Tools cannot and should not ever be considered neutral. Whether tangible (a hammer and nails) or intangible (any given language), tools encode assumptions and biases, some unconscious and some not, built into them by those who invent and refine them. Those assumptions and biases are sometimes idiosyncratic but almost always cultural. […]
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Considered as a technological invention, what Kerouac’s typewriter-plus-scroll prefigures is . . . the word-processor document file. A space for writing as open and lengthy as you want it to be. Automatic word-wrap, automatic pagination, a new “page” within the document as soon as your text overruns the last one, nothing to get in the way of the pulsing of your words and the evolution of your idea. […] Jack Kerouac’s famous “scroll” of the typescript for his landmark 1957 novel “On the Road” is an iconic artifact, due to the cultural impact of its content, but its treatment (however reverential) as an oddball, one-off experiment masks its maker’s insight into the technology of writing and its prophetic relationship to his medium’s future. […] First of all, we — myself, my wife Anna, her son/my stepson Jacky, and our two cats, Billie and Mini — survived this hurricane unscathed and are all fine. Second, our house, on a small hill, sustained no damage at all, nor did most of our immediate neighbors — though we’re not far from the coastline of Staten Island. A missing storm window here, a few shingles ripped off there. More good luck. […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014 |
Hurricane Sandy: Postlude (2)
A fair bet that those Staten Islanders who bore the brunt of Sandy voted for Romney (or would have if they could have made it to the polls). Which of course doesn’t stop them from calling out for help from FEMA, which Romney-Ryan would have loved to de-fund. Not that they deserve the devastation of their homes as payback for their hypocrisy. Or that divine retribution played some role in that. I’m just saying. […]