Anti-technology

'Will no kindly earthquake come and swallow up those accursed cotton mills?'

(Charles Lamb, ‘The Superannuated Man’)

I don't know why I'm keeping a blog. After all, I'm hardly what you'd call a technocrat. Deep down, I believe it is every writer's job to be - at the very least - suspicious of technology. Ever since Romantics like Charles Lamb, it has been every writer's job to resist industry, technology, so-called 'progress;' and the internet should be no exception.


It seems fairly obvious to me that all technology of whatever kind is, at base, a matter of either sex or death. I'm not being Freudian here - or not just. I'm not just saying that all technology is propelled forwards by repressed impulses from the unconscious, from the twin Gods 'Eros' and 'Thanatos.' I'm not saying that precisely because these impulses aren't repressed, or concealed when it comes to technology. They're open secrets. Everyone knows (and knows consciously) that DVD technology, for example, was introduced for the porn industry, so people could cut quickly to the (ahem) good bits; everyone knows that the internet is 95% pornography, and the other 5%, consisting as it does of social networking sites and Friends Reunited, is basically an electronic knocking shop. On the other hand, everyone knows (and knows consciously) too that technology is propelled forwards most rapidly during times of war (which is to say all times) by the armaments industry.


So everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, that technology is ruled by Eros and Thanatos. And perhaps, at base (and here I am going to sound like Freud), Eros and Thanatos are the same thing when it comes to technology. Sex and death, love and death, pornography and war - they combine in all sorts of ways (American newscasters, after all, often pedal pornography-as-war).


So there you are. That's why writing a blog is a bit of an ambivalent experience for me. And I've yet to decide whether this blog is more about sex or about death, or if it combines the two.

P.S. there's stuff about technology here too:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1865942,00.html

Pre-sleep musing and cocoa

Hi, it's the wife. The 'Maria' part of the 'Jonny and Maria' outfit currently gracing your screens. I've never written a blog before but I've been an avid diary writing for many years now. I first kept a diary when I was eight years old. It was only a little, tatty green book and I didn't exactly write huge amounts but it was my diary. I imagine it's currently residing in a landfill site somewhere in the west of London. This is because my father had a phobia of books and writing of most kinds unless it was the racing pages at the back of the paper. I used to illustrate my day as well. I was in hospital once so I used to draw fetching sketches of me propped up on pillows eating grapes.
One of my favourite diaries was my 1991 edition; I was 12 to 13 at the time. The focus was mainly adolescent boys, haircuts and school. Perhaps I liked it so much because it created an image of normality. I also used to draw sketches too. This became the norm when I wasn't bothered writing the words in the entries. So a reader, or me 16 years later, would have to guess what the day was about through the medium of a fat-tipped felt pen.
Every teenaged-diary writer makes a thing about the secrecy issue. The inside front cover would always feature a warning to peeping eyes that was somewhat worded like a gypsy's curse, "If you dare to read this diary you suffer!" Oh yeah, like anyone would. Firstly, I was an only child and secondly my parents couldn't read English properly, apart from racing details in tabloid newspapers, which we've already stated.
My current diary is a return to form after a few years of sporadic scribbling. I'm managing to write something every day, despite the varying quality of the entries. I wonder what the point of writing a diary is, or indeed a blog? I think it's something that you only gain some semblance of pleasure from when you are actually writing. I'll think it over and tell you another day, I'm off for my comforting hot drink before nap time.

Anti-blogging (Jonathan)

Well, here I am, writing the first main entry in our "blog." What ghastly words: "blog" or "web-log" - they sound like an electronic poo, a log you do on the net. Nice. Bet that comment's been made a million times before, though: anything you say on the net has been said a million times before. The internet is a salutary and continual reminder that there is no such thing as originality. Anything you can possibly think of - and an infinite number of dark, grotesque, horrendous, bizarre, fascinating, sublime things you can't - have already been done a million million times on the net. So no point trying to be original in this blog.

Not really sure what the point of this blog is full-stop. I've never been much of a diarist. I'm with Philip Larkin, who once said (mournfully, no doubt): "I don't like going about pretending to be myself." I suppose that's odd for someone who's recently written a memoir, but maybe it's not so odd: I like looking back on happenings and turning them into stories, narratives or pub anecdotes, but don't feel I have much insight about my day-to-day life. When you're living day to day, there's not much to say. It's just a while later that you can start pretending it all fits into a pattern or story.

So what is the story going to be in this blog? No idea - will only know that when we've finished it, years on. I don't even know what the start of the story should, except that perhaps I should introduce myself to my "diary." I am Jonathan Taylor, and this blog is about me and my wife, Maria Taylor. I suggested to start with that I should write about her and her day, and she should write about mine. But then we decided that might prove a little divisive - my interpretation of her day might not be the same as her version, and vice versa. Such things are rows made on. So I'll just introduce myself.

I am the author of Take Me Home: Parkinson's, My Father, Myself, which was published by Granta this year: http://www.granta.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=3398

I am a lecturer in Creative Writing here: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/english/jonathan_taylor.jsp

And I am co-director here:

http://www.crystalclearcreators.org.uk/

.... Funny term, though, isn't it, "I am." We use it all the time without thinking about it. "I am" all of these things and none of them - especially this evening. Now all I am is tired. Technology has that effect on me. Good night.

Jonathan