I Just Won A Transmitter Tube
The best radio station on the planet is having their annual two week fund raising drive this week and next. I pledged and in addition to the other awesome swag they give away I was selected as the winner of a genuine, five year old used transmitter tube, "complete with a certificate of inauthenticiy". How cool is that?
An older gentleman got on the R train last night and after sitting quietly for one stop asked a woman if the train went to the ferry. "Get off at Whitehall Street" he was told. "It's right there and it's only 3 more stops". The guy said thanks, and then as we passed stops he counted down to himself "2 stops", "1 stop" and then got off at Whitehall.
This wouldn't be unusual except I saw the same guy do the same thing last week.
He doesn't look like a kook. He's neatly dressed in worn work clothes: plaid shirt, blue khaki pants. Both times he was carrying a package wrapped in paper and tied with a string. Maybe he's a messenger. Why does he engage in the ask-and-countdown ritual? Does he have OCD? Is he slow? Maybe he's lonely. Maybe it's his way of socializing.
Toward the end of his life Kurt Vonnegut said he enjoyed the rituals of mailing manuscripts even though technology had rendered the process obsolete. I read an essay where he lovingly described the process of going to the stationary store, picking out the right envelopes, putting the manuscripts in, then going to the post office and chatting with people on line there while waiting to pay. Sounds like he liked being around people and the process was a way of getting out and interacting with them, right?
Someone I worked with once saw Vonnegut sitting on the steps of his brownstone and approached him for an autograph. Instead of an autograph, Vonnegut stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking and handed it to the guy. So who knows?
I suspect that for all of us some kind of interaction is all that's needed. It doesn't have to be a positive interaction, or a negative interaction, or a neutral interaction. The interaction doesn't even have to be non-violent. How else do you explain the existence of contact sports?
It can even come in the form of voices and sounds over the airwaves, late at night in a dark room or in the middle of the day in a crummy office, or out of the dashboard of your car.
Can't wait to get my transmitter tube!
An older gentleman got on the R train last night and after sitting quietly for one stop asked a woman if the train went to the ferry. "Get off at Whitehall Street" he was told. "It's right there and it's only 3 more stops". The guy said thanks, and then as we passed stops he counted down to himself "2 stops", "1 stop" and then got off at Whitehall.
This wouldn't be unusual except I saw the same guy do the same thing last week.
He doesn't look like a kook. He's neatly dressed in worn work clothes: plaid shirt, blue khaki pants. Both times he was carrying a package wrapped in paper and tied with a string. Maybe he's a messenger. Why does he engage in the ask-and-countdown ritual? Does he have OCD? Is he slow? Maybe he's lonely. Maybe it's his way of socializing.
Toward the end of his life Kurt Vonnegut said he enjoyed the rituals of mailing manuscripts even though technology had rendered the process obsolete. I read an essay where he lovingly described the process of going to the stationary store, picking out the right envelopes, putting the manuscripts in, then going to the post office and chatting with people on line there while waiting to pay. Sounds like he liked being around people and the process was a way of getting out and interacting with them, right?
Someone I worked with once saw Vonnegut sitting on the steps of his brownstone and approached him for an autograph. Instead of an autograph, Vonnegut stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking and handed it to the guy. So who knows?
I suspect that for all of us some kind of interaction is all that's needed. It doesn't have to be a positive interaction, or a negative interaction, or a neutral interaction. The interaction doesn't even have to be non-violent. How else do you explain the existence of contact sports?
It can even come in the form of voices and sounds over the airwaves, late at night in a dark room or in the middle of the day in a crummy office, or out of the dashboard of your car.
Can't wait to get my transmitter tube!
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