Many happy hours of despair
My friend Myles sure knew how to turn a phrase—and also, in this particular case, how to align his expectations for what kind of experience his new computer might bring. Sadly for both of us, one thing the new computer ended up bringing was an end to our years of voluminous email correspondence. He and I became prolific penpals when he served as my grad thesis advisor at Buffalo (c.1993), a friendship that helped carry us each through some very rough times. But somehow the new laptop brought him too many new challenges at once, and he let his inbox overflow ignored until it would accept no more messages. We fell back on non-email connections, which neither of us managed nearly as fluently—until eventually I grew so accustomed to the new silence that I switched over into wondering how he was doing without even trying to pick up the phone, and thus managed not to learn of his death until recently, months after the fact.
Myles Slatin .:. March 3, 1924 – May 9, 2010
beloved mentor, confidant, teacher, scholar, artist
Myles drawing on Cape Cod, 9/03
Myles & lydia, 12/08
Strangely, I was not only thinking actively of Myles for much of that silent time, I was even launching a new project inspired directly by him, and by my grandfather whose situation is similar. I’ve been looking for a way to help prevent that same kind of disconnect from befalling the elders who are geographically nearer to me, within easier reach. It seems profoundly wrong that comfortable computer users, early adopters even, just suddenly hit a wall when their systems are upgraded under them one notch too far, and almost overnight the technology that’s supposed to help far-flung friends keep in touch becomes a mystifying and bothersome mess. Surely I can invent a way to help bridge this gap for others.
