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News & ArtsWednesday, July 14, 2010
Books Tweet
Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 1:52 PM
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by brevity, over-connectedness, emotionally starving for attention, dragging themselves through virtual communities at 3 am, surrounded by stale pizza and neglected dreams, looking for angry meaning, any meaning, same hat wearing hipsters burning for shared and skeptical approval from the holographic projected dynamo in the technology of the era, who weak connections and recession wounded and directionless, sat up, micro-conversing in the supernatural darkness of Wi-Fi-enabled cafes, floating across the tops of cities, contemplating techno...
Like the best parodies, it totally works on its own and not just as a "Howl" ripoff. You should read the rest here.
4
Oh, McSweeneys.net. Remember when you rejected all poetry simply because it was poetry.
The sestina: poetry's gateway drug.
The sestina: poetry's gateway drug.
5
Anyone else notice that new CIA spy series on TV has the guy who played a CIA spy before now as a blind CIA analyst, who has a braille computer and keyboard? Now that is cool ...
9
@3 lmao!
The topic of social media making us all stupid is getting old. They are just additional tools, another diversion, another form of entertainment and information. The world is always changing and old-timers are always decrying it's the end of intelligence. Oyl Miller sounds suspiciously similar to a teabagger who 'wants their country back.' Or to our grandparents who 'trudged 10 miles to school in the snow and knew the value of hard work.'
Advice to Oyl: If Twitter doesn't work for you, don't use it. Declaring it the end of intelligence just makes you sound like a curmudgeon or a kook on the street corner.
The topic of social media making us all stupid is getting old. They are just additional tools, another diversion, another form of entertainment and information. The world is always changing and old-timers are always decrying it's the end of intelligence. Oyl Miller sounds suspiciously similar to a teabagger who 'wants their country back.' Or to our grandparents who 'trudged 10 miles to school in the snow and knew the value of hard work.'
Advice to Oyl: If Twitter doesn't work for you, don't use it. Declaring it the end of intelligence just makes you sound like a curmudgeon or a kook on the street corner.
10
@9 - I don't know, I didn't read it as twitter makes the "best minds of my generation" stupid. But, more like, people are wasting all of this time and energy online talking about nothing as opposed to doing something important.
And I get that. And agree with it. For me, at its best, reading blogs can point me in the direction of interesting, thought-provoking articles and I have great conversations in the comments that refine my thinking. At its worst, I can spend 2 hours clicking through from one thing to the next, and suddenly I'm like, what the fuck have I been doing for 2 hours.
And I get that. And agree with it. For me, at its best, reading blogs can point me in the direction of interesting, thought-provoking articles and I have great conversations in the comments that refine my thinking. At its worst, I can spend 2 hours clicking through from one thing to the next, and suddenly I'm like, what the fuck have I been doing for 2 hours.
12
Whatever. I'm sure in the early days of radio people were talking about that as being some sort of demon to society. This is technophobe hype.
13
@12: But your comment is a perfect example of the kind of thought-free, opinionated thinking modern technology encourages (and it's not just you; I catch myself doing it all the time). It's not all bad, of course, but it's worth considering what we're paying for all this immersion in new media. After all, if it's all good, then why do so many people feel so ambivalent about it?
Julie @10, that was really well said.
Julie @10, that was really well said.
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