Jennifer Howard

Jennifer Howard

Writer, editor, journalist.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Mastodon
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Writing
    • Journalism
    • Fiction
  • Editing
  • Contact

One-Hit Wonders

August 11, 2011

2870348715_f78cc6d47a_mMy smartphone can do many things. It can send and receive emails. It lets me keep track of my calendar appointments and keep up with the news. It’s a portal to my social networks. It will take pictures and play me music. It even makes phone calls. All of this is useful and good. (I do wish at times it were a little smarter, especially when it tries to correct my diction. There’s an often hilarious poetry in the words it decides to autofill for me.)

The other day, though, I picked up a paperback–it happened to be Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop–and realized how happy I was that it wouldn’t let me do anything but read it. No email, no Internet access, no soft keys, no ringtones, no screens. I could pick up a pencil and annotate it if I wanted to. (I didn’t really want to. I just wanted to read it.) It was a relief to interact with a device, if one can call a codex a device, that only does one thing but does it very well.

So here’s a shout-out to tools and devices designed to do just one thing: hammers, toasters, can openers, typewriters, cheap paperbacks. I appreciate you, I do. Thanks for keeping it simple in a complicated world.

Image Source:

From "Solid Air Experiments" (1901-1904), William M. Vander Weyde. Negative, gelatin on glass. From the George Eastman House Collection, via Flickr Commons.

Filed Under: Tools

Previous Post

Page Time or Screen Time?

Next Post

Two Months in Two Paragraphs

Recent Writing

  • Home Range
  • A Garden Writer’s Novel Bears Fruit
  • As Humanities Fight for Support, New Journal Aims to Celebrate Their Role in Public Life

Recent Posts

  • My college road trip essay
  • Secret gardens
  • Fire, ice, and Feiffer

Get my newsletter

Get updates on what I'm working on and what I'm thinking about. Sign up and spread the word. Thanks!

Subscribe

About Jen

Jen Howard smiling.

Writer, journalist, editor, gadabout. Book- and nature lover. Washingtonian. LLC. Read more ยป

Latest Posts

  • My college road trip essay
  • Secret gardens
  • Fire, ice, and Feiffer
  • Twelfth Night/J6
  • November 2024: Quiet time

Follow Me

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Mastodon

Content is © Jennifer Howard or respective owners | Site by Rocketkoi