From: utzoo!decvax!ittvax!sii!mem
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: More Lewis Carrol
Article-I.D.: sii.224
Posted: Tue Nov  9 02:38:28 1982
Received: Wed Nov 10 03:32:12 1982

c
It's after 2 am, there is silence (ignoring the pendulum of
the clock, which in a way contributes, by counterpoint, to
the silence).  I'm probably in an unusual situation; sitting
at the terminal I can look out the window, I cannot see
my nearest neighbor.  I am surrounded by woods, there is
absolutely no traffic on the road.

Anyway, all this - the silence, the woods, the darkness - all
this as a background to this terminal and my typing on it
points out what a medium of separateness this is.  The
electronic future, allowing, encouraging, remoteness.

As you can see, my coherence is also affected.  What I started
out to say, was to wonder about what brings people to
communicate at all this way.  I occasionally get a very
nice mail message from some random person, reply, and
as often as not never hear from them again.  I wonder if
composing a message on a terminal is much like rehearsing
a conversation, or introduction, in the mind, except that
the words on the terminal can get away with only a mood swing,
whereas the rehearsal has a harder time being brought to play.

Anyway, here is one that got away.

Mark Mallett