I Keep Dialing, and: In Praise of Paper

I Keep Dialing

Let's face it: dials are out of date. Nowwe initiate change with buttons orsimulacra thereof—a spot we clickon a screen to conjure one thing or another.I know it's old hat, but I miss the in betweendials gave us, the way our fingers used tolearn a liquid touch, trying late at nightto get Chicago or New York or across-the-border, somewhere far away from our transistorradio sitting on a windowsill, antennaadjusted this way and that, reception waxingand waning with the shifting of the windso that the static matched the siftingof the leaves in the trees outside. When youhave a dial, you have access to a spacethat can always be divided in half,the infinity approaching zero meaningmore degrees of difference than you'll everneed—it's the knowing that they're there—allthe little voices in the dark you might pull inif you twist and turn just right. Patiencealways pays when it comes to dials. I canfeel them yet—the ones on the frontof my mother's Slattery gas stove circa1949. It was still in the apartment whenwe moved in, and she saved it for the burners,old though it was and drafty for bakingcakes or roasting meats. They don't make thoseanymore—not for any money—the heavy blackdials with their honeyed spin, their play delicateenough to make flames that leap up like woozypinnacles and melt back to their blue-ringhearts as slowly as dusk: the setting of control                                            that used to belong to us.

In Praise of Paper

Soon, they say with a sigh of relief, we will bea paperless society. No more mess,no wasteful excess, those forms in triplicatea memory, print newspapers the stuffof history. Sure, paper was fine in its time,but now we've got everything we need to knowonline. It's all in the air somewhere.If you choose the right button you'll find it there.

No touching, though. No front nor back nor spine,no sensation for the hands, the lap, or the backpocket Ace Edition riding closeas a lover or a child. No importantcrinkle of a letter held briefly on its journeyto you by many people you'll never meetbut who in this untraceable way have changedyour life. No gorgeous stamps, no cream laid, no onionskin, no graph paper, college-ruled, pinkstationary, no letter openers shapedlike all kinds of things. No pages to turn,no covers for knowledge to rest between, no listsof what to buy at the grocery store flutteringunnoticed to the floor in Aisle Two to bepicked up and pondered by another shopper. No classnotes copied three times by hand and carried aroundfor days before the final exam. No MagnaCarta, no Dead Sea Scrolls, no doctor's note.

Don't forget: we human beings are thigmotrophiclike rats—we learn by touching what we pass.