Txtng, AKA "I Didn't Have My Phone On Me"

The New Yorker has a piece about texting, starting with the question, "Is texting bringing us closer to the end of life as we currently tolerate it?" I enjoy the "currently tolerate it" part of the question; it seems so much more pragmatic and realistic than "life as we know it" does. The short answer, found in Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 (and I won't embarrass myself by saying how long it took me to figure out what the second half of that title was), is no. David Crystal, the author, concludes that texting - even the trillions of texts that have been generated, are "no more than a few ripples on the surface of the sea of language". He also states that most texters know how to spell. That's wonderful, David Crystal, but it doesn't really explain the rapid influx of people feeling that it is perfectly acceptable to use text-speak to write formal papers. One of my favorite professors alerted her students to the unacceptable nature of papers written in that manner, both verbally and demonstrated in a handout, before papers were due. She was younger and hipper than my two other favored professors, who probably just failed the perpetrators with nary an explanation. Crystal also compares the art of texting to the writing of sonnets, as being able to say all one needs to in 160 characters sometimes requires finesse and flexibility. It is an interesting conceit, that one of the banes of my existence shares properties with one of the most respected (and my most loved) forms of poetry. The New Yorker also examines how texting helps propagate the English language; English seems to be almost made for texting, what with its shortness of words and lack of diacritical marks. And so, many peoples of the world who text do so in an amalgam of English and their native language. That observation is interesting; about as interesting as the fact that a quarter pounder with cheese is just Le Big Mac in France (which is to say, very interesting... ...at least for me).

It is the second half of the article that I really connect with, though. It is the part that speaks to how ubiquitous cell phones have become in our every day lives. Says the New Yorker:

There is no socially accepted excuse for being without your cell phone. "I didn't have my phone": that just does not sound believable. Either you are lying or you are depressed or you have something to hide. If you receive a text, therefore, you are obliged instantaneously to reply to it, if only to confirm that you are not one of those people who can be without a phone.

I am often without my cell phone. Sometimes purposefully and sometimes accidentally, but my cell phone is often not on my person. My first voicemail message ever recorded said so, telling the caller who received the voicemail instead of me that my cell phone was not on me, or I was not with my cell phone - and there was a third option there. The third option was that I just didn't feel like picking up. I revel in that third option. It has nothing to do with who is calling me and everything to do with whether or not I want to talk at that particular moment. It has nothing to do with rudeness and everything to do with an autonomy that is provided by not being subject to a machine of plastic and diodes. The first two are most often why I do not pick up, but the third has made its appearances as well. In the past, I felt nothing at letting my cell phone ring; now, though, I face in some instances a perverse sense of guilt. It is partially due to my faux-Catholic, and all too literal liberal ways (liberal and Catholic guilt are both very real); some of it also seems to stem from an overwhelming paranoid thought that the person on the other end knows I'm sitting there, watching my phone ring. I get the same sense with instant messages I have no wish to respond immediately to - again, simply because I like being alone with my thoughts for some portion of the day. The New Yorker sums up why this inexplicable guilt (and paranoia) has found its way into my life:

This is a new decorum in communication: you can be sloppy and you can be blunt, but you have to be fast. To delay is to disrespect. In fact, delay is the only disrespect.

I'm normally blunt; sometimes I border on rude. Every so often (more often than not, actually), I cross the border into outright rudeness. But I often mean no disrespect. Not answering the cell phone when it rings, not responding to a text message right away, has become synonymous with the greatest snub one friend could offer another. In a world where being without method of communication every second of every day reflects on the very stability of your character, not having a cell phone becomes an offense to every person who has attempted contact in that time frame. You (I) should have your (my) cell phone on you (me), at all times. There are certain excuses for not answering, but being in a movie seems to be the only one readily accepted. And even there, my movie-going experience as of late has been disrupted by the existence of movie-texters - those assholes who can't even go two hours without 'talking' to someone else, who can't not multitask, who can't simply allow the movie to fill up their senses and their emotions. Calls and texts that come during the dinner hours are responded to with, "I'm having dinner right now, can I call/text you back?" In a world in which one's responsibility is to be always available, I wonder where I fit in. I turn off my cell phone while entering movies. I don't answer it, or even have it on me, while I'm eating dinner or watching my favorite television shows or watching a movie with my family. I answer it while I'm sleeping for the sole fact that I forget to turn the volume off and I have never reset the clock in my room after the last power outage.

For the last month, my cell phone wouldn't ring. That meant that unless I could see its little screen light up, I missed a lot of calls. Those were excused by the fact that my cell phone wouldn't ring. At times, it would become a comedy; one friend and I spent a long time playing phone tag. Sometimes it would border on tragedy, like when I was setting up a job interview and that woman and I kept missing each other. But while I love my new phone, and the fact that I will no longer be breaking the law because I have one with blue tooth capabilities and a blue tooth, that just means there is one more place I cannot conceivably be without answering the phone. And it means that I am once again bereft of excuses as to why I am not near my cell phone, and why my cell phone is not near me. The question The New Yorker asked was whether or not texting is bringing the end of life as we tolerate it; for all of their benefits (and there are many benefits), I wonder if cell phones have not already partially succeeded in that arena. The interconnectivity of life is a wonderful thing; as is having a phone on hand while stuck on the side of the road, and being able to find a friend who drove to a different parking lot than the agreed upon location, and being able to give directions to people as they are driving. But it has also changed how we view our relationships and how we view the stability of our friendships. It has made immediacy more important than substance or desire. As wonderful as cell phones are, I miss a world in which I could be out (or others could be out) and understandably not get a call. I miss a world in which the people in front of you were more important than the person whose call has just found you. And I miss a world in which a person could stand in the middle of an open field and feel completely - though not creepily - alone. Sometimes, being alone is a good.

Obama ≠ Muslim

This week's New Yorker offers a pleasant image of what some conservatives see in Barack and Michelle Obama, and what many of them -even if they don't believe it- portray the two as:

Now, I agree with many of the criticisms that have been ringing out across the blogosphere everywhere from feministing to Shakesville to Moderate Left (and countless others). This doesn't ring out "satire" to me. It could be the cover of some radically conservative magazine; it could be a political cartoon found in my local (and very conservative) newspaper. Without some context, the image could as easily be a rallying cry for the Right as it is for the Left. And that is a problem, considering that satire is the main goal. No one thought Swift was actually advocating the selling and eating of the Irish children in A Modest Proposal. And that was because he went the whole hog. This image doesn't; it doesn't take the fear far enough, because it plays into what people fear already. Probably not those people who read The New Yorker, but still. I'm not offended by the image, because it was meant to be satire. And satire is one of those difficult art forms; it is something that is elusive. Paint in too broad strokes and one risks being as unfunny as if one did not go far enough.

However, this image does bring up something else. A while ago, two muslim women wearing hijabs were barred from sitting where they would be visible behind Obama at a campaign rally. I remember thinking at the time that it was a smart -if not politically correct- decision. It may not have jived with Obama's message of inclusion and unity, but it certainly prevented a rather unfortunate photo op when rumors of the candidate being a closet muslim who is out to deliver the nation to the hands of muslim extremists were (and are) floating about. After all, it was an equally atrocious smear campaign that helped bring down McCain's presidential bid in 2000, when push-pollers for Bush insinuated that his adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was his own illegitimate -and racially mixed- child. Nixing potentially cataclysmic situations is what a good staff does. I could see Josh Lyman doing the same thing -for the same political reasons.

It wasn't fair to these women, and it wasn't right. But it is something that has to be done in order to win, in order to avoid an image of Obama with his fist up and traditionally garbed muslims behind him finding its way into every mailbox on a conservative pamphlet in every swing state. And now the New Yorker has delivered that image. Which is depressingly aggravating. And also kind of funny. Because this is how elections are won and lost. From the beginning of American history, this is how we do things. Adams was viciously smeared, both by his own party and by Jeffersonian Republicans. He lost; he lost by a lot. We generally don't decide elections on facts -or at least not relevant ones. We decide who to vote for on feelings, and on accusations that stick to the recesses of the mind. And Obama as a muslim and Michelle Obama as a radical Black Panther crazy has stuck. So the danger is throwing more fuel on that fire, even as we attempt to extinguish it. And that is what The New Yorker, however unintentionally, did.