In the 10 days that it has been launched, Apple has sold more than 600,000 iPhones (not counting Opus' purchase above). As an infrequent stumbler in the parallel world of blogs I have come across an equal number of posts dedicated to the same. I have also been politely jabbed in the ribs by the few who stray here, asking when will I say a few words about this gadget that has spawned a cultural revolution of the thumb.This is not a review. Of the iPhone. Or the madness that preceded it. And I have heard enough stories of people who stood in line for days. Apparently a lot can happen to humans in an organised formation like a queue. The dangers of a modern landscape are also not be scoffed at. People broke down, fell ill, turned vegetarian, built a chopper and contemplated joining the Hare Krsna. Some even claimed they found the meaning of life.
All for a cool looking $599 brick that can can store and play music, play your favourite video files, download podcasts, resize images with your fingers and surf the internet.
But can it make her call you? Just when you are longing to hear her voice?
I can't wait to find out.
That's Opus. By Berkeley Breathed. An American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip which dealt with socio-political issues as seen through the eyes of highly exaggerated characters. A personal favourite.
31 comments:
(sigh)
blogger ate my comment:)
I have to be so careful with technology-
it gives me so much with my writing and photography and flickr etc but
I am so aware of how time spins
by on the net while the real world
sneaks past - tiptoeing past me -
sort of my own spin on John
Lennons quote -
Life is what happens when you are
busy on the net...
so i leave my camera at home and
i carefully budget my time on the
net - so i can go out and feel the
sun sparkle in my eyes and
taste the mango's in season.
And of course the girl will
call you - because you have an
engaging mind and sparkling way
of peeking at the world.
Not because of the silly phone:)
i just love this strip! though my utter favorite is 'pearls before swine'.
Loneliness is a cruel mistress. Makes you pine for lovers, old and new. Might help if 'she' has this new wonderbrick though. She might just be itching to use it. Oh, not be presumptuous, but she may've lost the digits.
i live with her, so i don't need her to call, lol. so, i in turn, do not have a cell phone nor have i ever had one. ;)
madelyn - and you say i have an enchantment with words? i am inspired by your simplicity. truly.
charade - alas. there is a part of me that wants you to bask in that anonymous obscurity. and i love 'pearls before swine' as well.
mickey - lucky bum.
Great non-review! I saw the queues on the news, people proposing to each other, and I sighed - what has this world come to? The sad thing is people don't even think about the point you've made - "who cares about other people and relationships? We have a phone that has ou whole computers in it" (or something like that).
Hey, I just noticed you listed Motorcycle Diaries in your favourite films - I was just telling a girl in my blog to see it because I can't seem to get it out of my head lately. I want to go to South America in a bike (well, a car would be more comfortable but I'm not complaining).
wow, does she have an i-phone? then what are you waiting for? CALL HER!
devil mood - you are right. this obsession with technology is killing me. it is the greatest paradox that mankind has ever had to deal with. while it seemingly brings us closer together it only distances us. cocoons us in our own little shell. preferably with a 4mb lease line.
and i don't want to get the motorcycle diaries out of my head. and south america is on the list. so is a beat up bike. i need a pillion though :)
smiling dolphin - no she doesn't. it won't work with GSM networks anyways. the point is that it is and will always remain a phone. and if you can't use technology to make someone call you...it is not really magic.
Maybe you can try calling her?
Or try this song from Sting's Song from the Labyrinth, written 400 years ago by John Dowland.
"The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;
And slender hairs cast shadows though but small,
And bees have stings although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs,
And love is love in beggars and in kings.
Where waters smoothest run deep are the fords;
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is in the fewest words;
The turtles cannot sing and yet they love,
True hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak;
They hear and see and sigh, and then they break"
it's a beautiful song. i was waiting for sting's classical album for awhile. didn't disappoint. and the lute is haunting.
on another note, don't think i can call her anymore. like a passing zephyr, she's gone.
oh dear. from my ancient vintage vantage point, let me offer this - that the harder it hurts, the quicker one gets over it. hoping you find your 'brand new day' soon. as for the i-phone, it's a pr wonder even if not a technological one, and we certainly plan to buy one when it stops by our shores, just for the 'show off' factor!
Hmmm. Suffering the ecstasies of a mudbath in Wallowville/Funky Town, eh?
great post! funny and more.
great post! and more.
good stuff...almost gave me gooseflesh!
smiling dolphin - ah! a technological wonder it is. my whole point is skewered towards the fact that no matter how much we might be enamoured by technology, there's only as much as it can do. and while we spend all our time trying to adapt to it, we are missing out on the human touch in our lives.
charade - the ecstasies of wallowville are revered. and there remains only a tinge of that now. and i don't ever want to wash it away.
roark - did you laugh?
meraj - ha. gooseflesh is good. on a plate, even better.
umm...am not one for motivational commentary myself, but there are a few poems I just think ought to be read coz they're sheerly beautiful. This one seems vaguely in context...
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16872
If the link fails, check out 'Failing and Flying' by Jack Gilbert on poets.org. If you're in the mood, of course.
phish, if you can patent a phone that'll get her/him to call, you'll be a rich man soon, my friend -
(i'll be the first one to order)
iWonder..
arcadia - i am quite sure there are little mustachioed men working very hard to solve that very problem right now. i see you are back :)
gaizabonts - :) it will take the charm out of life tho' won't it?
Out of life yes, perhaps not out of the iLife that is becoming a all-encompassing statement - that seems to be more important than her call. And the answer is a simple no. It can't make her.
charade - discovered something new in jack gilbert. i can't thank you enough.
gaizabonts - the iLife phenom is scary and spiralling fast out of control. and i am somehow glad it has its limits. thats my point. you can have a toy to distract yourself with for awhile. but real interaction still depends on how you are wired.
You're welcome, Phish. Thought you might appreciate it. Dya know what scares me though...more and more frequently than is my wont, I find myself falling in love with dead people. Or inaccesible British ones. Like Stephen Fry. Or that guy who plays Snape in the Potter movies. "The number you're trying is currently out of range." Chuckle. Okay, the humour may be fickle but you can always use discretion while publishing.
charade - inaccessible british guys who are also exceptionally talented. stephen fry is one of my gods. your humour might be fickle but the senses aren't. who are the dead ones?
ah. name names, you say? hmm..just off the top of my head, the gilbert man,Oscar wilde, jeff buckley, johnny cash, Dev Anand of the black n white movies (I've heard ppl say he still lives but it can't be the same person),Erwin Schrodinger. Obviously there've been numerous other wise and wonderful people but there's a certain type of talent with a twist that makes me lose my lemon.
yes, the legend lives on albeit as a strolling bone. i face a similar condition. i think i have been born forty years too late. in an ideal world, i want to have a crush on audrey hepburn, wait patiently for goscinny to write another asterix adventure every six months, write a letter to einstein, be terrbly influenced by richard avedon as a young man. see the world without at least the 35000 tons of garbage that it has accumulated hence.
i had never heard for scrodinger before, interesting.
ferget calling.
you need to write to her.
...could be hard to resist that.
i'm as divorced from technology as i can possibly be. i have this feeling it keeps me away from what i perceive to be the 'real' world ;) i have a most basic phone, and thats after years of not having one, when i am forced to keep it so my boss can call me when i am travelling :)
motorcycle diaries - something isn't it? amazing how one journey can do so much to a man's life. read the book, its even better than the movie.
two with nature - that's an idea. but i really do think it's way beyond that. i am afraid i have botched this one up beyond repair.
dharmabum - i love technology too much to be divorced from it. but of late it has become extremely intrusive. and this affliction will only increase with time.
Never, ever!
Awwe!
Question, question indeed.
And as far as these gadgets go, I think they are only making us lonelier.
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