Technologies of connection...

August 19, 2014 #

Technologies of connection constantly evolve, yet the older ones aren’t abandoned. Sometimes the evolution goes in reverse while going forward: I can now instantly pull up a lot about someone, read her words and see her face, and seem to hear her voice; but I can’t look up the number of the phone in her purse. In the past I could find her number in any phone booth or ask the operator in a distant city to find it, but anything much more took a private detective.

—John Crowley recalls his tenure as a telephone book proofreader in NYC 1968 in the most recent September issue of Harper’s.

Item originally posted to WeekendWindow tumblr