iPad Opens World to Disabled Boy*
1. iPad; iPad Opens
iPad. Neither iDevice among iDevices nor device among devices—no more or less rabbit than cell phone—but rather the emblem and embodiment of a new contiguity between human and device. The headline refers us to a relation within a relation. The first, proceeding without us, is interior to the device: a rendezvous of circuitry and fleshiness to which we are always already late.
iPad Opens. The second relation, constituted by holding the first relation in your hand. The fact that you are holding a device does not constitute the primary (interior) relation between human and device, but rather the secondary (exterior) relation. What you are holding in your hand already has a relation embodied in it, thus the experience is wholly different from holding a "regular" device in your hand. What distinguishes the iPad is its presentation of a human–device contiguity even before you grasp it. It has approached the human–device relation from the other end, so to speak—from the perspective of the device. Even when the device is alone, it is already sticky, already becoming fleshy.
2. iPad Opens World vis-à-vis iPad Opens [the] World contra iPad Opens [a] World
a) iPad Opens [the] World. The phenomenological "world" (Heidegger): iPad as complementary prosthesis granting its bearer access to the/his world.
b) iPad Opens [the]2 World. The logical-positivist "world" (Wittgenstein): iPad as complementary prosthesis granting its bearer access to the/our world.
c) iPad Opens [a] World. The modal-realist "world" (Leibniz/Lewis): iPad as supplementary (auxiliary) prosthesis granting its bearer access to a/another world.
3. Disabled Boy
a) Disabled Boy vis-à-vis 2a. World more open than closed. The disabled boy is lacking an access point (or multiple points) to the/his world (e.g. a left arm) and the device serves as a substitute (e.g. a prosthetic left arm), or serves to augment an extant access point (e.g. a second hand for his right arm; a smarter brain; wings). It is unnecessary to think the iPad as multiple (i.e. relationally) in this scenario; the iPad needn't be more than a device among devices. E.g. iPad Teaches Dyslexic Boy to Read.
b) Disabled Boy vis-à-vis 2b. World more closed than open. The disabled boy is lacking access as such (e.g. he is largely sensory deprived, etc.) and the device serves as an example—via its interior human–device relation in correspondence with its exterior human–device relation—of the comportment of a/the human to the/our world.
c) Disabled Boy vis-à-vis 2c. World more world than world. The disabled boy is granted access to a possible world in which an encounter between the interior and exterior relations occurs such that the concept of relation is thought along the infinitesimal boundary between its interior and exterior manifestations. The boy's spirit is now free to delve into the device, and his disability is rendered insignificant, thus:
iPad Opens [Another] World to Disabled Boy
*Apple.com Hot News Headline, 11/01/2010.
Evan Lavender-Smith is the author of From Old Notebooks (2010) and Avatar (2011), the editor of Noemi Press and the prose editor of Puerto del Sol. He teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
No news today - Guest Post - Greg Mulcahy
RADIO
10 below zero.
Where the hell had his watch cap gone? Instead there was nothing. Instead he would freeze.
Cap from the dollar store.
Somebody—maybe his nephew—left the hat in his car—tan knit cap with a skull on it. Something like something a snowboarder—some extreme sport kid—would wear.
All he had.
Time running. Work waiting.
He put on the cap.
Somebody dead on the car radio. Not the person, the notice.
He would not be on the radio. Not his notice. But then what did he care.
He’d care for nothing at the time.
Thought he’d heard vaguely a woman he once knew had died. Hadn’t seen her for years. Did not know where he’d heard. Did not know if it was true. Maybe. Someday maybe he would look.
Walked into the office.
Hey, your skull’s showing, Hooten said.
Confused. He realized.
Fuck you, Hooten.
Later, he told her. Hooten always on his ass. Hooten deliberately referencing the fact his sister had had a tumor.
He said, He wanted to find any way to bring it up.
He wasn’t referencing that, she said.
You don’t know him, he said, how he is.
Hours later he woke.
She awake.
Why did you wear that stupid hat, she said.
I told you.
No, she said. That’s not it.
What difference does it make, he said.
You’re always doing things like that, she said. Testing people. Provoking them. A hat with a skull.
It’s not a skull, he said. It is a death’s head.
Oh, you know everything about the hat. You knew. Then somebody took the bait.
Did you think, he said, I was trying to catch something?
Greg Mulcahy is the author of OUT of WORK, CONSTELLATION, and CARBINE. He lives in Minnesota.
10 below zero.
Where the hell had his watch cap gone? Instead there was nothing. Instead he would freeze.
Cap from the dollar store.
Somebody—maybe his nephew—left the hat in his car—tan knit cap with a skull on it. Something like something a snowboarder—some extreme sport kid—would wear.
All he had.
Time running. Work waiting.
He put on the cap.
Somebody dead on the car radio. Not the person, the notice.
He would not be on the radio. Not his notice. But then what did he care.
He’d care for nothing at the time.
Thought he’d heard vaguely a woman he once knew had died. Hadn’t seen her for years. Did not know where he’d heard. Did not know if it was true. Maybe. Someday maybe he would look.
Walked into the office.
Hey, your skull’s showing, Hooten said.
Confused. He realized.
Fuck you, Hooten.
Later, he told her. Hooten always on his ass. Hooten deliberately referencing the fact his sister had had a tumor.
He said, He wanted to find any way to bring it up.
He wasn’t referencing that, she said.
You don’t know him, he said, how he is.
Hours later he woke.
She awake.
Why did you wear that stupid hat, she said.
I told you.
No, she said. That’s not it.
What difference does it make, he said.
You’re always doing things like that, she said. Testing people. Provoking them. A hat with a skull.
It’s not a skull, he said. It is a death’s head.
Oh, you know everything about the hat. You knew. Then somebody took the bait.
Did you think, he said, I was trying to catch something?
Greg Mulcahy is the author of OUT of WORK, CONSTELLATION, and CARBINE. He lives in Minnesota.
Friday, February 18, 2011
No news today - Guest Post - Angela Stubbs
Dear N~
There’s no news today. I’m telling you now for fear you might not read this ‘til later. I’d be none the wiser to missing declarations that come with conducting roll call. The northwest is predictably quiet, sitting on her hands, unable to choose x’s over why but this is nothing new. No silent victories to report. Did you know a plastic blue tarp can prevent use of pots and pans at the highest heights? This is not news but useful information if you feel damp on the inside. I could give you my ideas on a myriad of topics if you prefer painful eagerness to that of a clinical breakthrough.
I have an idea; let’s make our own news by breaking rules with two-sided conversation.
Quid Pro Quo, but you go first.
I’m taking you to the place where Robert named you ‘Dakini’ and you ate plantains
you know how to
sew it
all
up
because thimble and thread need no running shtick.
Maybe there we discuss our collective knowledge of Pakistani writers, bad dates and what happens sometimes to those who don’t know the first thing about field-speak. Pencil me in. Hold the hold.
I feel like we could have our own headlines: BookeyJane Breaks Through Armor, Physician Heals Thy Self!
You think I’m kidding but it’s true.
No strange accounts of the everyday will take place so
shoes stay off.
However, I’m whispering the secret news if you can hear through the static.
You must walk 1000 steps to the left when you go outside.
There are directions on what comes next so you don’t need a ticker, just wait and see if you overhear over here.
The best performances are given via satellite on preset channels but yours is via invitation only.
Will you won’t respond so new news can be known in a world where various hats wait to be worn.
You’re up in ten with some kind of wonderful. Please be sure to wear the fuzzy. The girl in the other room will listen, glass to wall for your words, straining to hear you. Thirty years will speed right past the trachea, between two lungs, thus accelerating the pace with which you produce groundbreaking news, should you choose to exhale, allowing a multitude of outcomes, all in your favor.
No one is taking notes, don’t worry. The news is just news when it exists but it doesn’t and that’s what it means to trust red.
Angela Stubbs is a writer whose work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Puerto del Sol, DIAGRAM, Marco Polo Quarterly, Elimae, The Collagist, The Rumpus, Astrophil Press, Bookslut and others. She has a column at The Nervous Breakdown and is an MFA Writing and Poetics candidate at Naropa University.
There’s no news today. I’m telling you now for fear you might not read this ‘til later. I’d be none the wiser to missing declarations that come with conducting roll call. The northwest is predictably quiet, sitting on her hands, unable to choose x’s over why but this is nothing new. No silent victories to report. Did you know a plastic blue tarp can prevent use of pots and pans at the highest heights? This is not news but useful information if you feel damp on the inside. I could give you my ideas on a myriad of topics if you prefer painful eagerness to that of a clinical breakthrough.
I have an idea; let’s make our own news by breaking rules with two-sided conversation.
Quid Pro Quo, but you go first.
I’m taking you to the place where Robert named you ‘Dakini’ and you ate plantains
you know how to
sew it
all
up
because thimble and thread need no running shtick.
Maybe there we discuss our collective knowledge of Pakistani writers, bad dates and what happens sometimes to those who don’t know the first thing about field-speak. Pencil me in. Hold the hold.
I feel like we could have our own headlines: BookeyJane Breaks Through Armor, Physician Heals Thy Self!
You think I’m kidding but it’s true.
No strange accounts of the everyday will take place so
shoes stay off.
However, I’m whispering the secret news if you can hear through the static.
You must walk 1000 steps to the left when you go outside.
There are directions on what comes next so you don’t need a ticker, just wait and see if you overhear over here.
The best performances are given via satellite on preset channels but yours is via invitation only.
Will you won’t respond so new news can be known in a world where various hats wait to be worn.
You’re up in ten with some kind of wonderful. Please be sure to wear the fuzzy. The girl in the other room will listen, glass to wall for your words, straining to hear you. Thirty years will speed right past the trachea, between two lungs, thus accelerating the pace with which you produce groundbreaking news, should you choose to exhale, allowing a multitude of outcomes, all in your favor.
No one is taking notes, don’t worry. The news is just news when it exists but it doesn’t and that’s what it means to trust red.
Angela Stubbs is a writer whose work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Puerto del Sol, DIAGRAM, Marco Polo Quarterly, Elimae, The Collagist, The Rumpus, Astrophil Press, Bookslut and others. She has a column at The Nervous Breakdown and is an MFA Writing and Poetics candidate at Naropa University.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
No news today - Guest Post - Mike Meginnis
Many birds fell from the sky and the newspaper said it was normal. We believed it. This was after the bees. He had to look it up to find out they were turtle doves. They don't really come in pairs. Turtle doves. They look like if pigeons were pretty and brown instead of ugly and the color pigeons are. The turtle doves had blue marks on their beaks, which were also normal.
This was before the dogs.
He believed once that newspapers were required to report everything, more or less, which was why they were so thick. Then he learned about ad revenue, which declines steadily as the ads themselves grow, and its importance. The revenue. There were rumors of a missing black girl. These were only rumors. He looked for her without a picture for reference, and so felt only sharp pangs of concern for every black girl. In the Pic Quik, in the Hardee's.
This was before the snakes.
The newspaper offered nobody any catharsis. It only wound him up more tightly. The newspaper said this was normal. It was also normal, they said, to live in fear. It was normal that year to stay in on weekends. This was after the crabs.
He found a bird on his windshield. Its wings were open not because it fell that way but because the wind was of that mind. If you can imagine the sound he made then you must know how it feels. The Google people had just released a program that let you take a picture of an object and search the internet to find out what it was. The program could recognize a resemblance. Because he didn't have the program to find out he couldn't know for sure what kind of bird. No one could say he didn't try to pull the feathers from his wipers.
Mike Meginnis has stories published or forthcoming in The Lifted Brow, Hobart, The Collagist, Booth, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, and others. He co-edits Unanny Valley (uncannyvalleymag.com) with his wife, Tracy Bowling.
This was before the dogs.
He believed once that newspapers were required to report everything, more or less, which was why they were so thick. Then he learned about ad revenue, which declines steadily as the ads themselves grow, and its importance. The revenue. There were rumors of a missing black girl. These were only rumors. He looked for her without a picture for reference, and so felt only sharp pangs of concern for every black girl. In the Pic Quik, in the Hardee's.
This was before the snakes.
The newspaper offered nobody any catharsis. It only wound him up more tightly. The newspaper said this was normal. It was also normal, they said, to live in fear. It was normal that year to stay in on weekends. This was after the crabs.
He found a bird on his windshield. Its wings were open not because it fell that way but because the wind was of that mind. If you can imagine the sound he made then you must know how it feels. The Google people had just released a program that let you take a picture of an object and search the internet to find out what it was. The program could recognize a resemblance. Because he didn't have the program to find out he couldn't know for sure what kind of bird. No one could say he didn't try to pull the feathers from his wipers.
Mike Meginnis has stories published or forthcoming in The Lifted Brow, Hobart, The Collagist, Booth, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, and others. He co-edits Unanny Valley (uncannyvalleymag.com) with his wife, Tracy Bowling.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
No news today - Guest Post - Jessica Anya Blau
No News
It started with asbestos. Something to think about when I hammered a nail into the baby’s nursery to hang an old floral painting I bought at a yard sale. And then there was toxic black mold. According to the papers, you had to tear the walls apart to really find it. Lead came next: in the water, the pipes, the windowsills, the dirt in the back yard where my not-yet-born child might play. When truck treads started flying off tires on the freeway, smashing through windshields and killing drivers, I really began to worry. How was I ever going to survive a drive to the hospital where my child would receive her possibly HIV-tainted blood transfusion to reduce the lead in her poisoned body?
I couldn’t eliminate any of these terrors—like bad plastic surgery, each fix presented a new problem. So I eliminated the newspaper. And the news on TV. And everything, almost magically, just disappeared.
Jessica Anya Blau's second novel, DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME (HarperCollins) will be out on January 18. Her first book, THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES (HarperCollins) was chosen as a Best Summer Book by the Today Show, the New York Post, and New York Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News and Barnes and Noble all chose THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES as one of the Best Books of the Year. Currently, Jessica lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College. For information go to www.jessicaanyablau.com
It started with asbestos. Something to think about when I hammered a nail into the baby’s nursery to hang an old floral painting I bought at a yard sale. And then there was toxic black mold. According to the papers, you had to tear the walls apart to really find it. Lead came next: in the water, the pipes, the windowsills, the dirt in the back yard where my not-yet-born child might play. When truck treads started flying off tires on the freeway, smashing through windshields and killing drivers, I really began to worry. How was I ever going to survive a drive to the hospital where my child would receive her possibly HIV-tainted blood transfusion to reduce the lead in her poisoned body?
I couldn’t eliminate any of these terrors—like bad plastic surgery, each fix presented a new problem. So I eliminated the newspaper. And the news on TV. And everything, almost magically, just disappeared.
Jessica Anya Blau's second novel, DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME (HarperCollins) will be out on January 18. Her first book, THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES (HarperCollins) was chosen as a Best Summer Book by the Today Show, the New York Post, and New York Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News and Barnes and Noble all chose THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES as one of the Best Books of the Year. Currently, Jessica lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College. For information go to www.jessicaanyablau.com
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