An open letter to my husband’s boss at Gizmodo

Re: necessary compensation for my husband Jesus Diaz’s work writing about the iPad this weekend

Dear Brian Lam,

I need an iPad. Jesus just left for work and he took his.  He just put on his coat, took it and left! He was all, “Honey, you have a MacBook. And you can go use my desktop while I’m out.” He just has no concept of what it is I do all day. He thinks I need to sit at his big computer and work. No, what I need is a computer I can read on a bench in the dog park while Amos plays. I need to be able to read the paper. I don’t like reading it on my computer which means I read the paper a lot less than I’d like to. I’d go out and buy a real paper, but I don’t have $2.

But this isn’t so much a matter of money. Could any amount of money in the world buy a shoulder bag big enough to carry a calculator, a notebook, my phone, a pen, my wedding photos, Don Quixote, The Best of Leonard Cohen, a backgammon board, The New York Times, an etcha sketch, address book, and the fifth season of Weeds and something for Amos to chew on? That previous sentence may have sounded like some kind of “Look how amazing this thing is now let’s make comparisons to Mary Poppins’ carpetbag” or something, but that’s not what I meant. I meant that I realize now that I actually need all these things. I admit I find this a bit worrisome—I usually enjoy the experience of not needing something. Like, I’m really glad I don’t need to carry around an oxygen tank. So, I’m forced to question my motives: Is my brain no longer able to entertain itself? Has the “real” world ceased to be scintillating enough to capture my attention and curiosity? I don’t know. But it’s kind of like how it is when you really need a cigarette… Let me just find a light and then we can talk about lung cancer, okay? Also, there are at least five reasons why red wine may actually be good for you.

Brian, I am suffering. I miss it. The world is just no longer a place that makes sense. Look at this current scene: I’m using a mouse that is attached to a wire which keeps getting tangled. It has this little rubber nipple on it, which when you push on it—oh, nothing happens. The mouse controls a little black arrow appears in front of me. This makes no sense! I feel like I’m pushing elevator buttons with a broomstick.

If I had an iPad, right this moment I’d be outside reading. I don’t know much, but I do know this: Reading is better than writing. Especially writing when you don’t know much! And if you haven’t read the newspaper, really, what do you know?

My feeling is that there is too much writing out there and not enough reading. You know how many people write blogs but never read them? I don’t know either. But I bet it’s a lot. Call me small-minded, but I believe that most of us could be quite satisfied reading only literature that was written before 1923 and is therefore in the public domain. Every moment you spend writing blog crap that you probably wouldn’t read yourself could be spent reading something great. Think about it. There’s so much content out there, and stuff that has survived that long is probably good enough to warrant reading. Let’s work on gobbling up as much of it as we can before we start adding more stuff into the mix? Otherwise said: Writing is easier to do on a computer than it is on an iPad—and maybe making it a little harder for everyone to write all the time will give us a chance to catch up on the good stuff.

Honestly, I’d love it if my computer no longer had Internet at all. My dream is to do all my writing on a typewriter. Imagine it: I’d be able to write two, even three sentences in  a row without getting distracted by the endless hole of vital —vital!— information that exists just one “window” away. (Isn’t it cute how we used to always refer to windows?) If I could get all of my surfing and reading done while on the iPad, then my writing time would not be spent refreshing on Cute Overload. I also think I might have more to write about if I increased the time I spent more time outside with people and trees and less time tethered to this mouse and keyboard thingy and screen that is currently taking up eighty percent of my field of vision. 

JOURNALISM: THE REASON WHY I AM BROKE

I’m sure you are asking yourself something that seems quite reasonable: “Why don’t you buy your own damn iPad? You have a job.” Point taken. But do I have a job? I’m not so sure. My job is “journalist.” I believe this comes from the Greek word “journal” which means to write about the world in exchange for people paying you per word while drinking coffee.  One major issue in the media right now is the fact that so many people consider themselves “writers” now, and many of those people want to write about the world around them for free! And they don’t even need editing! Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Both! Neither! I don’t know. What I do know is that it would be easier for people like me to get work if there were more people using the Internet to read and not write; with any luck, some of those former writing-people will become sorting-people who can help tell the rest of us what is worth looking at. 

This brings me back to my original point: As an editor, Jesus is someone who is good at telling people what to look at. Right now, he’s busy telling people about the iPad. This is why I think you guys should really buy him one. Would he give me the one he bought for himself? Yes, probably. But that’s only because he knows I’ll treat it with all the respect it deserves. 

I don’t know about new journalism etiquette or morals or whatever, but back in my day publications had beauty closets and free book bins and wonderful publicists sending over care packages full of so many lovely things that journalists could never afford. Is this not the case anymore?  Do restaurant reviewers pay for their own meals or does the publication? Because when you have to pay for your own meal, sometimes the expensive stuff doesn’t seem so worth it. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have Jesus be negatively predisposed to anything from Apple. Don’t they advertise with you guys?

LOVE AT FIRST BYTE

I haven’t spent much time with the iPad yet, but I know it is meant to be. The few hours I spent with it were intense and beautiful. I will remember our time together always. 

To be honest, my ardor took me a little by surprise. Please know that I’m not some starry-eyed Mac sycophant swooning at some new aluminum-backed heartthrob. I’m a married 30-year-old, but my twenties saw me in several complex relationships with a wide variety of battery-operated wonders. There was that gray clamshell Mac laptop back in 2000, but, if I’m honest with myself, I’d have to say that it started disappointing me as soon as it left the box. 

Within a year of getting it, a man I liked suggested I get a Dell. It was all about the customer support, he said. Electronics are really about people. People in India, apparently. Whatever. I was young. I made the switch. It was never a very healthy relationship, but I’m not a quitter. I hung in there for several years, even reformatting the operating system on my own on several occasions. That was a crazy time in my life.

My first real, meaningful affair with anything handheld probably started with a CD player I got that could read MP3s burned onto a disc. I got this in 2002 because a guy I was into made me a mix and it wouldn’t play in my stereo. The disc had 120 songs on it! I carried other sundry CDs in a Case Logic in my shoulder bag on my way to work, but I was mostly content with the 120 songs available to me without having to scrounge through my purse. 

I also recall having really strong feelings for a small Samsung flip phone I got in 2003, but I no longer remember the model or the service provider. I do remember one of my bosses at The New York Observer so coveting my “tiny” phone that he threw it in the trash one afternoon while I was eating my lunch. A few minutes later he came back and helped me dig it out. That was the nicest thing that ever happened to me there.

There have been other devices that have mattered to me since then, but I now see they were all mere dalliances. Compared to many people my age, I think I’ve actually been rather abstemious when it comes to consuming electronics. My Dell period was followed by a lengthy Toshiba Satellite Period; I used it until the letters on the keys wiped off. I decided it was time to let go when I was informed a new keyboard would not be covered under warranty because the letters were considered “cosmetic.” I know, right? I only got my first MacBook last year. And I’ve never owned an iPhone. I used to want one, but after using the iPad, its light no longer shines so bright. Holding the iPad in my hand on Saturday, I felt like I was one of the first people in the world to see something the rest of the majority of the world would one day find indispensable. In comparison, the iPhone looks like a clunky toy for midgets. 

Now, that I’ve seen the possibilities, I don’t think I can live without them. Please help me.  Life is brief, and working on this hulking machine is only making it shorter. 

Yours,
Anna Jane Grossman

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