Statecraft Informer

Owing to some extremely high, persistent winds, and occasional torrential rainfall the last two days, my ability to get online has been compromised.

Hamstrung by technical difficulties!

Once upon a time, I received nearly all of my information about the outside world from newspapers, and to a lesser degree, television and radio.

I still subscribe to one or two papers, and continue to watch TV, although I don’t “watch” the radio nearly as much as when I was a kid. There isn’t even a good oldies station in the Bay Area anymore.

Mostly, though, I find myself relying on the internet and this computer for the lion’s share of my daily enlightenment. I’ve got more bookmarks and links and other favorites, folders, etc., than Carter has pills.

As the input has changed, so has the outgo.

I started writing, like many people, using those huge red pencils and rough, wide-lined paper, before upgrading to ball point pens, composition and spiral notebooks.

Finally, I graduated to a typewriter, a black, portable Remington in a box, which served me quite well for years.

My writing career was launched, and progressed with that old Remington, the U.S. Mail, and involved an inordinate amount of rejection slips.

Cartooning was also quite simple, requiring pencil, pen, watercolors and paper.

My advertising and graphic work was largely hand drawn, typed, cut and pasted, using genuine scissors and actual paste.

I eventually gave in and purchased an automatic Brother “word processor,” but just as I was becoming addicted to it, Apple hit the streets.

There I was, waiting on the curb, trying to act nonchalant until the doors to opened. Even way over there in New York, I believe the gang from Cupertino could see me coming. I bought one that day, and I’ve been buying them ever since.

Pretty soon, I had become a “desktop publisher.”

Imagine. Me, a publisher!

I still have scissors, paste, registration graph paper, and such. My youngest accidentally broke my drafting table, tough, and since I never replaced it, the old supplies are no longer in plain sight, and you know what that means.

The Remington is long gone. I believe we became separated about four moves ago. I still see the old machines at garage sales and in “antique” stores, but the temptation to acquire another old friend only reminds me about all the unused layout supplies languishing back home somewhere.

I’m pretty sure I gave the Brother to Goodwill about twenty years ago.

As it turns out, somewhere between then and now, I became less and less publisher, and more and more writer.

QuarkXPress®, and the rest, are no longer even installed on this Mac, nor were they on the last two.

If you’ve been paying attention, or just looking, you’ve noticed this space is nothing but words. Just plain writing. Okay… there is an occasional flourish :-), but nearly everything I’ve done over the last ten years has taken the form of words, phrases, sentences, etc.

Technically, all I’ve really needed is what I had at the start: a pencil and paper, and perhaps a typewriter for copy ready product.

Alas, I no longer write for newspapers or magazines.

Even the stodgier markets are beginning to eschew the simple typewritten format.

So here I am.

Using the latest technology, but temporarily out of touch with my main sources of information. Typing words, phrases and sentences, which I may or may not be able to transmit to my 451Press publishers in deadline time, and in the usual fashion.

Not a lick has involved “statecraft” or “informing,” although I hope I have stated them in a crafty and informing manner.

Another thing I’ve noticed in retrospect. I used to engage in many, many more actual conversations years ago. I mean, every day, I’d be talking and listening, listening and talking, face to face and eye to eye. Always places to go and people to see.

I guess I just don’t get out near as much as I used to.

And so I find myself wondering about the nature and efficacy of the technological evolution we all share. I seem to be devolving a bit lately.

Just for a moment, it occurs to me the time has come to retreat to that cabin in the woods, with paper and pen, nature and my thoughts…

But then as if in reply, I remember an Email I got from the management at 451Press before the power and phone lines went out. Seems the new year will require me to start adding some graphics to this here blog.

What’s next, live face to face interviews?

Maybe. Why not, right?

I have other work to do, of course. Though it is mostly comprised of plain old writing, more and more, employers want graphics, links, video, maps, etc., giving impetus and purpose to my continuing evolution.

Maybe that cabin will have to wait a few more years… at least until the girls finish growing up and move out and on with their completely techno lives.

Right now I’ve got to figure out how to add some pictures to this old-fashioned space.