June 12: Independence of Computers, POF, Technology

The crew of the Heart of Gold are dealing with its new-and-improved computer . . .

Zaphod tapped impatiently on the hatch.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I think we might be better off with a slide rule."

"Right!" snapped the computer.  "Who said that?"

"Will you open up the exit hatch, please, computer?" said Zaphod, trying not to get angry.

"Not until whoever said that owns up," urged the computer, stamping a few synapses closed.

"Oh God," muttered Ford, slumped against a bulkhead.  He started to count to ten.  He was desperately worried that one day sentient life forms would forget how to do this.  Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.

Yes, computers are wonderful things, when they are working exactly the way you want them to.  Sending e-mails.  Posting things to Facebook.  Allowing you to order a fountain pen for Father's Day.  Computers are great tools, when they are treated as tools.

However, technology can be very frustrating and insidious.  It can replace family dinner conversations and game nights (thank you Snapchat).  Cause small businesses to go out of business (thank you, Amazon).  Break up marriages (thank you POF).  In my life, I use computers on a daily basis, at work and home.  I enjoy my time on Blogger, typing these posts.  They allow me to clear my head, focus my ideas.  And I do scroll through Facebook during the day, even though nothing ever really changes.

This afternoon, I am heading to Calumet. Michigan, to do a performance at the Calumet Theatre tomorrow evening.  I am going to be depending on technology to keep me connected to my family--mostly my iPhone.  I am not going to get bored and go Amazon shopping in the middle of the night at the hotel.  Not going to order myself a pizza at 3 a.m.  (There isn't even a restaurant open in Calumet at that time.)

You're probably thinking right now, "What's his point?"  My point is this:  don't let technology overtake your life.  I have seen what kind of damage it can do firsthand.  It ain't pretty.  One of the best investments I made this spring was a backyard fire pit.  I purchased it in early May, and we have been using it every weekend, and sometimes during the week.  It has already made my family healthier.

You see, when we have a fire at night, electronics aren't the focus.  Phones stay in pockets.  I did not make up this rule.  It simply happens.  Instead of playing with iPhones, we play croquet and board games.  And EVERYONE has a good time, without once posting a picture of the fire on Facebook to prove to everyone else what a good time we're having.  It's been wonderful.

So, for the next day-and-a-half, I am going to be fairly disconnected from technology, except for an occasional cell phone call.  Calumet doesn't lend itself well to WiFi anyway.  This is your warning.  I will talk with you all in about a day or so.

Saint Marty is simply packing a good book to read for this trip.  (Books are these things that existed before kindles and allowed people to read in the car, house, airplane, bathroom, beach, campground, and church without the need of a power source.)

August 1: Technology, Poet of the Week, Kyle Dargan, "The Robots are Coming"

I think technology is a wonderful thing.  I started this blog six years ago, and I've written close to three thousand posts of greater and lesser quality.  Technology allows me to find a new Poet of the Week every Monday.  It allows me to teach a class of 30 people about film without ever meeting one student face-to-face.  (One of my students this semester is taking my course from India.)  Those are the great benefits of technology.

However, I still don't understand hashtags and Twitter.  Wouldn't know how to Snapchat if my life depended upon it.  Technology, I think, has its limitations.  I will never give up the pleasure of holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, reading it, smelling that new book smell.  My kids are technology hounds.  My daughter was out hunting Pokemons within the first hour that Pokemon Go went live.  I have a healthy suspicion of technology.  Technology is a tool, not a way of life.

Kyle Dargan, the Poet of the Week, has a poem about this subject.  It's a little social commentary, a little history, a little science fiction.

Saint Marty has always thought robots were a little scary.

The Robots are Coming

by:  Kyle Dargan

with clear-cased woofers for heads,

no eyes. They see us as a bat sees

a mosquito—a fleshy echo,

a morsel of sound. You've heard

their intergalactic tour busses

purring at our stratosphere's curb.

They await counterintelligence

transmissions from our laptops

and our blue teeth, await word

of humanity's critical mass,

our ripening. How many times

have we dreamed it this way:

the Age of the Machines,

postindustrial terrors whose

tempered paws—five welded fingers

—wrench back our roofs,

siderophilic tongues seeking blood,

licking the crumbs of us from our beds.

O, great nation, it won't be pretty.

What land will we now barter

for our lives ? A treaty inked

in advance of the metal ones' footfall.

Give them Gary. Give them Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten

nurseries of girders and axels.

Tell the machines we honor their dead,

distant cousins. Tell them

we tendered those cities to repose

out of respect for welded steel's

bygone era. Tell them Ford

and Carnegie were giant men, that war

glazed their palms with gold.

Tell them we soft beings mourn

manufacture's death as our own.

January 4: WiFi, Loser

Yes, I got the WiFi working at my house.  Actually, I just got the wireless working, and I'm feeling a little smart.  I don't know why I'm feeling smart.  The WiFi is working because of a very nice guy named Mike from AT&T who spent about 40 minutes on the phone with me this evening.  I just followed Mike's instructions.  Before that, I was an angry mess.  Setting this Internet up at my house just proved two things to me:  (1) I suck at doing technical things, and (2) I need  more friends who know how to do technical things.

I just checked my e-mail to prove to myself that I could check my e-mail at home.  I shouldn't have.  There was a message from the people who sponsor the Phil Levine Poetry Contest.  I've been waiting for about three months for this e-mail.  Unfortunately, the news wasn't great.  It wasn't even good.  I didn't win.  I wasn't even a finalist.  I really thought I had a shot with this book.  I worked harder on this manuscript than I did on my MFA thesis.  It has better poems in it and holds together better.  I'm really tired of disappointment. 

Yup

My friend Wonder Twin told me this afternoon that I'm never going to be named a Blog of Note because people don't want to read whiny, jealous rants all the time.  She's probably right.

I said I was going to write another post tonight if I got the wireless up and running at home.  Here it is.  Not very uplifting, I'm sorry to say.  I shouldn't have checked my e-mail.  I should have just basked in the success of my WiFi.

Saint Marty pretty much feels like a loser tonight.

June 6: Being First, New Poem, Bills

One of the first things I did this morning was go online and pay some bills.  I hate doing that.  I don't know why it makes me so anxious.  Every time I pay for something over the Internet, I print out payment confirmations and numbers and receipts.  I am not of the paperless generation.  I don't trust the binary code universe that much.  My family has recently begun purchasing Kindles.  I can't give up the tactile sensation of having a book in my hands, flipping pages, smelling the paper.  I like that.  That's the same reason, I think, that I like writing checks and sending them out in envelopes.  I'm the only person in my office who doesn't have direct deposit for paychecks.  I just can't bring myself to do it.

It's a strange character trait, because I do have a blog and enjoy posting.  Much of what I put on this blog, however, starts out as scribbles in my journal.  Especially my poems.  I can't write poetry on a computer.  I need my fountain pen and Moleskine journal to write poems.  I like the ink on my fingers and the process of crossing out and revising on paper.  I'm an old-fashioned poet, I guess.

Most of my friends who are poets feel the same as I do.  Every poet I can think of always carries around a notebook/journal/diary.  I do know some fiction writers who compose solely on computer or laptop.  That genre seems to lend itself more to keyboard and monitor.  Poetry is a more hands-on art.

Today's poem was sparked by an interview I heard this morning on the BBC radio with the novelist Oscar Hijuelos.  He was introduced as the first Hispanic writer to ever win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  I began thinking to myself, "I want to be introduced like that.  The first person to..."  I don't know what my first is going to be, but I put it on my list of things I want before I die--right up there with an iPad and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It's been a fairly quiet day for me.  I have to take my daughter to dance tonight.  My wife called my sister up this morning.  My wife wanted to meet my sister at McDonald's with my son after his nap.  My sister didn't say "no," but she brushed my wife off.  I know the reason why.  SH was going to McDonald's with my sister.  My sister didn't want to deal with any tension.  I'm a little pissed about it.  My sister usually has more backbone than that.  However, SH has a way of manipulating situations.

The score:  Saint Marty-0, SH-1.

First

There had to be a first everything:
First dandelion, first housefly,
First hot dog, first bowl of oatmeal.
Each first, a revelation on par
With the pyramids or Grand Canyon.

I once sat in a classroom

With the first Native American

To win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction,
Listened as he wove words
Into stories bright as turquoise.

I watched the first African American

President buy chocolate for his kids,

His smile like sun on pool water.

Karol Wojtyla, first Polish pope,
Visited Detroit, said mass
At the Silverdome with the bishop
Who baptized me as a baby,
Who held me the way he held
The Bible for the pope, delicately
As a ripe peach or spun glass.

I've seen Hemingway's childhood
Home in Petoskey, walked the roads
He walked along Walloon Lake.

Hemingway hated Bill Faulkner
For winning the Nobel before him,
For being first.  He said,

“Poor Faulkner.  Does he really

Think big emotions

Come from big words?”
That's what I want.  To be a first,

Have famous people,
Like Hemingway, insult me.

But I don’t want to be Hugh Scrutton,
First victim of the Unabomber,

Or Saint Stephen, the first Christian

Martyr, killed with a shower of stone.
I prefer more pleasant firsts. 
First person to lose fifty pounds

Eating only stuffed-crust pizza.

First writer to be named

Sexiest Poet on the Planet.

Or maybe the first person

To be canonized while still alive,
So I can cash in on the title,

Cure some loved ones of leukemia,
Breast cancer.  I would use my firstness

Like that, to help my son

Pronounce his consonants,

My daughter to leap

Like a cheetah in ballet.

To still my wife’s unquiet

Thoughts in the starless night

When her mind turns on itself.

I would be there for them all.  First

Sunbeam in the Redwood morning.



First Native American to win Pulitzer for fiction