Rage against the Machine

“With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory or is removing the limits to their functioning.” I thought this was a cool quotation from Freud a week ago. Now not so much….. On Friday I started having problems with the document that is in effect chapter one of my book. (don’t worry there are other chapters and other portions but this is chapter one as in ready to be a book chapter one) After getting the revolving beach ball on drugs for a few hours I then spent a few hours on the phone with microscoft word. The automated service by the way does not understand the words “fu****ers” or the phrase “do not apologize for the inconvenience any more” Eventually my microsoft friend Bob who sounded like an automated phone informed me that my document was clearly corrupt and that the way to write a book is to do absolutely no formatting until the end—and by the way it is a bad idea to cut and paste between documents. I sat down on Sunday to mess around with the corrupted document again only to find that the power cord to the mac had somehow been fried—so the computer was completely out of juice. Today’s technological insult involved dropping my phone in the toilet—don’t even ask. As it turns out the thing survived being RUN OVER by an SUV but not drowning by toilet.

Thankfully the fabulous Lauren was babysitting and drove the boys and I to the Verizon store during rush hour.(where on earth are people going here at rush hour?) Note that both were tantruming by the time we left the house and the only thing that stopped it was endless knock knock jokes. The boys loved the Verizon store especially the ipads on which Joanthan was somehow searching for what bathing suit is best for your body type. (his body type is scrawny) Eli had to do his email and blog and when we all left the Verizon store thinking he’d follow he in fact called our bluff and kept on doing his business on the ipad. I got the updated version of the “easy use phone” as in the phone for blind old people which has very large buttons, does nothing fancy and has the red 911 button which children are prone to press. During the car ride Eli solved the problem of what to get Papa for his birthday. “a gun” We spent quite a bit of time listening to the rings on my new phone and the kids wondered if we could get “gavotte” on it.

Now one of the many ironies in all of this is that the reason I have I have a Freud quotation at the tips of my fingers is because I am writing a book about Castrati, technology and machines. In theory I’m exploring the interface between human and machines and chapter one has a section entitled “instrumental excursis” which stretches from Aristotle to Freud on the potential of technology to extend the limits of the sensory.

On an un-related note Jonathan and Rebecca’s Friend Kiren got a new brother last week. We are very very happy that the baby is so precious and even more happy that it’s not at our house. Jonathan and Eli were both fairly quick to burst the new brothers bubble. When Kiren explained how cute his brother was J responded with “you know pretty soon that baby is going to steal your leggos. ” Eli want to build a baby house with baby weapons but seemed more impressed with Kiren’s new legos than Kiren’s new baby. Eli seems generally weak on concept these days. He also explained to the barber on Saturday that Santa had already come to our house for Hanukkah.