Marc Estrin
INTO THE BLOG
February 18, 2005
The word alone makes me want to don a wet-suit and a self-contained breathing apparatus. Eschewing the arachno-gaian beauty of “web” and the theo-linguistic reach of “logos”, it evokes for me only the dark muck of bogs and the visceral reaction, “Bleccch!”
But “blog” it seems to be—by the immediate embrace of computerland, and who am I to fight this City Hall? Hell, I wouldn’t even have been asked by my publisher to write one sans computerland, and I wouldn’t have a publisher because I would never have written anything.
I began writing only at 57 because I never wanted to retype a page. So much for re-writing and editing. And of course I’d never ask or hire anyone to type anything for me. Wrong side of the class struggle.
But back in the early 80s I was gathering signatures for a nuclear freeze in the mocking minus temperatures of a Vermont winter. My fingers were frozen, the pen wouldn’t work, and there were very few customers crazy enough to be out. Across the street, the Capitol Theater was playing The China Syndrome, and I thought, “This is nuts. Instead of standing out here, I should just write a film, have it produced, and not have to freeze my ass off for a couple of names on a petition.”
There followed a long and interesting story of stupid-naive-meets-the-real-world-of-publishing-and production, but early on, an inspired proto-geek told me I should have a better looking manuscript if I wanted anyone to take it seriously. He said he’d work with me on the computer he had built from spare parts.
It’s hard to imagine today—typing into a Rube Goldberg machine with wires attached by alligator clips to an oscilloscope CRT. I think there were even some radio tubes involved. But there it was—my “Einstein Weeps” manuscript glowing green in the computer’s memory, and no way to get it out but to print it, since there were no floppies I think, even floppy ones. I don’t remember how the printer was rigged—perhaps there were already neonate dot-matrix printers, perhaps Sam had made wirey love to an IBM Selectric, but before we printed out, he noticed I had spelled Charley Brown (a character) wrong throughout the manuscript. I was about to go through (no pages to retype!) and fix each occurrence, when Sam said “Wait. I’ll show you something neat.” He had programmed in a find and replace function: when he typed in “Charley”, then typed in “Charlie”, his little machine whirred for some seconds, and then said “Peep!” That’s what it said—a machine talking to me: “Peep!” And in case I didn’t speaka da language, it put up on screen “Done.”
“Peep!” “Done.” That was it. My heart went out, and I was computerized forever. And also freed up to write more than press releases.
These were the days of the Whole Earth Catalogue, the first editions of which were written and composed on a Kaypro CPM computer. I bought one used for 50 bucks, a sweet grey and blue suitcase-y thing whose face detached to become a keyboard which spoke to a 6” screen. I wrote all my sermons on it when I went off to UU seminary. And then I got twice fired for being “too political” for my congregations, and wound up working at the University of Vermont, where I had a real computer on my desk. By the time I was downsized, I had computer, internet, and typing skills, and could get serious about writing. Insect Dreams, my debut novel, followed soon after.
So, having been seduced by “Peep!”, who am I to object to “blog”? Especially if I don’t have to retype a page.