The Tools of Our Culture

One of my first posts on this blog was a book review of Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves To Death,” one of my top ten most influential books. The context for the review was “rurality” –a way of thinking derived from rural culture, which questions our relationship to technology and to the earth. I’ve also recently discovered Nicholas Carr, who thoughtfully critiques the internet just as Postman examined and critiqued the television. (Both highly recommended)

All of this is to say, Forbes.com just published an article by Trevor Butterworth that mentions both of these writers in the first paragraph (brownie points!). The topic of the article turns out to be–surprise!–fountain pens. Click on the link to read the original article (and credit to Amateur Economist for the heads-up on this article).

It’s fascinating to me how this tiny writing instrument has offered a way for people to contemplate technology and digital culture on a larger level. Writing with a fountain pen has become a metaphor for our larger fears about losing contact with the Real, Breathing World– and it offers a tangible way of reconnecting.

From Pictographs to Pixels

Photo by Bryan Rierson Photography and Brian Allen

Finally, my two primary interests united! Artsy inky stuff + cultural studies = my dreamy future. And last night I got a good dose of both when I attended a talk by Brian Allen called “From Homer to BFF: about how we express ourselves.” The event is part of a series hosted by hosted by CU Libraries Scriptalab and the Colorado Book Arts League, which resulted in a diverse audience: from hip graphic design students and aging papermakers and letterpress printers.

I was familiar with most of the cultural aspects of the presentation (Socrates’ anxieties about changing from an oral culture to a print culture, for example), but I really enjoyed Allen’s take on it. He talked about letterpress printing as a profession where men are allowed to be creative and artistic in a socially acceptable way. (Gender commentary gets you brownie points in my book.)

And he focused on the ways that printers and calligraphers have responded to a digital age– which is just a smaller version of how every oppressed group (whether racial, cultural, or professional) has developed strategies and adaptations for survival. See Gloria Anzaldua for further reading.

I also appreciated that Brian wasn’t totally against digital technology, given that so many craftsmen and women are. What is important, he concluded, is that we help digital technology to make good choices. And that we engage our own hands in the 3D world at the same time.

Still, while I was musing how to incorporate this into my professional future, I had to concede that is harder for women to get into this profession. Women are more commonly book artists and calligraphers, but printing is still a boy’s game. Ah, well. Yet another thing to add to my Badass Professions for Women list (which, so far, includes glassblowing, pen turning, and being a pilot).

Literary Blogging and the Digital Countryside

Link for the day: Society for Literary Excellence – an excellent example of the ways that analog living adapts to a digital world.

My senior thesis as a creative writing major is centered around a similar theme. I go to school in the middle of Amish country, cornfields, and apple trees. I’m saturated with the quirks and the brilliance of rurality, and at the same time, the sadness of rurality: the superficial attempts to imitate urban culture, the sense of cultural inferiority, the rude ways that city students treat the locals.

It’s complex. I like working it into words. I’m in the middle of writing a shorter essay about this topic, so look for that post in the coming weeks.

Screen Time

For the past three years, I’ve been taking a break from movies. Actually, from screens in general– I can’t remember the last time I watched a television show. This is partly because of a general cultural transition shifting our idle time from TV’s to computers– but it’s also a deliberate way of life. I made a basic post about this decision already. I wouldn’t say that it’s been an “experiment,” per say, but I’ve certainly noticed the effects. Thus I bring you… the effects!

The Good:

• I’m a hell of a lot more productive. I’m reading more and producing more art than I ever have.
• I can have a conversation without compulsive ADHD-like symptoms, i.e. checking my phone, sending a text message, taking out my laptop. Obviously this skill is hindered when the other person is exhibiting these symptoms, but still, it comes in handy…
• I notice the real world. I notice the weather, the people on the street, the taste of my coffee.
• I engage with things that directly affect me (my family, the local debate about building a Wal-Mart on a Civil War Battlefield site, etc.), instead of things that don’t (i.e. the lives of celebrities, that ‘ugly’ contestant on Britain’s Got Talent, a funny youtube video, etc.)

The Bad:

• It’s been harder to maintain conversations with certain friends. I don’t get any of their references, and they don’t seem to know about anything that hasn’t happened on a screen.
• I’m a bit of a ornery old man when it comes to kids on cellphones. Sometimes I just want to knock it out of their hands…

That being said, I do think there is some amazing stuff being produced in the cinema. It’s one of the few “screen-places” that can still affect deep and genuine emotions about political things. I don’t know how many people actually walk out of the movie theater and decide to change something about their lives as a result of seeing a movie, but eh, that’s not something that I can really control.

So here’s some wide-releases that I’m excited about (in addition to Good Hair, Chris Rock’s documentary)