Catch me I'm fallen...

When the portable tape recorder hit the academie, it was like that whole crack thing a few years later. There was this heady burst of energy, and for a while things got a little funky. Many a bowtie was unknotted, many a cognac glass was clinked over a wistful face made moreso by wrinkles. For the young ones, if you wanted to transfer all you had to do was promise the new office that you'd transcribe the incoming tapes. Under such circumstances, minimalism was appreciated. Here's an example of one type of said ism.

Many people, confused about what tape does, mailed in this kind of clip, framing a taped moment with their own post-scripted commentary. A strange predecessor to at least one species of the modern blog, no? Thankfully this trend died down. Maybe these mad recorders ran across an old tape that put them in disagreement with themselves. Donkee of course couldn't care less, we love that shit, but these types most likely freaked out. There are, however, some tough customers out there. Fritz started taping his interactions when, as he puts it "these machines were the size of a women's purse." Here's one from September 2004.

What a jerk! We had barely shook hands when he saw my book and said,

'I suppose Oulipian writers can console themselves with the fact that today people with no souls think their Ipods read their minds.'

I said I happen to think that my Ipod reads my mind. He said,

'Well I will laugh at any sad fact about humanity, I will accept that algorithms are the structure of life, but I think I'’m romantic enough not to attribute such powers to an Ipod.'

I said I happen to think it's quite romantic to find that a machine speaks to you.

'I guess that by romantic I meant eternally and senselessly at war with the technocratic. The best I'll give you is that it's not that it can predict your mind, it's that your mind is predictable. But your mind's not even predictable, it's simply malleable. For instance, watch this.'

Then he took the quart of milk out of the grocery bag I was carrying and drank the whole thing in my face. The surplus coursed down his neck in rivulets made feathery by pores and few-day-old hairs.

What a jerk!