My daughter-in-law, Traci, gave me a subscription to The Sun, knowing how I love to read (and collect quotes...every issue has a whole page full called "Sunbeams"). In the March 2009 issue I was pleased by several things.
For starters, a neighbor of mine in Vermont, Ethan Hubbard, took the cover photo. It's a beautiful black and white photograph of the face of a wise looking Haitian man. Penetrating eyes.
Then on page 4 there is an article called "Computing the Cost" on how the Internet is rewiring our brains. Since my brain seems to rewire itself on a regular basis anyway, I decided the article written by Arnie Cooper, a Santa Barbara free-lance writer, on Nicholas Carr's take on all this was something I should not overlook.
And I'm glad I read it because as my website/blog takes off, I need all the help I can get.
Carr, author of a July, 2008 Atlantic cover story, "Is Google Making us Stupid?" (another one I've got to read) points out that the Internet, in theory, reaches a global audience but the reality is that the vast majority of blogs (get ready for it) are read by very small audiences.
I confess, I feel like the kid I witnessed at Government Station T stop in Boston leaning over the tracks calling into the black tunnel: Hewoooo. Is anybody there?" Only his echo came back.
Carr says writing a blog "is not all that different from publishing your own photocopied zine in the eighties or being a ham radio operator in the fifties."
I spent a few years of my young life in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in the mid 40's while my father worked at the Presto Company turning out, not kitchen ware, but something--I never was sure exactly what--used in the war.
My parents used to visit their friends the Goerke's quite regularly and the Goerke's came to our house, but I was usualy in bed so I never found out what they talked about. I do remember, however, standing at the table in Carl's living room where he ran his ham radio. He clicked buttons, lit up switches, and turned knobs much to my wide-eyed amazement. I never heard anyone answer him, but that didn't keep Carl from doing his thing.
Then one day I overheard my dad telling my mom that Carl's radio had been confiscated. "Just because he's German!" They tsk-tsked. I knew how important Carl's radio was to him. But I had no idea, then, what all that meant. I do, however, remember thinking, "Wow! Carl's radio must have been pretty powerful." I never heard if he got it back.
How fabulous to see your books "all in a row." What productivity and success. You are an inspiration. Blessings-Penny
Posted by: Penny Hauser | March 06, 2009 at 03:16 PM