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Saturday, June 26, 2004
In Smart Mobs, digital culture maven Howard Rheingold waxes rhapsodic about the ability to create whole new spontaneous communities using cell phones. Somehow I don't think this is what he was thinking of: Cellphones are chock-full of features like built-in cameras, personalized ring tones and text messaging. They also gave a real boost to Kenny Hall's effort to cheat on his girlfriend.
Mr. Hall, a 20-year-old college student in Denver, decided in March to spend a weekend in nearby Boulder with another woman. He turned to his cellphone for help, sending out a text message to hundreds of other cellphone users in an "alibi and excuse club," a network of 3,400 strangers who help each other skip work, get out of dates or give a loved one the slip.
posted by jeev |
11:56 AM |
 
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Browsing aimlessly in a bookstore this afternoon, I come across the work of a guy I knew in college - the TA of my first poetry class. Larry Levis. Sweet, rumpled, disorganized, passionate about poetry. And, it turns out, dead. At 49, in 1996, a bad heart. A month ago, another friend from college, Jim Knudsen. Since last I saw him, he'd married, fathered two kids, had a career, published two novels. And died. In the bare instant that seems to have passed since then, whole lives.
posted by jeev |
2:57 PM |
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