I Remember Thinking That A Girdle Was

I Can Imagine A Future In Which Real Books Will Exist But In A More Limited, Particular Way.

I Teach A Non-fiction Writing Class At New York University, And One Of My Great Pleasures Is Deciding On The Syllabus.

When I Heard About The Microsoft Kinect, Though, I Felt An Urgency Rising In Me. A Game You Played Without Touching Any Machinery? A Chance To Wave Your Hands Around, Minority-report Style, And Move Things Around On A Screen? This Sounded Like Almost Too Much Fun, With Gadget-y Pizzazz That Sounded Astonishing.

Now We're E-mailing And Tweeting And Texting So Much, A Phone Call Comes As A Fresh Surprise. I Get Text Messages On My Cell Phone All Day Long, And It Warbles To Alert Me That Someone Has Sent Me A Message On Facebook Or A Reply Or Direct Message On Twitter, But It Rarely Ever Rings.

The World Is So Huge That People Are Always Getting Lost In It. There Are Too Many Ideas And Things And People Too Many Directions To Go. I Was Starting To Believe That The Reason It Matters To Care Passionately About Something Is That It Whittles The World Down To A More Manageable Size. It Makes The World Seem Not Huge And Empty But Full Of Possibility.