Tim Chambers

This is a book-chapter-verse (BCV) system for Bible references. Just as Strunk and White popularized, “Omit unnecessary words,” so this system omits unnecessary characters.

01.Genesis Ge
02.Exodus Ex
03.Leviticus Le
04.Numbers Nu
05.Deuteronomy De
06.Joshua Jo
07.Judges Jug
08.Ruth Ru
09.1-Samuel 1S
10.2-Samuel 2S
11.1-Kings 1K
12.2-Kings 2K
13.1-Chronicles 1Ch
14.2-Chronicles 2Ch
15.Ezra Ezr
16.Nehemiah Ne
17.Esther Es
18.Job Job
19.Psalms Ps
20.Proverbs Pr
21.Ecclesiastes Ec
22.Song-of-Solomon So
23.Isaiah Is
24.Jeremiah Je
25.Lamentations La
26.Ezekiel Eze
27.Daniel Da
28.Hosea Ho
29.Joel Joe
30.Amos Am
31.Obadiah Ob
32.Jonah Jon
33.Micah Mi
34.Nahum Na
35.Habakkuk Hb
36.Zephaniah Zp
37.Haggai Hg
38.Zechariah Zc
39.Malachi Ml
40.Matthew Mt
41.Mark Mk
42.Luke Lu
43.John Jh
44.Acts Ac
45.Romans Ro
46.1-Corinthians 1Co
47.2-Corinthians 2Co
48.Galatians Ga
49.Ephesians Ep
50.Philippians Php
51.Colossians Co
52.1-Thessalonians 1Th
53.2-Thessalonians 2Th
54.1-Timothy 1Ti
55.2-Timothy 2Ti
56.Titus Ti
57.Philemon Phe
58.Hebrews He
59.James Ja
60.1-Peter 1P
61.2-Peter 2P
62.1-John 1J
63.2-John 2J
64.3-John 3J
65.Jude Jue
66.Revelation Re

Prepending the book number, zero-padded, adds a little redundancy that also adds important information, conveyed in only two characters. Seeing the order in which the book appears in Bibles is very helpful to find the book in a codex.

Finally, zero-padding chapters and verses (as necessary) perfects sorting, e.g. 19Ps 001:1–6, 19Ps 100:1–5, 19Ps 102:01–28, 19Ps 119:001–176, 57Phe 1:01–25. 643J 1:01–14.

I asked Perplexity about the Kindle book controversy. Got a good summary: perplexity.ai/search/summarize-the-controversy-over-e7sdQH.PQ9WhfQh9jm9KBw

What you need to know is this: Download your Amazon Kindle book purchases by Feb 26th or lose them forever.

HT lithub.com/next-week-amazon-is-stripping-away-your-ability-to-download-your-ebooks for mentioning this tip by @craigmod.com for a simple browser script to back up all my books.

Photo by juliane Monari (with a special shout-out to Pexels.com!)

According to Grok 2

The “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad” is a reference to a fictional calendar system in David Foster Wallace’s novel “Infinite Jest.” In the book, years are sponsored by corporations or products, leading to names like “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad.” This particular year signifies a time within the narrative where time is measured by corporate sponsorships rather than traditional calendar years, highlighting themes of commercialization and the pervasive influence of advertising in society.

In “Infinite Jest,” this year is part of a timeline where traditional Gregorian calendar years are replaced by these sponsored years. The “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad” is one of several such years mentioned, including the “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment” and “Year of Glad.” This satirical naming convention serves to critique consumer culture and the commodification of even time itself.

For those interested in exploring further, there are analyses and discussions of this concept available in various literary forums and reviews. For instance, on Reddit, users have discussed and even created visual representations of this idea, reflecting on its significance within the novel’s broader themes.

Then I asked: Who is POTUS47?

Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on January 20, 2025, following his election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. His campaign and election were marked by significant events, including surviving two assassination attempts, which contributed to the historical context of his presidency. (According to Grok 2)

Compare POTUS47 IRL with fictional Johnny Gentle.

(The following is according to Grok 2)

Comparing Donald Trump, the real-life 47th President of the United States (POTUS47), with Johnny Gentle, a fictional character from David Foster Wallace’s novel “Infinite Jest,” reveals several intriguing parallels and contrasts:

Similarities:

• Entertainment Background: Both Trump and Johnny Gentle come from an entertainment background. Trump was known for his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” while Gentle is described as a former lounge singer and B-movie actor. This reflects a critique on the blurring lines between entertainment and politics, where charisma and public persona play significant roles in political success.
• Populist Appeal: Both figures capitalized on a populist wave, appealing to voters who felt disenfranchised by traditional politics. Trump’s campaign was marked by anti-establishment rhetoric, promising to “Make America Great Again,” while Gentle is portrayed as a leader of the “Clean U.S. Party” (C.U.S.P.), promising to clean up America from both literal and metaphorical pollution.
• Nationalism and Isolationism: There’s a shared theme of nationalism. Trump’s policies, like his stance on immigration and international trade, reflect a form of nationalism and isolationism. Similarly, Gentle’s policies involve isolating America by creating the “Great Concavity,” a vast waste dump area given to Canada, reflecting a form of extreme nationalism.
• Germaphobia: Trump has been known for his particular attention to hygiene, notably avoiding handshakes during the early stages of his presidency due to health concerns. Johnny Gentle is explicitly described as a severe germaphobe, to the extent of wearing surgical masks and promoting extreme cleanliness.
• Use of Vulgar Language: Both Trump and Gentle are noted for their use of profanity in public or political forums, which was somewhat unprecedented for their respective times. Trump’s use of coarse language was often highlighted in the media, while Gentle is depicted as the first U.S. President to say “shit” publicly.

Differences:

• Political Experience: Trump had some political experience before becoming president, having been involved in politics, though his background was primarily in business. Johnny Gentle, on the other hand, is portrayed with no prior political experience, jumping directly from entertainment to the presidency, which serves as a satirical commentary on American politics.
• Policy Execution: While Trump implemented policies that often stirred controversy, like border wall construction, tax reforms, and immigration policies, Gentle’s policies in “Infinite Jest” are more extreme and surreal, like giving away toxic land to Canada or the concept of “Subsidized Time” where years are sponsored by corporations.
• Outcome and Legacy: Trump’s presidency was marked by significant domestic and international impacts, including economic policies, judicial appointments, and international relations. Johnny Gentle’s administration in the novel leads to a dystopian scenario where America’s obsession with entertainment leads to its downfall, with a focus on cultural and environmental decay.
• Character Depth: Wallace uses Gentle to explore themes of entertainment addiction, environmentalism, and political satire in a deeply philosophical and absurd manner. Trump, as a real-life figure, embodies these themes but through the lens of actual policy, personal behavior, and political strategy, providing a different kind of narrative and public discourse.

In summary, while Donald Trump and Johnny Gentle share some thematic and superficial similarities, their differences lie in the execution and the reality versus fiction of their political actions and personal characteristics. Wallace’s Gentle serves as a hyperbolic mirror to critique aspects of American culture and politics, whereas Trump’s presidency provides a real-world case study of similar themes in action.

Compare the Department of Government Efficiency IRL with the fictional Organization of North American Nations.

(The following is according to Grok 2)

Here’s a comparison between the real-life “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) as proposed under President Donald Trump’s administration and the fictional “Organization of North American Nations” (ONAN) from David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”:

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - Real Life:

• Purpose: Announced by Donald Trump as a presidential advisory commission aimed at restructuring the federal government to reduce expenditures, cut regulations, and increase efficiency. It’s not a formal department but rather a commission led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
• Structure: Despite its name, it’s not intended to be an official federal executive department, thus not requiring congressional approval for its establishment. It operates outside the traditional government structure, focusing on advisory roles.
• Goals:
  • Dismantling government bureaucracy.
  • Slashing excess regulations.
  • Cutting wasteful expenditures.
  • Restructuring federal agencies.
• Criticism and Challenges:
  • Concerns about conflicts of interest given the leadership roles of Musk and Ramaswamy, both of whom have business dealings with the government.
  • Skepticism about the feasibility of achieving the $2 trillion in budget cuts proposed by Musk.
  • Legal and ethical concerns regarding the influence of private sector leaders on government policy without formal accountability mechanisms.
• Impact: As of early 2025, it’s too early to determine its real impact, but there’s skepticism regarding its effectiveness in navigating the complexities of government operations and legislative hurdles.

Organization of North American Nations (ONAN) - Fictional:

• Purpose: In “Infinite Jest,” ONAN is a fictional superstate formed by the unification of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, ostensibly to deal with environmental issues but more so to reflect a dystopian vision of nationalism, corporate influence, and entertainment addiction.
• Structure: ONAN is depicted as an exaggerated, bureaucratic entity where traditional national boundaries are blurred, and governance is influenced by corporate sponsorships (e.g., years named after corporate products like “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad”).
• Goals:
  • Dealing with toxic waste through the creation of “The Great Concavity/Convexity,” essentially giving away polluted land to Canada.
  • Promoting national cleanliness and isolation under the leadership of President Johnny Gentle, a former B-movie star turned politician with an extreme focus on hygiene.
• Criticism and Satire:
  • ONAN serves as a critique of American exceptionalism, consumerism, and the merging of entertainment with politics.
  • The environmental policy satirizes the absurdity of solving problems by simply relocating them, highlighting a lack of genuine commitment to environmental issues.
• Impact: In the narrative, ONAN’s policies lead to a dystopian society where entertainment, particularly the addictive “Infinite Jest” film, becomes a tool of control and escapism, showing a society in decline.

Comparative Analysis:

• Efficiency vs. Bureaucracy: DOGE aims at efficiency through deregulation and budget cuts, whereas ONAN is a satire on inefficiency, bloated bureaucracy, and misguided environmental policies.
• Leadership: While DOGE involves real-world business leaders, ONAN’s leadership, particularly Gentle, mocks the idea of celebrities or entertainers in political roles, echoing themes relevant to Trump’s presidency.
• Outcome: DOGE’s outcomes are speculative and subject to real-world political and legislative processes, whereas ONAN’s outcomes are satirically exaggerated to critique societal norms and political structures.
• Public Perception: DOGE has been met with mixed reactions, with concerns over its practical implementation, while ONAN is used by Wallace to explore deep philosophical questions about identity, nationalism, and the human condition through satire.

In summary, DOGE represents a specific, contemporary attempt at government reform, while ONAN is a broad, fictional critique of government, nationalism, and corporate influence, using humor and absurdity to highlight systemic issues. Both concepts, in their own ways, comment on the complexities and often the absurdities of modern governance.

Image by NightCafe (link)

Stream-of-consciousness blogging. I have a committed audience of one. (Hi, Son!)

I retired April 1st (no kidding). I was not adjusting to it very well. Friday I twittered that I was coming out of retirement to write a book. I have two working titles: Internet Wisdom, First Edition, and Sparky’s Booklet. I am not even sure what it’s about, yet. I started writing it in my commonplace book (c-book for short) a little bit at a time, out of order. I wrote “Begin my book” in my c-book on October 17, 2021. (That was 1183 days after I started gathering my thoughts in my c-book, by the way. I knew it was going to take a while to come together, not that the only reason I keep a c-book is to write books.)

I like to say that the first draft of my book is already written. All the words are in my c-book. Problem is, the words are not in the right order. And I don’t think the first draft is salable. Meanwhile, I blog.

I am writing this sitting inside Pikes Peak Brewing Company (PPBC). They have good fast Wi-Fi, and I am in the corner, an elbow away from my laptop’s power plug. As soon as I got here I ordered a dark meat chicken wrap from Tossed Food Truck. The band was on their final break. They started up and played until 4pm. I bought a Rocky Mountain root beer for $4 “plus change.” The “change” includes a brewer’s fee, which I am happy to pay. I ate my wrap. It was delicious! I had a nice chat with the owner, Morgan.

Before PPBC I was at Serranos, where I had the strangest “conversation” of my life. To protect the identities of my friends, I’ll call them Alex and Bob. Both are men.

Take a trip back in time with me. I join them. Bob reacts like an aggressive stallion. He doesn’t greet me. The exact words aren’t important. The message to me is, “You are intruding on my time with Alex.” He doesn’t tell me to leave, though, and I decide to stay as the third wheel. I am literally eavesdropping on their convo, and they are both aware of it! Alex is playing along with Bob. They are both talking about me, knowing I am here, and neither is inviting me to speak. So I remain silent. I’m learning things about both of them that they don’t talk to me about: their opinions on transgenderism, religion, etc. I learn that when Alex was growing up (some decades ago, but continuing after Vatican II), Catholic churches published the giving of every congregant. They published the attendance at activities such as pro-life rallies. These reports (confessionals?) were mailed to parishioners every month. As a Christian, I get it. I can see, theologically, how such transparency might help disciples grow spirtually. But that’s just not cool to do in America. Alex doesn’t know if the church still does that. But still. Wow.

Strange convo, right? It took me time to get used to the situation. I made mistakes, but Bob was consistent with his feedback. His message: “You may stay, but do not join the convo. This is our time to talk one on one.” At one point a laugh slipped out of me, and Bob mocked me. That worked. I didn’t make another mistake after that.

One final thing I want to mention today: AI. Generative Pre-trained Transformers. I like Brave Leo, built into the browser. This post’s image is a screenshot of the food truck’s home page and a convo I had with Leo about it.

Burnstein, Eli. Dictionary of Fine Distinctions Nuances, Niceties, and Subtle Shades of Meaning. Union Square & Co., 2024. (Libby | Proquest)

Total = 108 (including Introduction, Foreword, or Preface and the final Copyright vs. Trademark)

Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction, Foreword, or Preface
Emoji vs. Emoticon
Symphony vs. Concerto
Deep Web vs. Dark Web
Great Britain vs. United Kingdom
Envy vs. Jealousy
Bay vs. Gulf vs. Cove
Latte vs. Flat White vs. Cappuccino vs. Cortado
Assume vs. Presume
Accuracy vs. Precision
Ethics vs. Morality
Tights vs. Leggings vs. Pantyhose vs. Stockings
First Cousin vs. Once Removed
Shame vs. Guilt
Autocrat vs. Despot vs. Tyrant vs. Dictator
Typeface vs. Font
Snitch vs. Rat
Epigram vs. Aphorism vs. Maxim vs. Adage vs. Proverb
Natural Numbers vs. Integers vs. Rational Numbers vs. Real Numbers
Squash vs. Racquetball
Flail vs. Mace vs. Morning Star
Kitsch vs. Camp
Amp vs. Volt vs. Watt
Cardinal Number vs. Ordinal Number
Sorbet vs. Sherbet
Convince vs. Persuade
Catapult vs. Trebuchet
Goblin vs. Ogre vs. Troll
Porch vs. Deck vs. Veranda vs. Patio
Club Soda vs. Sparkling Water vs. Seltzer
Hermit vs. Anchorite
Maze vs. Labyrinth
All-Wheel Drive (AWD) vs. Four-Wheel Drive (4WD)
Robbery vs. Burglary
Spear vs. Javelin vs. Lance vs. Pike
Dinner vs. Supper
Parable vs. Fable
Continental US vs. Contiguous US
Shotgun House vs. Railroad Apartment
UI vs. UX
Combination vs. Permutation
Balcony vs. Terrace
Speedometer vs. Odometer
Blank Verse vs. Free Verse
Crypt vs. Catacomb
Lager vs. Ale
Lattice vs. Trellis
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) vs. Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE)
Gala vs. Ball
JPEG vs. PNG
Joint vs. Spliff
Missile vs. Torpedo
Lute vs. Lyre
Strategy vs. Tactics
Rational vs. Reasonable
Irony vs. Sarcasm
Doula vs. Midwife
Farm vs. Ranch
Hue vs. Tint vs. Shade vs. Tone
Pier vs. Quay vs. Wharf
Ponzi Scheme vs. Pyramid Scheme
Ristorante vs. Trattoria vs. Osteria
Clementine vs. Tangerine vs. Mandarin
Jargon vs. Slang
Stock vs. Bond
Stock vs. Broth
Harbor vs. Port vs. Marina
Thicket vs. Grove
Grammar vs. Syntax
Hay vs. Straw
4/4 Time vs. 2/2 Time
Verbal Irony vs. Dramatic Irony
Deadlift vs. Romanian Deadlift
Gully vs. Ravine vs. Gorge vs. Canyon
Civil Law vs. Common Law
Street vs. Boulevard vs. Avenue vs. Road
Pasture vs. Meadow
Parody vs. Satire
EST vs. EDT vs. ET
Modernity vs. Modernism
Fusilli vs. Rotini
Mesa vs. Butte
Phrase vs. Clause
Wicker vs. Rattan
Flotsam vs. Jetsam
Crumble vs. Crisp vs. Cobbler
Hansom vs. Barouche vs. Stagecoach vs. Troika
Stadium vs. Arena
Pidgin vs. Creole
Crew Cut vs. Brush Cut vs. Buzz Cut
Sleet vs. Hail
Slapstick vs. Screwball
Electric vs. Electronic
Satin vs. Sateen
Valid vs. Sound
Couch vs. Sofa
Monk vs. Friar
Kink vs. Fetish
Pronunciation vs. Enunciation
Hors d’Oeuvre vs. Canapé
Umlaut vs. Dieresis
Tremolo vs. Vibrato
Gondola vs. Funicular
Schlemiel vs. Schlimazel
Poisonous vs. Venomous
Swamp vs. Marsh vs. Bog
Beautiful vs. Sublime
Notes
Acknowledgements
Copyright vs. Trademark

I heard about this book on the Grammar Girl podcast (episode announcement) and immediately put a hold on the title at my library. I got it today. I’m loving it! The table of contents should pique you all to read it!

Some of you were locked in a dark cell, cruelly confined behind bars, Punished for defying God’s Word, for turning your back on the High God’s counsel— A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy, and not a soul in sight to help. Then you called out to God in your desperate condition; he got you out in the nick of time. He led you out of your dark, dark cell, broke open the jail and led you out. So thank God for his marvelous love, for his miracle mercy to the children he loves; He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors, he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks! — ‭Psalms 107:10-16 (MSG‬) (bible.com)

I want to keep this as a snapshot. 2dbbd607d5b43021a2e6b3dcdb45208a302410fbdcaec9dbb4770e3cf5680b49 (#2dbbd60 for short)

I am living in Colorado. I am a human being, not a human do-ing. I am two months into retirement but freelancing as a Technologist. (Not getting paid for it.)

I am replying to Dave Winer and pray that he accepts my request to be mentored.

I am caring for the people I love the most, striving to love my family, friends, and neighbors; and I am re-energizing (my primary hobby is reading and writing on the internet) so I can pace myself to do what matters most. I’m chatting with my daugher-in-law at Philotimo. You can join us! Left as an exercise for the student to figure out how.

Every day I listen to the ESV: Daily Office Lectionary. You should, too. (Derek Sivers, you are in my prayers.)

I ride my bicycle when the weather starts fair. I don’t mind riding in the rain. I hike even when it’s not so fair. Look me up on Strava, as biking and hiking are a couple ways I re-energize.

Kudos Derek Sivers for the idea to make a Now page. See nownownow.com.

Read Part 1

I first published this twelve years ago. I have lightly edited it. Take a journey back in time with me.

It’s funny, this digital music thing. Giddily-funny. In the 90’s I dreamed of paying 10¢ each for tracks. I expected I’d soon be able to buy them directly from the artists. I still hold out hope that someday musical artists will make a decent living supported by their fans through direct micropayments. Meanwhile, there’s CD Baby. (Thank you, Derek Sivers!) You can pay in chunks. I’m a fan of The Cook Trio. Delightful Gypsy jazz. And I will never forget the radical internet music pioneer Janis Ian. (Well, I did forget her name tonight, but a little Googling cured that lapse. What I never forgot was the impact she made on my understanding about how the internet was changing the music industry. That was before Radiohead was famous.) No Connection with CD Baby. Support independent music. Buy something through CD Baby.

And this brings me (finally—I know, I ramble) to my vision of the evolution of writing onto the internet. I think it was fair to talk about reading first. And music is just another form of art. Anyway. Writing. I’m about a thousand words into this piece. Why is that important? Because the art form I’m promoting is internet-enabled writing. This is the evolution of the blog post. I’m limiting myself to between 1700 and 1800 words. As I said, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that I red 1734 words by Larry uninterrupted and 1,794 words by Charles Murray before diving into my own work. That’s plenty of space to create a thoughtful essay. And I like to think of the blogger as an evolution of the essayist. (Thank you, Ken Myers, for the Mars Hill Audio Journal; thank you, Alan Jacobs, for being a frequent guest on MHAJ and for writing Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant, which has been on my to-read list since I heard Ken interview you, and thank you for introducing me to the father of essayists, Montaigne.)

The interview of Professor Jacobs by Ken Myers inspired me to download Charles Lamb’s book, Essays of Elia from Google. (It goes without saying that we all owe Google a debt of gratitude for starting to digitize the world’s books. But I’ll say it anyway: Thank you! You don’t have it all figured out yet, but you are taking digitization of human knowledge far beyond where Project Gutenberg has the resources to go.) Prof. Jacobs mentions Lamb’s essay, “Poor Relations”, which I found on page 173. I checked my journal. My entry for February 2, 2011 is: “[I] red the essay on [my wife]’s iPad. Exquisite!” I have not yet red Montaigne himself, but Prof. Jacobs raised my awareness of his importance, and a month later I listened to Sarah Bakewell discuss Montaigne on a Philosophy Bites podcast with Nigel Warburton. The next day I red “Montaigne’s Moment” by Anthony Gottlieb in the New York Times (online, of course—thank you, Lady Gray, for fighting to carve a path forward for digital newspaper survival; I loathe your myopic political bias but do not deny your influence).

And so I will restrict the length of my essays so that I can preserve a form that is comfortably readable on the internet. I appreciate how Twitter restricts me to 140 characters. (That restriction is to make a tweet fit in a single text message. I don’t know who decided on the length of text messages, but Wikipedians agree it was so they would fit into the existing signaling formats, and that sounds truthy enough for the purposes of this essay. (I have to double up on parentheses here to point out that it’s absurd to cite Wikipedia. Human beings create the content. They’re mostly anonymous cowards, but they’re all human. So you’re not citing an authority, you’re citing a crowd. Get it right! (And, tripling the parentheses, I thank you, Stephen Colbert, for inventing truthiness!))) I like to work within constraints. It’s good practice for all aspects life.

I now have to get ready for breakfast. This essay is just a little short. Better than risking being too long. But more than essays in past centuries, it lives! It’s not a finished draft because I don’t have time to review it thoroughly. Spell checkers catch gross mistakes, but we all know to write the first draft from the heart and the second draft from the head. I don’t have time to use my head if I want to get this published in the proper sequence. Up it goes. Then comes publicity: Instantly on Twitter. But later today at Google+, Facebook (default—I’m not sure if it will be public or not) and (perhaps—I’ll remove this parenthetic when I’m sure) LinkedIn. And email. Email isn’t being replaced by social media. It’s not either/or. It’s both-and. (Thank you for that image, Michael!)

Larry helps the reader avoid distraction by publishing links at the end of his essays. I’m taking it one step farther. Google and Wikipedia contain all the answers you need if you wish to follow up on anything I’ve said.

I first published this twelve years ago. [1]. I have lightly edited it. Take a journey back in time with me. It is in two parts because, ironically, it is too long for my modern micro.blog theme. Constraints. I mention that below.

It’s 0226. At least, it was when I started writing. At 0429 I realized I had more to read before breakfast. I got back to writing at 0504. (I’ve been using military time more and more. A symptom of the evolution toward 24-hour culture. What will this do to our natural rhythms of sleep and wakefulness? I’m the wrong person to ask. I have narcolepsy. No cataplexy, hallucinations, or sleep paralysis, thank God. Just a blurring of wakefulness, unconsciousness and REM sleep. Doesn’t explain the insomnia. In this case, my knowledge of my own sleep patterns leads me to conclude I couldn’t sleep because of my anticipation of my full agenda today: Discussing Early Christians Speak over breakfast with the men of StGAC, training for county GOP (unpaid) election work, then meeting fellow volunteers for the campaign to re-elect Amy Stephens for State House District 19. Then again, I would like to think that The Holy Spirit woke me up because I had work to do. Writing is work. To work is to pray. Therefore, by writing, I pray. And the purpose of prayer is to seek unity with the Creator of the Universe—thank you, Fr. Scott. But that’s enough theology for now.)

I think Larry Sanger is onto something. I red Part 1 of his blog series, “How Not to Use the Internet.” I agree: it’s a problem that the internet distracts us. And I am also reading Charles Murray’s piece in the New Criterion, “Future tense, IX: Out of the wilderness.” (Thank you, Arts & Letters Daily for the teaser, “What conditions give rise to great artistic achievements? Wealth, urban centers, belief in God. Wait: What? Secularism is incompatible with creativity…”) In fact, Part 2 of Larry’s piece (Part 1 of which I finished uninterrupted—1737 words according to Microsoft Word), is sitting right ahead of Murray’s piece in my Instapaper folder. (I’m not reading my collection in sequence. And, by the way, Instapaper totally rocks! I’m reading that folder offline in my Kindle app as a .mobi “magazine.”) His piece is 5592 words and I’m 1794 words into it. Coincidence, I don’t think so.

When I red Murray’s sentence, “In literature, the organizing structure that created an eruption of great work starting in the late eighteenth century was overwhelmingly dominated by a new principle: the modern novel,” I was hooked. Who has time for novels anymore? Well, I do. Sort of. I recently became aware of Thomas Pynchon’s existence. It seems he wrote an award-winning postmodern novel. Murray assumes his readers know this. I haven’t red the first word of it, though. The book I’m focused most on is a pair of stories in one volume: Not Quite Dead Enough and Booby Trap by Rex Stout. This book is a milestone for me. I’ve red other long works electronically. In the 90’s I had an IBM PC-XT that ran on two AA batteries and fit in the palm of my hand. I red The Imitation of Christ on it. I got through it, but it took much longer because it wasn’t very comfortable. I had to use some custom software to rotate the text into portrait mode, and the LCD contrast was not restful on the eyes, unlike a modern Kindle. I still haven’t finished Pride and Prejudice. I started it on an iPod Touch. I red a chapter or three in paperback, and I downloaded it to my NOOKcolor™. (That e-reader didn’t survive a fall from the floorboard of my car to the pavement. R.I.P.) It’s still sitting in my NOOK app library on my iPad, beckoning me. I don’t know how quickly I’ll finish it. But I fully intend to get through Stout’s nostalgic, light yet profound pair of stories on my iPad. They’re both contained in the first ebook I ever checked out from my library. (Thank you, Pikes Peak Library District, for inspiring me in 1979 with the idea that technology can make the humanities better!) I’ve already “renewed” it once (re-download after timebomb auto-delete). I have sixteen days left before I have to repeat that awkward yet tolerable (hey, what can one honestly expect for free?!) process. And so, for me, the novel is well underway toward being supplanted by electronic text.

Murray is also elaborating on music as art. That went digital before books, as we all know. My lovely and talented wife giddily shared her new acquisitions as we carpooled home yesterday evening: Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” (Oops. A tiny bit of her privacy just leaked onto the internet. Sorry, Sweetheart. Forgive me?) This was also a milestone. She paid $1.29 apiece. She said it was the first time she’d bought tracks since obtaining an iPhone. There was no easy way to confirm they’re MP3s during our trip, but I seem to remember that Apple raised their prices at the same time that they began selling the open format. I get my MP3s from Amazon for 23.26% less.

Continue reading Part 2

[1] http://home.pcisys.net/~tbc/posterous/posts/2012/05/the-evolution-of-writing-onto-the-internet.html

My friend Mike prays as follows to begin his time with his Bible each morning. (An original.)

Grant by your mercy, heavenly Father, to focus my mind and soften my heart that these thy words may be written therein, to inform and guide me that I, better the man that you created me to be, might walk henceforth in your ways reflecting the light of your love to the greater glory of your name. Amen.

(Also read his books FATHERS (autobiographical) and What If….)