August 16, 1965

The strangest thing happened today. I was walking around town looking for how to fill my summer vacation with “adventure” and “excitement.” It was so hot. Like every other kid in my Southern Oklahoma town, I couldn’t find much. Our town was nestled along the north side of the Red River like thorns in a mesquite bush. Mostly all that happened around here was boredom and long summer days punctuated by early bed times with no dinner.
I tried to stay inside with my mom but she was on the verge of another child induced breakdown. She kept banging dishes in the sink and stuffing or pulling things out of the icebox with unnecessary force. I could tell she was getting irritated so I left her in a hot kitchen to sweat it out alone.
I went and called on my girlfriend at the time, Claire, but she didn’t want to play. I asked her to go to the swimming hole but she said something about it being so hot the cows were boiling in their ponds. Then she added some comment about prawns being cooked in cool water so they died painlessly but I quit listening. 

The week before I noticed the Prichert boy hanging around and I can only imagine she picked up “Prawn” from dinner at their house. What do they eat over there? I guess my mom’s cooking isn’t good enough for her. I wondered if my mom was a better cook I might end up with a better girlfriend.

I’m getting off track though, I met someone today. That’s what I want to tell you about, meeting this old woman. Our town’s pretty small but I’d never seen her before. I was standing on the corner, it was so hot, I was sweating just standing there. I was right on the edge of the sidewalk, the abyss of dirt road stretched east to west in front of me. Little dust devils kicked up and rode about on the wind; they danced and twisted as they passed. 

The sidewalk ran alongside the new road. It was the only pavement in town and had just been laid during the early summer before the heat set in. The town put up signs calling it “Main Street,” pretty original, right? The road ended on both ends at a “T” you had to make it a point just to drive the thing and it was the “Main” street. It wasn’t connected to anything, just like our town, adrift on the range.

Our town was established in the year of our lord 1892. It was born out of a ranching family who had been here since the early 1800’s and decided it would rather sell the land to ex-slaves then have it confiscated by land runners. 

Back when it was still Indian Territory a son or brother or such had married a squaw and the family moved in heavy. They started with a plot and parcel until the cattle started coming in. Turned out the river was good crossing near here and soon they opened a boarding house and started buying cattle of their own. They built a big ranch house, four smaller houses for extended family and two shacks for the slaves. The street was named after their family, Connely Rd, until this year.

I’d spent some time running around the property, chasing cows, hunting quail and deer but I stayed away from the houses. The main house was still in use. As one father died his son would move in and keep-up the residence. It kept going like this until in the 1940’s when two outa three boys went off to The War and didn’t come back. The surviving son had a homecoming full of visible joy and hidden tears; I think his name was Jacob; he lives in the big house now. The four other houses weren’t lived in again, grass came through the boards and trees disheveled the porches. At least that’s what I thought.

I started walking south down the gravel drive away from “Main” street. The crunch that came with each step reminded me of how our town used to be; before the cattle left, before the street was paved. I only caught 15 years of it and don’t remember most of the time. 

Growing up is simple, just wake-up every day and it just sort of happens. For a town though it’s different, first money has to come in, then people have to want to live there. Since we found enough money to pave the road any and everything left was going toward attracting people. It was kinda nice though, the movie theater got remodeled, new street signs, a national grocery store even moved in but something was missing. The new homes looked too much alike; the personality of the town was disappearing underneath the burden of bringing in more money and people.

Before I came over the rise that opened onto the houses I took a sharp left following the ridge and staying out of sight. The heat hadn’t killed the prairie grasses which were tall and flowing. Behind me a trail was creeping forward as I tramped down the grass. I didn’t really have a destination in mind so I cut around the houses in a gully that came out behind them. 

I came walking out of the field real slow and crouched down. No reason to go announcing my trespassing. The Indian Grass was brushing my face and I imagined myself as a lion stalking through the savanna. I saw a picture of it in school once and the lion seemed so powerful and graceful, its hair the same golden blonde as the grass. I was heading toward one of the servant shacks when something moved in the corner of my vision. An old woman was sitting on the back porch of one of the decaying houses. 

I thought of turning around and heading back into the open acreage behind me but something stopped me. I must have had more courage on that day because normally the two facts of unwanted trespassing and unexpected kin should have sent me home but I saw her. I saw her and she didn’t see me, maybe it was the lion in me that tried to creep up on her. I don’t know if I was going to try and scare her or just see how close I could get but as I got within earshot she called out.

“What are you doing down there in the tall grass?”

I was close enough to see a smile on her face.  

“I lost something, I was looking for it” I said as I quickly stood up. I got lost in my game and was embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming.

“Come up here” she said with a little laugh.

I dragged my feet but made it to the porch. She was still smiling as I stepped onto the hardwood.

“You’re a nice looking boy. What’s your name?”

I started to mumble something that would have been inaudible when she cut me off.

“Don’t matter none. What are you doing out here?”

I gave another mumblely response and she brushed me off again.

“That don’t matter neither” she said as she looked away from me.

I looked in the same direction but there was nothing, just grass and wind. The gusts made rivers in the field as it went along, pushing down the relenting grains. I never spent much time sitting still and for the next ten years I probably didn’t stay in one place as long as we sat there. 

I started looking around, just with my eyes, I was scared she might start or get irritated like my mom. First I noticed the chair she was sitting in. It was a rocking chair that had seen better days. I could see the faint remnants of engravings across the top but it was smoothed by hands coming from behind and pulling it into position. The arms were pitted from bugs. I could see patches of dark stain on the legs and under the arm rests but the general color was faded from years of weather. The windows were murky and caked with dust around the edges. The door was old, probably the original, it was made of different planks of wood jointed with a cross board running diagonal across the middle, all of them warped and pulling in different directions.

“How long have you been here?” It was the first true words I had spoken to her.

“What year is this, 1965? Guess that makes me about 87. I was born in that shack” she said pointing a gnarled finger toward the little house I had been heading toward. “We lived there through the 90’s up until the 30’s. Parents died sometime in the teen’s. When the boys didn’t come back I moved in here. Guess that would have been 41 or 2. Fill this up for me.” She kicked a water bucket that was sitting by her feet; the handle was tarnished steel sticking out of the top.

I bent down close to her and caught a whiff. There was something both comforting and threatening about her smell.  She smelled like slow death and flowers, decay and birth, blood and perfume. I grabbed the bucket and went to the well. 

It was only ten yards from the house, I pumped it four or five times and the water that came out was a rich earthy tone. I gave it another couple pumps and let it run until it started flowing cleaner. I know she watched me the whole time, I could feel her eyes on my back, or imagined I could. She nodded as I set it back in its original place.

“You from town?” she asked.

“Course, I ain’t part of the family if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Don’t get wise boy, this aint your property to be snippy on.”

The snap in her voice let me know she was accustomed to dealing with rowdy grandchildren and dependents. All the years bringing up her kids as well as the familys children, it must have been hard after The War. I wonder if she cried for the lost boys?

“Yes ma’am, Im from town. My names Jonathan and I was just having a walk.”

“That’s better, speak up when you get the chance, not gonna happen very often. Jonathan from town, you look to be about 17, close?”

“15 and a half ma’am, my birthday is this January.” 

“Big strapping boy, you suiting anybody?”

“No ma’am.”

“huh,” she grunted, “with that deep voice I bet you could ask any girl dancing”

My cheeks burned crimson and I felt like a schoolboy again sitting on the playground while the girls ran circles calling my name. We had a game I remember where you chased her or she chased me and depending on who caught who a kiss was given to the other. I remember it being innocent, mimicry of how our parents acted quick pecks on the cheek or mouth; no “I love you’s” or staying the night, no awkward mornings, all fun and laughing, children enacting the roles they would later fill hesitantly.

“Don’t say much do you?” she asked. 

The question snapped me back to the porch and long hot summer days.

“You have anything to eat?”

I rummaged around in my pockets, I knew I saved something from lunch but couldn’t remember if it was fruit or jerky.

“I got this here peach,” I said offering her the bruised, dirty fruit I had carried with me since morning. Her eyes lit up like the a brush fire. She took the peach.

“Thank you kindly” she said “I’ve been dreaming about a juicy peach for the better part of six years now.” 

She bit into the fruit tenderly. I could hear her sucking in the juice and flesh as she bit. Her eyes rolled back and she worked the bite around her mouth, spreading the flavor to every corner. Finally she sighed and opened her eyes. There was no great joy in her eyes, she looked disappointed.

“S’matter ma’am?”

“Noth’n can be help.”

“Cant it?”

“Only through years and age, life don’t work that way.”

“My life does, each year comes and I get older”

“And I get older. Someday you’re going to turn a corner and start counting t’other way. First we come out excited to create distance from the womb and frail youth, then you start counting toward the days of frailty and unending gloom. Life’s a stream, best follow the water.”

“I’ll understand when Im older?” I asked since so many of life’s other problems were explained to me this way.

“Indeed you will. I can’t taste nothing, tongues dryer than a tumbleweed on a cactus. All I wanted to do was savor this peach and it’s been stolen from me. Stolen as if I didn’t take a bite of nothing, all I taste is dust and sorrow. Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you my rifle collection.”

The looked up at her, she was dismissing me, telling me to go home. I jumped off the porch and started heading back into the gully when she yelled one last thing

“The road is free to all, don’t worry about the taxes and tolls, and for God’s sake, speak up when you have the chance.” 

I never saw her again; I never tried to see her again. I spent more time on their land but avoided the houses, especially her’s. I don’t know when she died but she must be dead by now. I got a job later that year building a pipeline that was passing through the area and followed it across the southern states. Sometime in the 80’s I came to see my mom buried and to settle her estate and I’ve been gone ever since. Nothing there but fading memories and rolling fields with wind running valleys in the hay, breath of the country, passing away.

This Machine Surrounds Hate and Destroys it with Love

As the title might imply, this is a post about the late, great Pete Seeger. Born on May 3, 1919, Pete was my elder by 66 years but the songs he shared helped to bridge the gap. In the Beacon Sloop Club, next to the historic river that he loved, Pete would join the gathering of pickers on Thursday nights to encourage and support the musical tradition he loved and embodied. On one night I was lucky enough to join in and play with one of the great American legends.

My story moves fast and is by no means an account of Pete's life or message. But the power of his icon was strong enough to make a 22 year old, Oklahoma boy drive 2,200 miles to shake his hand. Pete was born seven months after the end of WWI and was 20 years old when WWII broke out. After attending Harvard for a short while Pete, soon dropped out and began wandering the country by rail and hitchhiking. It was on March 3, 1940 that Pete met Woody, while folklorist Alan Lomax is attributed to saying that meeting was the "birth of modern folk music." Woody taught Pete how to survive beyond the pale of normal civilization and Pete elaborates beautifully at http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/01/28/267488551/american-folk-singer-pete-seeger-dies-at-94. By 1940, the Almanac Singers were featuring both Pete and Woody, playing rallies to dances and supporting unions and spreading the American folk tradition.

After a stint in the Merchant Marines where Pete became known as "the banjo picker", he returned to his musical life and the struggles of his country. With the success of the Weavers, Pete found himself in the national spotlight. The fame was double sided due to the communist paranoia that was sweeping the country and more importantly the FBI and national census board. In 1952 the Weavers went on hiatus, in 1961 Pete was convicted of Contempt of Congress but had began feeling the effects of blacklisting beginning in the early 50's. Subpoenaed by the House of Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, Pete would plead the first amendment stating that "no American should be asked those type of questions." His decision to plead freedom of speech, association and religion would make him stand out as a cantankerous witness that would proudly struggle through the oppressive era.

Through his work at summer camps, birthday parties, and community gatherings, Pete maintained his viability as an American pioneer. While blacklisted he continued to record for Folkways Records. Rainbow Quest was a musical variety show sponsored almost exclusively by the Seeger and aired for only one season in 1967, but featured famous musicians from Johnny Cash and Doc Watson to folk icons such Elizabeth Cotton and Tom Paxton, www.peteseeger.net/videogra.html.

In two days, I traveled from Oklahoma to New York City, stopping to camp in South Carolina. the history of the music was in the Blue Ridge Mountain parkway and the endless winding souther roads. Deep Gap, the home of the late Doc Watson was a righthand turn and 60 miles away, Roscoe Holcomb made the "high lonesome sound" famous out of these woods and the Carter Family had gathered gospel songs from the small and isolated communities of the Appalachians. The tradition that inspired Woody, Pete, Mike and countless other folkies that came and went during the 60's was right here, spreading through the air with the morning fog that wrapped the mountains.

As a child Pete learned music from his father Charles, who later remarried Ruth Crawford Seeger and began traveling the south as a classical showcase. Mike Seeger, Pete's half brother, was born out of this marriage and would later become one of America's great folklorists. The heritage the Seeger family tapped into spoke of tradition and family ties. The songs weren't heard on the radio but were rather passed down from generations and some stretched back to Irish roots and English ballads. The story of Americanizing America is told in the songs of the Appalachians, from the shape-note singing to the African influenced cadences, a beautiful story about American folk is told by the movie Songcatcher.

I didn't travel halfway across the country to get an autograph or photo op. I simply tracked down one of the links between pre-industrial revolution America, who had spent his formative years swapping jokes with Woody Guthrie and became one of the few timeless icons of American Folk music. He wasnt hard to find, there are multiple references to Beacon, NY and the larger Poughkeepsie just to the north. After inquiring at a realtor I found the small town of Beacon and more importantly the fire department. Being a middle class white male probably has it's perks because the firemen were friendly and informative giving me specific directions.

The Seeger house is set on a beautifully lush hilltop where the original cabin Pete built in the 60's still stands. The documentary, Power of Song has a wonderful interview with Daniel Seeger, Pete's son describing their early life without heat or running water. I knocked on the door and his wife Toshi-Aline Ota answered, she politely explained that he was working on a song book and that I should come back later. I spent about three minutes in my car and knocked again. Pete answered and invited me in, we chatted in the kitchen about Woody and the music. A yellow jacket began humming around the kitchen, Pete enticed it onto a wooden spoon while I opened the window. As the wasp flew away Pete told me "anything living deserves to meet it's own end."

We spoke for a few more minutes and he escorted me to the door. Sure, I asked him to play a few tunes and, sure he declined but he invited me to the Sloop Club. The following Thursday I rode the Hudson River Line out of Grand Central Station with my banjo and unrealistic expectations.

Tunes were played and songs were passed around the circle. Pete declined to lead a song, saying he didn't sing anymore and finally it came to me. The gentleman on my right had heard my story and when I took the microphone he suggested "This Land is My Land," and I led the group. Out of the corner of my eye I couldn't tell if he was smiling or grimacing but he led a break and I have to accept that as enough, Pete was 88 at the time. We didn't speak after the jam, I watched him graciously depart from the group and I rode the train home, watching the river he loved slip by. The next year he came out with the album "At 89," I probably didn't play a role in his decision to record another album but maybe he noticed me, maybe I was another fruit of the seeds he scattered.  

Music and life have been compared to water and rightly so. Our lives are short eddies in a flowing stream of living energy, always passing to new areas and influences. The songs of Pete and the mountains which birthed them are streams that connect the old country and to the present. Children are taught "This Land is Your Land" in elementary school, "Skip to My Lou," "The Green Grass Grew All Around" and "Froggie Went A'courtin" are all childhood classics. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie might not be in the common vernacular but the common vernacular has been molded by Pete and Woody. There are only seven notes in a scale and no matter how hard Katy Perry mixes them they always come out one of the seven. Pete and Woody were brave enough to sing them straight, honestly, bound and freed by the simplicity of the templet. Remember your childhood, remember the tunes that bounce through your subconscious, they are the heritage of our country and the connection to our homelands.

Gatsby: A Man Apart

            Wealth and splendor hold a place near and dear to the American heart. Born out of the common Dream, in the 2013 Baz Luhrmann adaptation of Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, success is defined as excess. Hometowns and high school are to be left behind and the chasing of grand dreams will in time fulfill any sacrifices or absences created in the search for financial success. J. Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) ran away from the woman he loved, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), due to his lack of money and the perceived unsuitableness of his proposal. It isn’t for love or happiness that success is gauged but in the ability to provide a stable financial base and the willingness to abandon all others in the search. Jay Gatsby is the perfect example of the struggle encountered when the illusion of achievable wealth is confused with achievable providence.

In the beginning there was the word and the word was money. J. Gatsby was a believer in the illusion of wealth; he sacrificed the possible happiness of youth and love due to the illusion. J’s confidence in Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire) reveals at different times both the creation of the illusion and the emptiness that it resonates. While driving in the car, Jay goes to great lengths explaining his upbringing and heritage trying to create the idea of old money and his worthiness to be wealthy. However Jay’s portrayal of old wealth slips in his reasoning, he explains to Nick, “I wanted you to know something about my life, I didn’t want you to think I’m just some nobody.” By caring about his image and trying to illicit an approving judgment from Nick, Jay shows his insecurity in place and station.   

            In contrast Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) demonstrates no compassionate tendencies and exemplifies established wealth. Tom is independently wealthy and immediately reveals his investment in the status quo when he attempts to pull Nick into a conversation about the book “Rise of the Colored Empire.” Further exposing his lack of personal attachment Tom maintains a cordial relationship with the husband of his mistress, for whom he also provides a secret flat. The lifelong presence of money created in Tom, an expectation of social stature and perceived self-worth that outweigh personal consequences or moral implications. In luring Nick to the secret apartment, Tom is searching for approval and consent through involvement. However, it is only with excessive champagne and a mystery pill that Nick begins to partake.

            The contrast between Nick, J and Tom is representative of the three types of wealth structure in the Gatsby America. There are those born into wealth, those who have acquired it, and those who are attempting to acquire it. The story is told by Nick, who is building a career in the Stock Market but has not yet accumulated any wealth, his presence in both J’s and Tom’s house is that of an outsider. The summer progresses and Nick is given two examples of class, wealth and stature, the welcoming benevolence of Gatsby, who’s “smile understands and believes in you,” and that of Tom and Daisy who “smashed up things and people and retreated into their money and vast carelessness.” Nick sits in the situation physically but remains separate from the means and creation of the opportunities he enjoys.

            For moral and obvious reasons Fitzgerald decided to have Nick fall in love with Gatsby. He loved J like he loved New York; both opened unseen doors and invited him into unknown speakeasies. Nick explains the marriage of New York and opportunity and how J is the accumulation of this belief while driving into New York, “The city seen from the Queens Burrow Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in it’s first wild promise, anything could happen, even Gatsby could happen.” Nick is not allowed to blindly believe in J though. Through his character flaws and the strain of the façade, J, elicits questions to his moral aptitude and right to wealth.

            The lavish parties are one precursor to the mystery and mystique of J. Though he hosted celebrities and Senators, J was largely unknown to his guests, during the entire scene of Nick attending his first Gatsby party he does not meet anyone who has met the host save another confidant. By way of having such expositions at his mansion while not attending or announcing his presence, J invites gossiping and speculation. Rumors from Nazi kin to an American sniper swirl about J’s past and a persistent questioning about the source of his funds maintains. While attending lunch with J in the barbershop, Nick meets Meyer Wolfsheim (Amitabh Bachchan) who is a notorious gambler and entrepreneur. Despite Meyer’s infamous nature, J has obvious business ties with him and describes him as a mentor and friend.

J’s exact business remains unclear throughout the entirety of the movie. He is often interrupted with phone calls at parties and while entertaining guests but always refuses unless drawn in by the presence of Meyer or the persistence of his butler. J rejects his means of wealth by denying Daisy, Nick and the audience his true means of establishment. In the final confrontation Tom alleges that J is bootlegging liquor into small towns through the front of pharmacies. Suggesting that this is true, in an earlier scene, J becomes very agitated with a phone call concerning Detroit, repeating, “I said a small town” into the receiver before regaining his composure and delaying the call.

  The call must be answered and “no one could ignore that fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency,” as Nick would describe during dinner at the Buchanan residence. For Gatsby his death and reckoning were inevitable. The relationship between Daisy and J is an affront to the established norm, J’s insistence that Daisy leave Tom directly challenging Tom’s status. However, the rebuttal of Tom devastates J’s composure. After insulting J’s education, self-worth, and means, J leans on his ideals before lashing out, “the only thing respectable about you is your money. Now I have as much as you so we’re equal.” Exemplifying the ideology of a movable class structure, J wants to believe the myth* and is ultimately sacrificed in its upkeep.

Through the events of the final night, J becomes the target of the estranged husband for the fatal hit-and-run accident that killed his wife, who was also the mistress of Tom.  George Wilson (Jason Clarke), the husband, is the proprietor of a gas station and lives in the poor outskirts of New York. When George kills Gatsby, he is murdering the promise that lies in the American dream. J steadfastly holds to his idealized image of Daisy as the reason for his actions and remained aloof of the opulence created by his wealth. George kills the promise that anything is possible; he killed the hope for an ever achievable and brighter future.

More on the idea of achievable wealth and wealth distribution here:      

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU

Passing fancy

My life as a Vessel

Is half full of memories and design,
it stands full of the moments which have
scratched or scared the glass.

The other half is empty,
containing the passing phrases
and turning glances,
the bait and switch of surviving
a fatal existence that is mundane
and forgetable.

Its only the horrible and
honorable that pass
into being
and are saved
as beautiful.  

Ayn Rand Shrugged

   Capitalism is considered synonymic with the United States and lies at the heart of the American Dream. Capitalism is heralded as the bringer of technology, innovation, entrepreneurship and people functioning under the capitalistic system have produced great feats of progress. But the wheel was given to us freely from the dark pages of history.
   99%'ers or 1%'ers they are both chasing the same pie-in-the-sky. If every dollar was compiled the distribution would be 1% of the wealth to 99% of the population and vice versa. However the argument of the 99% hinges on the idea that the same amount of money should be distributed in a more equal manner. There hasn't been an uprising against capitalism, we think the system works, there has been an uprising against the accumulation of wealth. The philosophy of the rebellion is flawed in attempting to maintain the established system while removing the reward system which perpetuates the economy.
   Enter Ayn Rand with her diabolical hyper-capitalism and fair-trade ideology. Within the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged is the direct relationship between the national economy and capitalism. The relationship seems direct in a cause/affect way but there are multiple side effects to the collaboration. Recent examples of corporations excluding the 99% include Ing, Fanny Mae and Bernie Madoff. By focusing solely on the good of the individual, and corporations are considered individuals, these companies created the housing bubble, a legendary ponzi scheme and the toxic assets.
   The large examples are easy to point a finger at, their cause and full affect might not yet be understood but they are known and identified. It is the little decisions that expose companies for their overly self serving tendencies.
   My petty example is the iphone5. Apple enjoyed influencing the economy and sister technological development. With the advent of ipods the headphone companies were compelled to individualize an
d customize their product, a perfect example of symbiotic growth. Likewise multiple companies developed ipod players based around the 35 prong outlet, with the iphone5 though Apple decided to neglect the established system of plugging phones in for one based on auxiliary cords. In one swoop Apple has tried to create a new vein of consumability through the replacement of goods purchased for now "obsolete" technology.
    Apple is not the Hank Rearden or Dagny Taggart of the modern age despite their wanting to be viewed in such a heroic light. Likewise the individuals that are disappearing are not going to a capitalistic utopia they are going to jail.
    The truth about Ayn Rand and her vision of our purely economic based society is that Atlas doesn't shrug, he tilts the world to increase the sale of safety devices.

Hello World

The only proper way to start a blog would be to lay out my aims, aspirations and quandaries about blogging as a medium.

Gorrell Inc. is a moral and sometimes outrageous company to work for: the level of contradictions and assumptions given to work with are sometimes laughable and erroneous but the commitment to honesty, integrity and responsibility creates a foundation sturdy enough to hold any crumbling walls. 

With that in mind I pledge to strive for biased, half factual, entertaining posts. Now, I'm not The Onion, I'm clever but not to that fastidious. I will try to make you laugh, I'll fill up the pages with ramblings, and I will get lost in mid sentence, hopefully all to the enjoyment of an unsuspecting public.

The number one definition of an audience is: the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event. It isn't until the third and fourth definition of audience that it can be applied to a dispersed group of interested parties. The previous uses of the word imply a directness, a physical space in time that is communally shared and inaccessible to those not present. 

With the spreading of the technologies such as the internet, digital media and open platform interfaces the ties that bind the global community together have strengthened and the reachable audience has grown.

To operate a blog in this atmosphere is both intimidating and intriguing. With the spread of internet marketing and online publications the print industry has been revolutionized, or at least it will be. Physical publications are closing across the nation, the loss of one print magazine is mirrored by the opening of three emagazines. 

There is sweet poison in this trend, as readers are offered more choices and cheaper prices but jobs are disappearing and offices are left vacant. The loss might not be the physical magazine, do 82 sheets of paper have inherent worth? Beyond the promise to become something greater, no, 82 sheets just means 2 more trees were cut down. The loss is contained in the physicalness of the industry, granted 90% of magazines received will be read and either discarded or stored, quickly loosing relevancy and impact. 

But the promise of those blank sheets of paper is still there: by design the paper begs for purpose. Writing is changing, maybe it started with the first keyboard, an immediate compartmentalization of letters being separate and words being built instead of flowing. First cursive and now pencils, what are we losing? 

I accept my Digital Citizenship but with a heavy heart and hands that are not built for fragile things.