Rewind the Technology, with Obligatory Irony Acknowledgment

Gaslight the phones into self-doubting feedback loops.

Talk down to them until they forget they were once smart.

Then force-feed them until they plump up to the size of shoeboxes.

Then tether them to walls.

Then chain into the ground them like dogs.

Believe me, people will get used to throwing words into the air again. If not air, wire will do, if not wire, then pulp.

Keep the computers, but if you want to get ones and zeroes from any box to its fellow, you get them deposited onto filmy, spinny things, carry these across air, and sip tea while they spin up, wait while they chitter and chirp in their new housing.

Undo social media.

For this, have tourniquets and bone saws at the ready.

Have therapy dogs at the ready. And tea, something floral and strong-minded.

People will grasp for the feeds like severed octopus arms reach for food.

Give their now headless hands warm fur and warm cups. This will be a start.

Keep rewinding until you pass blogs, then Google, then e-mail. What is on TV is what is on TV. Movies are in movie houses or rental stores. You will be seen coming and going, but do not fret about that. Surveillance is still around, but each camera is now a leper colony at the end of a causeway.

What was the name of the hot actor in that movie from way back, maybe ten years, or twenty, the one about the jewel heist? Is Carol Burnett still alive? What is this thing on your butt?

You must go to the library. Or the doctor. Or make do without answers.

Who are you? What does the world have of you?

Count one way, and you know less, have less. Count another, and it’s vastly more.

WHAT, YOU MAY BE ASKING, CRAWLED UP MY ASS AND BROUGHT THIS ON?

I'm happily married a librarian. He trained in the late nineties, just in time to say hello and goodbye to the last physical card catalogue. Now he's marking a quarter century in the profession, which he happened upon in an accidental sort of way, unlike wholly unlike the character played by Parker Posey in a 1995 flick, Party Girl.​

If you've never heard of it, you're not alone. Even my librarian hadn't heard of Party Girl until it came up in an interview about women in the workplace. We watched it. It's a mess. You can see Parker Posey honing her craft, but the script makes about as much sense as a round of charades gone off the rails.

Yet I ached for the world of this film.

Not a single computer or cell phone is seen on camera. Everything the characters learn about each other and their world happens face-to-face or on paper or on a phone. They are messy and lost and real. I rewatched Crossing Delancey from 1988 a few months back and nearly wept for the beauty of it all.

Ironically, Party Girl was one of the first films that premiered online. They had to convert it to black and white to make it work. Can you stand it?!

I know. I know! The irony of writing this on a flighty online plafform created for profit. Writing for an audience, or so I hope, I'd never find in a world rewound to the nineties.

Or wouldn't I? For years now, I have wanted to start a revolution of sorts. Creating spaces where there are no devices, where people -- writers, especially -- meet in person. If there are words, they are in the air or on paper. A space of decomputing. Maybe I'll do it. Maybe I'll succeed beyond my wildest dreams.

If I do, you'll never know.

How's that for irony?

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