Perhaps it is the most recent snowstorm -- these spring blizzards try the spirit. Or perhaps it was the dust bunny the size of an actual rabbit. Whatever. Since the last communique -- can I say that instead of blog please -- I've become increasingly interested in cures for hysteria. According to The Science of Human Life, published in 1921 . . . hysteria is not made up only of fits; its symptoms are strange and wonderful. They take so many forms, vary so immensely in different cases, and so mimic almost every other disease under the sun, that it will be both impossible and useless to mention half, or indeed a tenth part, of them.
My last symptom took the form of ridding the house of electronic junk. As if in vengeful sympathy my MacBook Pro turned on my trusty iMac (retro-future design, bright turquoise, I have two of them). My new stuff refuses to recognize files from my old stuff. New mysterious stuff is snubbing old mysterious stuff. End times are near.
And from the news it seems the world is falling apart. Could downloading the Word of God onto a Kindle be contributing? Rest easy, dear Dolores, I don't think so. I saw a real Gutenberg Bible at the J.P. Morgan library. The letters were still crisp and the ink a stark black. Yet I am sure that many people felt that the Bible was supposed to be written out by hand and illuminated -- which is actually how I write my books. Except the illuminations are just doodles.
Perhaps I have a form of hysteria that cannot be cured by friendly gadgets like this astonishing laptop. This other book at my elbow has a cover with a pebbly green texture. The pages have the smell of clean old paper. Perhaps instead of smelling salts one has only to open a well kept old book beneath her nose . . .
My last symptom took the form of ridding the house of electronic junk. As if in vengeful sympathy my MacBook Pro turned on my trusty iMac (retro-future design, bright turquoise, I have two of them). My new stuff refuses to recognize files from my old stuff. New mysterious stuff is snubbing old mysterious stuff. End times are near.
And from the news it seems the world is falling apart. Could downloading the Word of God onto a Kindle be contributing? Rest easy, dear Dolores, I don't think so. I saw a real Gutenberg Bible at the J.P. Morgan library. The letters were still crisp and the ink a stark black. Yet I am sure that many people felt that the Bible was supposed to be written out by hand and illuminated -- which is actually how I write my books. Except the illuminations are just doodles.
Perhaps I have a form of hysteria that cannot be cured by friendly gadgets like this astonishing laptop. This other book at my elbow has a cover with a pebbly green texture. The pages have the smell of clean old paper. Perhaps instead of smelling salts one has only to open a well kept old book beneath her nose . . .
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the right moment." Books are a balm and I will always slather my life with them.
obsolete, but schools are known for harboring stuff obtained from special catalogs of obsolete stuff that nobody but school officials would buy. I've had trouble with older iMacs that have a slot to take the CD (or DVD). They take the disc, then sit there
muttering and groaning softly for a while, then spit it out. Were they deciding on the quality of the content? I recently got a couple of Tivo machines for very cheap at a thrift store, because they contain regular disk drives that can be salvaged. One of
them had a very large drive, but under testing it showed some strange errors that took too long to sort out. I can't tell yet if it will be reliable. (And don't get me started on cell phones! I've gotten my usage down to 2000 minutes a year for under $80.)
I tire of laboring for the unforgiving machines. Have they saved us any time that can be enjoyed away from them all? Back to the practical, everyday world for a minute - One warning: back up your work! If you knew your machine would be hit by lightning tomorrow,
what would you save? (Old proverb - all that you really own is what would survive a shipwreck.) One piece of technology I'll need to find the bookstore next time - a good GPS. Last time, I was up and down many blind alleys with only a torn map for navigation.
used to back up my stuff on floppy discs until a young person I was sending a file to was completely flustered and said . . . just . . . how . . . floppy????? I now have stacks of floppy discs and CDs. Best Buy will recycle old CDs -- and the Kenwood Green
Team will take old DVDs and music CDs to sell for its green school initiative.
to save money, I've moved from floppies to CD's to DVD's to flash drives (and flash cards). The store Micro Center has all kinds of backup media, and flash card readers, for the lowest prices I've seen at a local store. For your most valuable stuff (e.g.,
unpublished manuscripts), make two backups, maybe on two different media, and keep one at a different location, like someone else's home or even a safe deposit box.
don't even have to be well kept up to make my day and even many of my nights as one of your characters read into the night so do I. What can I do to write that book that has been in my head these many years? About that shipwreck, to the memory nothing is ever
lost. That old Hunter Moon must be making me even more nostalgic and will be glad for hot August Nights and chokecherry moon. Will be so glad to see your horses..