer.

©2008 Julie Holley

Interview with Rabbi Andy Bachman

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:17:00 +0000

Part 2

Links:
Congregation Beth Elohim
http://www.andybachman.com/

Lights, Camera, Video launch

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:47:00 +0000

Social Butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:03:00 +0000

Conventional wisdom holds that you can tell a great deal about a person by who their friends are. My Facebook posse is proof.

Since becoming a participant in what has become one of the most popular social networking sites (SNSs) on the Web; a cadre of people — men, women for whom my life has mattered, or who have mattered to me, are accessible in an instant — at the click of a mouse.

I am a keystroke away from my friendship tree.

Facebook has its draw backs. When I think of the possibilities of computer science, the thought of immersive experiences is the thing that turns my crank. Virtual reality, as if worlds, have always rocked my world. I look forward to their maturation.

But apart from this Facebook shortcoming, Facebook’s features lull the user into a sense of responsibility, history, accountability and community; even, sometimes, acts of random kindness.

My posse frequently sends me what I call “thought gestures” — virtual plants for instance which, remind me of our threatened ozone layer.

At first, I didn’t get it. I’m more inclined toward actual gardens. They smell good —As opposed to a virtual greenhouse of succulents.

The past arrives at your door on Facebook.

People find you.

They look for you.

. . . It’s as easy as the alphabet.

Whether you let them in; those for whom time has shaped but not severed the spine of friendship, is up to you. At this writing, I anticipate a meeting with two previously out of touch high school friends. The three of us became women, apart. But our memories bind us. Kim K. contacted me. She asked if I remembered pulling her hair in class (I sat behind her).

I did remember.

Spell the name Julie Holley on Facebook and get 18 possibilities. From California to Australia; 18 women who might be inspired to answer this question: What’s in a name?

“Don’t put out there what you don’t want your mother to read,” is how Brian Tietje, sales manager at LinkedIn (another SNS) put it at a panel discussion sponsored by the Barnard Business and Professional Network on Wednesday, September 24, two days after One Web Day [http://onewebday.org].

I thought of my mother, looked around, straightened up in my chair and smiled, knowing that my mother has served, (since launching my journalism career) as a kind of censor.

She is 80 but she gets computers. I am well aware of the kind of surveillance I am under. Rather, of its possibility.

One Facebook feature I like is called “blocking.” If you “block” someone they will not be able to search for you, see your profile, or contact you on Facebook. “Any ties you currently have with this person will be broken (friendship connections, relationships, etc),” says Facebook’s fine print when one chooses to block. Blocking is a kind of electronic martial art; a technique for those who don’t want to be in touch.

MIT Media Lab professor Judith Donath has done substantive work in the area of SNSs. She writes in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication: “SNSs provide a new way to organize and navigate an egocentric social network. Are they a fad, briefly popular but ultimately useless? Or are they harbingers of a new and more powerful social world, where the ability to maintain an immense network — a social “supernet” —fundamentally changes the scale of human society?”

[http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/donath.html]

The Palo Alto-based California company knows the world is its oyster.

It is available in 22 languages. That’s a lot of mother tongue.

© 2008 Julie Holley

Our Inheritence

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:47:00 +0000

CD(s), the sons and daughters of Eric Clapton, Lucinda Williams, Billy Joel, Annie Lennox, Sinatra, Horowitz, Radiohead, Chang, Streisand, Chopin (all of whom I recommend) are better looking than their vinyl counterparts. Their sheen does the merengue to vinyl.

Some long for a vinyl comeback. Vinyl delivers a more authentic sound. Vinyl is warmer, richer, its faithful argue.

. . . And so the beckoning of what was spins.

A world without crackles, skips, scratches, thumps is one I relish, savor and devour. Digitized commands and comforts enrich my symphonies, ballads, scores and remakes.

For me, the availability of CD(s) are a welcome acoustic advance. The technology is boss.

I wouldn’t give up any of the vinyl I have though. Some of it brings Sylvia Plath to my ears. Between 1958 and 1962, Plath was recorded at the Poetry Room at the Harvard College Library and at the BBC. Her record is titled: Sylvia Plath Reading Her Poetry — Boring, but accurate.

I thank the deities of vinyl, the architects of that primitive conduit of sound because I have more than Plath’s genius on page; I have a voice with the poetry.

Plath’s life preceded mine, making a handshake, a friendship impossible. But she has served as a kind of metronome ever since I discovered her in a thing called a book; assisting me with what is authentic, and what is surely not.

I am privileged to know that I can remove her from her record jacket, lay her down and spin her distilled brilliance onto the loom of my soul.

Three months before she devised her own death, Plath said in an interview with Peter Orr: “I think that the personal experience is very important, but certainly it shouldn’t be a kind of shut box and sort of mirror-looking narcissistic experience. I believe it should be relevant and relevant to the larger things — the bigger things. . . ”

Enter, iTunes — an Internet cataclysm giving birth to a digital rights revolution and online music economy whose market muscle was revealed at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo: Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iTunes Store had sold over 4 billion songs.

Jobs’ assertion brings to mind these words by Plath:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth
Our foot’s in the door

© 2008 Julie Holley

Generation Internet

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:10:00 +0000

In the Northeastern hills of Pennsylvania, Southwest of the Catskill Mountains, 3-leaf clover grows in abundance. I know about the clover because growing up, in the summer, I would walk, often barefoot upon it. It was a privilege, of coming from a family who discovered some lakefront land, negotiated a price, bought the land, built a home, and have, ever since, enjoyed the refuge, the peace of Long Lake.

When I return to Long Lake, as I did for a recent weekend, I indulge in the remoteness of the place from the perspective of someone tethered to the digital world. I bring my laptop.

I especially enjoy sitting on the red picnic table my father built which sits on the enclosed porch overlooking Long Lake. It’s good for the soul; looking out, being lulled by the serenity of the water’s surface. The view helps with the flow of words — that sometime hazard encountered when language is your means of conjuring meaning.

My computer was up-front with me. Immediately, when I powered up and my desktop icons appeared, I was informed that my wireless connection was unavailable — A reminder that I was disconnected from the speed and pulse of my DSL connection, the telecommunications protocol that provides near instantaneous access to the global interchange that is the World Wide Web.

At first, I didn’t mind. It was enough that Microsoft Word was operational. All I needed was my electronic tablet; a place to store the words that came to me as I looked out at Long Lake.

Then I got the urge to Google.

It was the direct fallout of a conversation I had had with my mother and her two sisters. The girls (as my mother calls her sisters) are my only two surviving aunts from a cadre of 10 on my mother’s side. Including my mother, the three are a generational trio. Each woman is chock-full of memories, stories and anecdotes of lifetimes spent living through decades of war, technological revolution, political upheaval and revolt.

One of the reasons I enjoy spending time with them is because I am able to quiz them on history. I get to pepper them with questions having to do with the generations claimed by things like the economic magnitude of the Depression, the advent and use of communication devices like television, a Hollywood less explicit, a social contract more binding.

Taken individually, they are: Veronica, 78, Millie, 81, Kay, 86.

Each woman occupies a unique place along the spectrum of opinion concerning our digital world. Veronica, my mother, is wired. She’s connected at home. She’s connected at work. In her leisure time she enjoys playing Mah Jong on her laptop. Millie, is curious about learning how to email, has observed, with displeasure, the computer habits of her 13 year-old grandson and refers to computers as toys. Kay, prefers print to computers, cooking to cyberspace and believes that the Internet is the perfect predatory environment for pederasts.

“You’re a curious person Aunt Kay. Why aren’t you interested in learning about the World Wide Web?” I asked, while the four of us sat talking as the day drew to its close and the night sky began to rest upon Long Lake. “I have other interests,” Aunt Kay said. “I’m a reader. I’d rather read a book.”

“My friend Evelyn uses the computer to play cards with people all over the world!” Aunt Millie exclaimed. “But if I’m going to play cards I want to play at a table where I can see the people I’m playing with.”

When I returned from my most recent excursion to Long Lake, there was a message on my 5.8 GHz Digital Answering System. It was from an 87 year-old friend of mine, a United States Navy World War 2 veteran. I returned the call and asked a question: “Irwin, do you have a computer?” “My son has been on my neck to get a computer for the longest time,” he said.

“You know there are websites for veterans,” I marketed to Irwin. “Oh yeah,” he said, disinterested. “Let me tell you something, I have a television with rabbit ears that gives me four channels. That’s enough,” Irwin explained. “What I don’t understand, Irwin, is how you can be a fan of an invention like the record player (he owns 500 LP(s)) and not be the least bit interested in an invention like the Internet!” “A record player is simple,” he said. “You put on a record, move the needle to where you want it and listen. It’s not as elaborate as computers.”

“But don’t you ever wonder about things?” I asked Irwin, getting ready to launch into one of my proselytizing arguments about the informational reservoir that is the World Wide Web. “At my age you wonder about all kinds of things but nothing that keeps me up at night,” Irwin said.

My mother, a world traveler, recently returned from a European excursion that took her, among many places to Mainz, Germany. It was in Mainz where Johann Gutenberg mass-produced the Bible in 1456. In keeping with her tradition of sending word from her trips, my mother sent me a postcard from Mainz with an illustration of Gutenberg’s printing press. The postcard serves as a reminder of the potent possibilities of technological ingenuity. After all, some historians credit Gutenberg with bringing about the Reformation.

Analogous to Gutenberg’s invention is the early nineties creation of HTML (hypertext markup language) used to create web pages. Tim Berners-Lee and Vinton Cerf worked in concert designing and developing the protocols and structure of what has become the Internet — Two men with imaginations that spawned revolutions in commerce, banking, journalism, medicine, law and government to name just a few.

The rippling effects of HTML — like a stone thrown upon the water.

© 2006 Julie Holley

Contact Form

noreply@blogger.com (right_hook) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:42:00 +0000

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