These were the words heard at the Film Forum last Friday, when the software went down. “Like it was 1977,” someone said.
The medical office I was in that morning was in a tizzy. Everything was behind because there was no tech.
“ ‘Blue screen of death’ hits NYC gov computers; jail cameras, arrest software down in ‘unprecedented’ global tech outage,” said The New York Post.
Yet again, another reminder that computers will, from time to time, fail us. Of course, from a truly hypocritical standpoint, it’s easy for me to see this problem firsthand. After all, I wrote last week’s blog about my near miss when I misplaced my laptop.
I’ve been seeing more and more articles by professional writers, especially journalists, who are going back to pen and paper. While their reasons may not be directly related to tech meltdowns, they do speak to us about the need for another way, a tried-and-true method that rarely fails us. What’s the worst that can happen? Your pen runs out of ink?
The following is from a New York Times article from earlier this year, entitled, “Writers: Always Pack a Notebook”:
Pete Wells, the chief restaurant critic for The New York Times, was on vacation this month when he learned that the renowned chef David Bouley had died.
Mr. Wells felt a duty to write about Mr. Bouley’s legacy, but there was one problem: He hadn’t packed his laptop. He did, however, have a stenographer’s pad. So Mr. Wells reverted to the ways of old and wrote an appraisal of Mr. Bouley using pen and paper. For him, it was a refreshing exercise, and for readers, an intimate glimpse into the work of a journalist.
I took a trip to San Francisco last year and, like Wells, didn’t pack my laptop, instead bringing a small notebook and Bic ball point pen. While I’m not sure why Wells didn’t pack his, I can say for myself I was saving weight, both in luggage and my back. Because I write at home, I have the luxury of not having to carry my laptop with me. If I leave home to write, I often do so by hand.
Lightness, however, is not the only reason. The Internet is a major tool and a more-than-minor distraction. While I often use it for research as I write, I find that even the searches in the middle of sentences are interruptions which disrupt the free flow of thoughts. In another article from the Times, “The Case for Writing Longhand: ‘It’s About Trying to Create That Little Space of Freedom’ ”, journalist Sam Anderson says he “…likes that the process slows him down and puts him in touch with his thoughts.”
And, of course, there are the distractions -- the did-I-pay-that-bill, or why-don’t-I-look-at-some-cute-summer-dresses -- which the Internet is there for, simply luring you down the proverbial rabbit hole of industriousness or temptation.
Last week I discovered a new park in the neighborhood – well, actually, a little out of the way – which was precisely why it was so delightful. It was new to me, it was a different destination, and I simply sat with my pen and notebook and wrote for a half hour, completely uninterrupted. I need to be doing this more often. It gets me out of the house, out of my head, and out of the rut of doing the same thing in the same place every day.
There’s also something else: I’ve always felt better when part of my day is spent writing in cursive. There’s a lot of research out there that says we process information differently when we handwrite, possibly because we often type faster than we write. I also love to see other people’s handwriting and have lots of great samples I’ve collected over the years. Boy, would it be fun to see this journalist’s place:
“Sam Anderson’s home office in Beacon, N.Y., is a palace of longhand. There are paragraphs scrawled inside the covers of books. Words are wedged into the corners of ripped-open envelopes. His looping script snakes its way down notepads — and there are piles of filled ones.
On nearly every scrawlable surface, there’s Mr. Anderson’s handwriting. And often, those scraps are the start of a story.” – The New York Times