Over the weekend, thanks to traveling up to Albany to meet an old friend, I was unable to make note of an especially important anniversary: March 30th marked twenty-one years of blessed freedom from car ownership. On March 30th, 1993, I sold my Toyota pickup truck, purchased a mere eighteen months previously, at a drasticallyContinue reading “Twenty-One Car-Free Years”
Category Archives: Technology
The Visually Sophisticated Society and “Seeing is Believing”
In 1980, Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Selden sent their copy of H.H Goddard‘s The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness to James H. Wallace, director of Photographic Services at the Smithsonian Institution. The photographs in Goddard’s book of the supposedly “feeble-minded” family had appeared to confirm their mental infirmity: All have aContinue reading “The Visually Sophisticated Society and “Seeing is Believing””
Bagdikian on the Media’s Corporate Values and Overreliance on Official Sources
I’ve owned Ben Bagdikian‘s The Media Monopoly for some twenty years, and have only just managed to get around to reading it. The edition I own dates back to 1987; its analysis of the growing monopolies in media ownership and their pernicious effect on political life in the US ring truer than ever before. As IContinue reading “Bagdikian on the Media’s Corporate Values and Overreliance on Official Sources”
Social Media From Beyond the Grave
Charles Simic describes an ingenious and profitable aspiration for immortality: [The] poet Mark Strand…told me excitedly one day that he had invented a new kind of gravestone that….would include…a slot where a coin could be inserted, that would activate a tape machine built into it, and play the deceased’s favorite songs, jokes…whatever else they findContinue reading “Social Media From Beyond the Grave”
Facebook and Writers’ Status Messages
My last post on Facebook led me to think a bit more its–current and possible–integration into our lives, especially those conducted online. As ‘net users are by now aware, almost any site you visit on the ‘net features a Facebook button so that you can indicate whether you ‘Like’ the page and thus, share itContinue reading “Facebook and Writers’ Status Messages”
Facebook and Impoverished Sharing
A few days ago, on this blog, I excerpted a couple of passages from Richard Klein‘s Cigarettes are Sublime, and wrote of a little episode in my life centered on smoking cigarettes as a way to kill time. Once I had written the post and published it here, as is usual, I posted links toContinue reading “Facebook and Impoverished Sharing”
The Post-Apocalyptic Famine
A couple of days ago, I viewed Tim Fehlbaum’s directorial debut Hell, which “tells the story of a group of survivors in post-apocalyptic Germany in the year 2016, when solar flares have destroyed the earth’s atmosphere and temperatures have risen by 10°C.” As my posts here on The Walking Dead and The Road would indicate,Continue reading “The Post-Apocalyptic Famine”
The Stygian Staircase
When I first encountered the word ‘pitch-black’, a long time ago, in a children’s adventure book, I was puzzled; I asked my mother what it meant and she said, (roughly), “That means it was really, really dark, so dark you couldn’t see anything, no matter how long you waited.” Even at that tender age, IContinue reading “The Stygian Staircase”
The Author’s Offspring, the Finished Deal
A few days ago, I received my author copies of my latest book. Five paperbacks, neatly bundled up in a cardboard parcel bearing an impressive array of stamps and customs bills. I tore open the cardboard (with my bare hands, no less!) Inside, they were wrapped up in clear plastic, neatly and tightly stacked onContinue reading “The Author’s Offspring, the Finished Deal”
My Father’s Record Collection
Among the many seeming treasures I left behind in India when I migrated to the US in 1987 was my father’s vinyl record collection. It contained the music I grew up with, played on a turntable, piped through a Phillips amplifier, and then, finally, emitted through a pair of custom-made speakers. The collection was eclecticContinue reading “My Father’s Record Collection”
Samir Chopra 