(chris’s) blog

I borrowed a beautiful 1951 copy of Catcher in the Rye from the library. I picked another copy up years ago and never finished it. It’s a pretty good goddamn book.

I read a thesis on WFMU’s blog that communication tools (letters, phones, televisions, the Internet) not only enable their function (communication) but reveal something about the internal structure of our thoughts through their particulars. We have to remember that technology as a tool not only helps us express ourselves, but controls the method of expression. The example given was that it’s somewhat like a child with a hammer. When the child possesses the tool, he suddenly observes the nail-like properties in his mother’s good dishes and all other things. Now consider your speech patterns when you pick up the phone, or your movements in front of a webcam.

It reminds me vaguely of my first outings to music shows and discovering how incredibly differentiated the mediums of live music vs. recorded music are.