Several days ago a friend asked what I thought of my iPad. I didn’t answer right away, as we were communicating via instant message, and typing more than a few words on said device is a miserable process; and more than a few words are needed. The iPad is a marvelous device — but that only makes its flaws more profound. It’s also a political object, an embodiment of two deep and opposed forces in Apple’s corporate soul: toolmaker and marketer. Continue reading

About two years ago, I started a list on Wordie of fine-sounding words. When I last went to add a word, however, the update function was disabled. I’d probably logged in so infrequently that a defunct-account subroutine kicked in, though I prefer to think of dust gathering on the computers, and a repairman’s sneeze sending words sparkling into the air like motes in a sunbeam. Continue reading

The phone rang yesterday afternoon. I picked it up. Continue reading

In a few slender leg bones and fragments of milk-stained pottery, archaeologists recently found evidence of one of the more important developments in human history: the domestication of horses. Continue reading

I’ve lately noticed several symptoms of a premature slide into curmudgeonhood — frustration at trying to converse in restaurants that play music loudly, which in New York City is most of them; a dislike of mass-market documentary techniques; and the hipsters! Don’t get me started — but the most fully-formed is my relation to Facebook, which combines both bafflement and distaste. Continue reading