Take Back the Rant

It is snowing in Chicago. This is hardly a surprise. I am sitting by a window, hot coffee in hand, and watching people, bundled in scarves and hoods, eyes down, walking with purpose. The LaSalle Bank Building and its art deco styling, and the old style lampposts on the sidewalk, make it feel like I could be watching a city scene from any decade of the last century. About one in thirty, about the same that are clutching lattes (in Seattle it would be one in five) has white wires emerging from their jacket collar and disappearing under their hat—a Pod Person—which definitively eliminates the last century as the setting.

I sounded awfully cranky in that last posting, though it does accurately describe my ambivalence about current technology. I picked on iPod because I’ve had some recent direct experience, unlike video games, about which I hold a much harsher opinion and which I have never touched (unless you count Pong). Though that alone doesn’t disqualify me from a good rant—most blogs are uninformed opinions: the more uninformed, the more vociferous.

I love the time I am living in, however. I love that I can write on a laptop in a café, and upload what I have composed when I’m done. My wife reminds me how difficult I was when I first got a computer (hers, when she moved in), 14 years ago. I had resisted for years. (Karen Seymour tells a great story, at my expense, of the first time she helped me with my mailing list at her business, The Computer Workshop. I showed up with the database from the previous day, on a 5 1/4" floppy, neatly folded in half in my pocket. Who knew?)

I love how digital has changed my creative process by foreshortening the feedback loop. I shoot daily now, something that was rare when I only shot film, except when I travelled somewhere for the explicit purpose of concentrated shooting. Now it’s a smooth part of my daily routine, and my work is getting better.

I ranted like crazy about digital before I became a convert. I am mildly distressed about how thin this year's contact sheet notebook is (I have shot less film this year than in the previous 25), and I still seeth when I see digital handled badly in publication. I am old enough now to be settled comfortably with who I am, and this includes my tools and my artistic style. A total makeover is unlikely. But I catch myself saying and thinking thoughts that begin, "I remember when…". I hope I am not on a slippery slope to unmitigated crankiness and rigidity.

Comments

Me, too. Unmitigated crankiness would be hard to live with.
Robin