Before I go on any further, I should tell you that I’m actually writing this post as a spoken piece which is being transcribed, or has been transcribed, I should say, so that is why there is sort of an extreme conversational tone to this post.  So I just wanted to give you the heads up as the reader that that’s actually what’s going on right now as I’m writing this post.  I guess “writing” needs to be in quotes.

Um, so this post is about the idea of handwriting or handwritten letters versus the idea of digitally represented letters, the kind that you’re reading right now (By letters, I mean a, b, c, and so on, not “Dear Blanche,. . .”).  Again, this post is not intended to be an argument against any of the points that Stella brought up on Friday. . . This post is more about the questions that I think need to be answered when it comes to the idea of handwriting and the representations of words and thoughts via a handwritten letter or manuscript versus the communication that takes place via digitally represented letters and words like the ones that you’re reading now on your computer screen.

The reason that I think this idea is interesting sort of goes back to some thoughts I had a few years ago about conceptual art.  Really, my thoughts were based on this idea that if conceptual art is really based on the idea itself or the concept, then we are actually moving away from the purity of the art when the conceptual piece is actually manufactured as an artifact because we lose the connection to the concept.  We use different senses than we might if we were just told about the concept or if we read about the concept.

So when we’re actually viewing a piece of conceptual art, we are sort of removed by at least one step from the concept itself.  So again, in my opinion, there’s a loss of the communication between the artist and the viewer of the purity of the concept.  Or the purity of the concept is clouded through the production of an artifact.

Another thing, or the reason I think this is an important point to bring up, and I’ve had this conversation before, when we talk about the idea of the death of the handwritten note or the handwritten letter, we often talk about this idea of there being a degree of intimacy lost in the communication when it comes to the handwritten letter versus a digitally manufactured and digitally delivered letter, say an email or an instant message or a text.

So if the point of a letter, a handwritten letter, is intimacy of communication, then the ultimate question is whether handwritten letters bring us a greater intimacy or a more intimate experience than digitally manufactured letters do.  And I would actually argue that this is not the case.  Or, I would at least argue that it is not exactly the case.

Okay.  So I would like to discuss very briefly the idea or the experience of a handwritten letter. Really, it has 3 parts.  A person writes it, a little time passes and it is delivered by someone else as time is passing, and finally the intended recipient reads the letter.  That’s you or me, the one who gets the letter.  Now the recipient, because what we’re talking about here is really the recipient, right? The person who’s reading the handwritten letter or is reading words that are represented on a computer screen. The recipient experiences a large degree of intimacy in a handwritten letter, but I argue that this is completely self-manufactured intimacy.  It must be so since the letter’s author is likely off somewhere else experiencing thoughts and emotions that are nowhere near connected to those that he or she was experiencing when he actually wrote the letter.  So the intimacy that the recipient of the letter is feeling is a one-way street.  Likely, probably, a one-way street. Again, the person who wrote the letter might be at work, might be stuck in traffic, might be writing a letter to someone else and is likely not feeling those feelings at that moment that he or she was when he or she wrote the letter.

So I would argue that what we are feeling in reality, the intimacy that we are feeling is really a connection to the letter itself, the physical object, not to the person who wrote it. In other words, it is the physical object or as I said the letter itself and not the pure experience of the letters’ contents.

Now the letter’s contents essentially are the feelings and thoughts that the person who wrote it was having at the time that they wrote it.  And you are removed from that experience by holding a letter in your hand. You’re thinking about their handwriting, you’re imagining what that person looked like when they wrote it maybe, what the expression on their face was, what time of day it was, what the light maybe was like in the room whwn they wrote it, or what the room itself looked like.  But you’re moved away from the actual words of the letter itself or the contents of the letter. The communication. Because that what letters are, right, they are supposed to be communication and in this case they’re supposed to be intimate communication.  Because that’s really what we’re talking about here.

So going back to the example that I brought up earlier of conceptual art, remember if it is the art, rather if the concept that is the art then the artifact works to move the viewer farther away from the art itself.  The viewer is experiencing a sensory reaction to an object, not an experience based purely on the concept.

Okay. Now let’s look at digital forms of communication.   The letters that you are seeing on your computer screen do not actually exist. They are, in fact, created by chains of zeroes and ones, or, more technically, they are created through tiny switches either being switched on or switched off.  In other words, unless you print this post they are not letters at all, but you are reading them as if they were.

So this leads to the obvious question: does it necessarily mean that the reader is somehow experiencing a purer communication via a computer screen than she or he would through a written letter?

If you have been following along so far, then the answer is yes.  This is because you are likely sitting in the same spot and looking at the same screen upon which you calculate your taxes, send emails, do instant messaging, and read or visit any number of websites.  So what I’m getting at is that you reading this post is not, physically speaking, a unique experience. You are not holding a handwritten, one-of-a-kind piece of paper. So you can experience a less removed understanding of my concepts.  Or a purer understanding of my concepts.

Another reason that I’d argue that the digital version of communication brings a greater degree of intimacy is based on the time factor. If a greater degree of intimacy is achieved when two or more people are communicating in real time, then it makes sense that instant messaging or texting is without a doubt a purer form of intimate  communication. In other words, you’re experiencing the joy; you are LOLing, as it were, while the other person is likely LOLing and whatnot.

So as we lament the death of handwriting, I further suggest that we consider what it actually is.  It actually is simply a form of communication that at one time was a technological miracle, much the same as our contemporary technological miracles.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that as we move farther away from the tradition of handwriting manuscripts, letters, and notes, I’m sure it will make momentary resurgences among the youth, much the same way that knitting or gardening has and will continue to do so in a cyclical fashion.

Finally I would argue that we have certainly created a wonderful community around the digital representation of letters through The Great Whatsit. Remember all the feelings that you’ve had, all the connections that you’ve had to all the other authors in the Great Whatsit community; you’ve never seen, or you’ve likely never seen, handwritten versions of our posts, even if posts were written on notebooks as some are–I know that I’ve written a couple in longhand–but really what you’re reading are just  digital representations of letters, not actual letters themselves. The end.

In the five years of our existence, we’ve had 1,579 posts and 18,456 comments. We’ve had fabulous bloggers come and go – miss you, BW, Dorothy Gale, Cedric, Rogan, E. Tan, Jeremy, Annie Walker, et. al! We’ve seen the waxing and waning of commenters such as Cynthia, Natasha, Marleyfan and the courageous Jane, who for a while fulfilled her pledge to comment every single day. We gave birth to Literacy H. Dogfight and introduced Biscuits to the lexicon. In younger, headier days, we had the energy to name our favorite posts of the year, the Whatsies.

On this notable occasion, let us take a look back at some of the posts that touched, provoked and moved us over the years.

There is, of course, the infamous “My Left Hand,” T-Wag’s heartfelt ode to the joys of marriage, which prompted a firestorm of debate among the Whatsiterati, many of whom had yet to meet each other in person.

There was Strip Maul, a pseudonymous post about the pleasures(?) of strip clubs… Intervention Prevention, a meditation on alcohol (ab)use… The War on Easter, an “expletive-laced, un-Christian, anti-Easter tirade that may strike some sensitive readers as blasphemous and mean.”

We’ve had posts that resulted in family feuds, angry students and fired-up stalkers. We’ve had Thursday Open Threads, Monday photos, and numerous playlists. We’ve had endless discussions about TGW itself, and inside-baseball posts about our relationships to each other.

One of my favorite pastimes, when I have the time, is to check out the “From the Archives” link on the right-hand sidebar of the site. The depth and breadth of posts never fails to astonish. Some of my favorites posts from over the years include:

Pandora’s For You, Twenty Years Later.

Dorothy Gale’s Budaghers.

Swells’s Talk Yurty To Me.

Stella’s ruminations on Imposture and Stranger Behavior…. Rachel’s moving reminiscence of Happycakes… Farrell’s Ten Things to Remember When Chasing Down a Burglar… Andrew’s The Day My Office Stood Still… Jeremy’s Not in My Nature… Trixie’s home renovation photo essays…

Scotty’s beautiful ode to his father, which I can’t find on the site right now. Can anyone help?

T-Wag’s To Live and Ride in LA… J-Man’s I Wish I Had a River… Rogan’s Crack House Diaries… Bryan’s Five Years On: The Things I Can’t Forget…

Dave’s innumerable thoughtful, well-argued essays on pressing political, economic and social matters, each of which costs me more brain cells to read than it did for for him to write. Plus, his occasional lighter fare, such as A Trip to Spa Castle.

And so on and so forth, forever.

Five years is a good run. What are your favorite TGW memories?

Scotty Amid the Mummers

For years, I’d heard that Philadelphia was the place to be for New Year’s, and with the arrogance of a proper New Yorker upon hearing anything is good somewhere else, I thought, yes, I’m sure it’s lovely, dear. We have plenty of opportunities to vomit in public right here at home. As for some kind of wild parade on the first day of the year, well, it’s my personal tradition to spend that whole day wishing I were dead and trying to remember where I left my underwear.

Trixie and Farrell tried to get me on board the mothership last year, and it couldn’t be done, but this time I decided to beam up. I still feel like I’ve just gotten back from somewhere with a lot less gravity. But maybe the problem is just that New York has too much of it. Fun is harder here.

Philadelphians, I have learned, stone-cold don’t give a shit. Instead of a time for cranking back together the creaky old engine of life after a hard, long night out, New Year’s Day is when the party really starts. Around one pm, I was just becoming conscious enough to wonder if I wished I were dead and if I had underwear on when the street started to get seriously rowdy three floors below. I came downstairs to find the house full of folks slurping Bloody Marys and heading out for the Mummers Parade. You’re about to walk outside with a drink in your hand? Classic New York downer. Philly doesn’t even have real police today.

The Mummers Parade isn’t like the clean, art-directed events I’m used to, with pretty girls and politicians waving from a float sponsored by a bank. And it’s not the frantic mania of Mardi Gras, either. It’s a lot of people in Day-Glo hats drinking and yelling, overtired kids honking vuvuzelas and mummifying each other with Silly String, and guys who have the mien of union workers thumping somberly down the street wearing Strawberry Shortcake and furry outfits. There were definitely some people in white body stockings that I would not have guessed would relish the opportunity to wear white body stockings. Mostly there is a lot of drinking in the street and yelling, and no one is in a big hurry to get downtown.

Wikipedia offers this gem: “Henry Muhlenberg, writing in 1839, reported, ‘Men met on the roads in Tinicum and Kingsessing, who were disguised as clowns, shouting at the top of their voices and shooting guns.’” Hank was apparently, like me, very hung over when he experienced the event.

The strippers at the bar across the street didn’t disappoint that night, either. My previous experiences with strippers have led me to believe it’s just one of those things I don’t really get. It’s like theater for one, in which the play is a prank whose punchline is that you are not actually attractive to the actor. In the past, I tend to just put a dollar somewhere and hope the whole thing blows over quickly. But these Philly girls know how to do it. My favorite was the young lady in the middle with giant furry legwarmers and a thong wielding a plastic lightsaber in a way that didn’t need to be any more suggestive than it was. She seemed to be experiencing joy in what she did, and I can take great pleasure in that.

I guess that’s part of the thing I felt about the difference between partying in Philly and partying in New York. In New York, we go out to be seen, or watch other people who want to be seen, giving out and receiving attention in pharmaceutical doses. There seems to be little pleasure for its own sake sometimes, and especially on New Year’s Eve. In New York, we get fucked up because life is stressful and anxious, and it’s impossible to get the kind of love we want. In Philly, they party because it’s fucking New Year’s.

Thanks to all of you who made me feel so welcome.

Are you original readers still out there? Have any new people who’ve stumbled upon us continued to read regularly? Or is TGW sputtering toward single-digit readership?

I’ve asked the question before, and the site has always survived and even thrived, but: Whither TGW? Are you guys all still into this, as we approach our sixth (!) year?