The only place they [the yellow chunky slablike somethings] registered at all was on a small black device called a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic which winked away quietly to itself. It nestled in the darkness inside a leather satchel which Ford Prefect wore habitually around his neck. The contents of Ford Prefect's satchel were quite interesting in fact and would have made any Earth physicist's eyes pop out of his head, which is why he always concealed them by keeping a couple of dog-eared scripts for plays he pretended he was auditioning for stuffed in the top. Besides the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic and the scripts he had an Electronic Thumb--a short squat black rod, smooth and matt with a couple of the switches and dials at one end; he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million "pages" could be summoned at a moment's notice. It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words DON'T PANIC printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in.
Beneath that in Ford Prefect's satchel were a few ballpoints, a notepad and a largish bath towel from Marks and Spencer.
It may be just me, but the micro sub meson electronic component of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sounds a little like an iPhone, which can access millions of pages, buildings and buildings of information and books. Walking across a college campus, down a crowded street, you will encounter very few faces, because most people are staring down at their phones, texting or scrolling or listening or downloading. The world has become a mediated reality.
I'm just as guilty as the next. My phone is always with me, in my pocket or hand. At home, it sits beside me on the couch, in case I receive a text or call. As I type this blog post, I used a PDF of Hitchhiker's on my phone to transcribe the passage above. As I read a book, I use my phone to look up words or facts with which I'm unfamiliar. The iPhone is my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I just checked my e-mail on my iPhone and found out that my daughter doesn't have to play in the pep band tonight. I called my daughter, who already knew about the cancellation, presumably because she received a text from one of her band mates. She's at her dance studio. I could have found that out by checking her location on my phone, as well.
This little device has revolutionized the way we live, in good and bad ways. Of course, there are some things an iPhone cannot do. It can't clean your house, which I just spent about two hours doing. It can't make you healthy. You need a doctor for that. I am feeling about 65% better today, thanks to my physician. It is 6 p.m., and I'm NOT ready to collapse today. That is a vast improvement. (Of course, I did say in my Sunday post that, according to my schedule, I was going to get better by Tuesday.) And an iPhone can't correct quizzes or make lesson plans. I will have to do that myself tonight, as well.
But my house is clean. My daughter is dancing. My son and wife are shoe shopping. My cough is still with me, but my head is clearer. And my iPhone is dormant. No texts. No e-mails. No calls. I have The Man Who Invented Christmas on my DVD player, and Charles Dickens has just published A Christmas Carol.
Saint Marty is so thankful for some quiet moments of unmediated peace.
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