In his book, Track Changes, Matthew G. Kirschenbaum discusses the revolutionary way in which computer word processors have moved the literary world, and calls attention to the way in which they define not just the artist but their works of literature as well. He calls upon many anecdotal pieces of evidence that bring light to the way in which word processors have called for a mode of literary reproduction and revision, making some of modern literature “overwritten” (188). With this new mode of writing, however, has also brought forth new ways of artistry interpretation, which has allowed many writers to communicate with words beyond just the words themselves. This modern spin allows the artist to wield his word-brush with father reaching brush strokes that speak to a 21^st century audience.

In his introduction, Kirschenbaum calls upon George R. R. Martin to show the way in which the technological world is leading literature. He uses Martin as an example due to the outdated word processor that he uses, WordStar, which allows him to write with control that is free of the autocorrect and constant grammar-watching frequented on other word processors such as Microsoft Word. This could define Martin, as Kirschenbaum writes, “WordStar thus becomes an accessory to his public image, like the black fisherman cap he is frequently photographed wearing” (2). However, WordStar goes farther than that: it defines not just the writer, but also the writing itself. Martin’s intricate plot lines and character developments are original and modernity-free, with no need for the current technologies of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Martin enjoys the “resistance,” or difficulties involved in older “modes” of writing that Kirschenbaum highlights because that is what brings character to his literature (4-5). Conversely, with newer technological modes, that resistance of keys jamming, or pen ripping through paper, is lost and a more fluid mode is created.

With this new mode of increasingly fluid word processors, Kirschenbaum notes how “overwritten” literature has become. He writes, “Word processing… encourages authors to overwrite because it is so easy for them to continue revising and embellishing their prose… The charge “overwritten” as brought to bear in this sense is pejorative, shorthand for the combination of efficiency and easy access tat is associated with word processing in the popular imagination” (188). Kirschenbaum discuses the way in which authors can continuously reference back to their writing with the help of these word processors, and rewrite their ideas repeatedly as well as utilize extensive online resources to aid in overly worded texts full of flowery thesaurus fellowships. More interestingly, he also shows how writers can revert back to prior literature and rewrite it as their own. He references Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which takes Jane Austen’s original pride and prejudice and, with the aid of word processors, replaces chunks of the original to create a newly revised novel based on martial arts prodigy and a monster hunter (191). This text too is overwritten with the aid of these new modes of writing, but Kirschenbaum lovingly calls this form of overwriting a “literary remix,” creating a more accessible piece of art to the 21^st century audience (192).

This accessibility of writing given way by word processors comes in more forms than in just the remixing of the words themselves. Kirschenbaum notes that “…The mundane conventions of writers’ computers and word processors are invited into the aesthetic or affective space of their work, thereby offering up new reservoirs of images, tropes, and formal devices.” In other words, with these new modes of writing, come new ways in which to create literary art. Kirschenbaum discusses how layout and font styles have shaped current literature to create a modern twist, and therefore a modern accessibility for this generation of readers. Kirschenbaum uses the novel by Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, as a great example. Danielewski utilizes a very imaginative layout with words scattered around pages in bizarre borders and different blockings to create a story beyond the words themselves, which he was only able to do with the help of numerous word processors. This mode of imaginative word processing taking the meaning beyond the words themselves is what Kirschenbaum coins as “World Processing” (195). While literature must hold some resistance of older technology to maintain originality and character, word processing’s fluidity does give way to a new form of artistry for writers and a more worldly array of interpretations for the modern reader.

In “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter”, Kittler writes of the way in which previous forms of media have transformed to include modern technologies that have completely changed the very way we view media: “What reached the page of the surprised author between 1880 and 1920 by means of the gramophone, film and typewriter—the very first mechanical media—amounts to a spectral photograph of our present as future. That is to say, with those early and seemingly harmless devices that could store and thereby separate as such, sounds, faces and documents, a mechanization of information began, which—in the hindsight of stories—already made today’s self-recursive number stream possible” (Kittler). While Kittler does not attempt to argue that new media has completely outdone stories and literature and written word in general, his piece works to inform the reader of the ways in which we have transformed our understanding of the way media works in society and in communication. With the integration of computers, separate media has become one single medium, allowing its users to transition from one media to another smoothly. This accessibility has made media so natural in daily use that we tend to lose sight of the meaning of media all together. Kittler uses the example of an airplane to explain this concept. On a single flight, “all the entertainment techniques are represented”—passengers simultaneously interact with the music industry, the film industry, the advertising industry, and the food industry seamlessly altering the way we perceive and internalize the role of media in our society.

Throughout this piece, Kittler draws from other media theorists including Benjamin and McLuhan to further his own arguments, citing the ways “media…are always already ahead of aesthetics”. Kittler argues that writing and written language was at the very origin of what we consider modern media. But this medium had its limitations in the simple fact that it could store only whatever was written and nothing more, he says: “writing stores only the fact of its authorization. It celebrates the storing monopoly of the god who has invented it. And because this god rules over signs that are not meaningless only for readers, all books are books of the dead”. With the rise of new media, storage has surpassed what was possible on paper in the use of computers; memory has in fact been replaced by technological storage. I am very guilty of this— I have all my passwords and personal information on a note app in my phone. It is a bad thing to do, I kno, but it is just so convenient. I’m not even sure Kittler argues whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for society; it seems as though this expansion of technological storage is seen as a loss in many ways: “As soon as optical and acoustical data can be put into some kind of media storage, people no longer need their memory. Its “liberation” is its end. As long as the book had to take care of all serial data flows, however, words trembled with sensuality and memory”. What I think he’s saying is that with this rise in technology and expansion of storage, meaning is lost in the process. But he also says that “No longer is it the case that “only through writing will the dead remain in the memory of the living,” which doesn’t totally seem like a bad thing, so it’s possible this shift in technology could perhaps be both beneficial and harmful to the advancement of society as a whole. Kittler finishes by imagining a future (honestly, it is the present) in which people are “simply thinking, writing, and computing machines”, forcing the reader to think about whether these advancements are harming or helping us.

In “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Men, Women and Masculinity”, Jack Halberstam offers a reinvestment in norms, particularly the normality through female masculinity. Halberstam’s focuses on ways in which masculinity manifests itself in women, and argues that masculinity shouldn’t be contextual with the male body and characteristics. This argument on the subject of masculinity and femininity contains essences of Butler’s “Female Trouble” but delves into the deeper arguments of constructing a masculinity that isn’t homogenized for men only. Butler would argue that this is a backward step in her theory because they believe in preserving the queer culture and spaces.

Halberstam establishes female masculinity that wasn’t socially recognized until the film movements in the 1990s that introduced the “silly archive”. The “silly archive” offered low brow cultural examples of masculinity and femininity. Known as “dumb everyday” pop culture, these tropes speak to a deep running current in our political and social lives; that bubbles up from the unspoken but commonly felt political unconsciousness. Through examples of the “silly archive” from films like “Chasing Amy”, Halberstam strives to separate masculinity as it is socially defined as “what males do” in attempts to separate it from maleness. Female masculinity allows for the redefinition of masculinity, preventing it to be gender exclusive.

Female masculinity reflects on masculinity by taking the totality and making it appear as a part. This allows the original totality to be considered vulnerable and weaker which deconstructs the claims of value that normal masculinity has be socially constructed upon. An example of this would be Viagra. Viagra deconstructs the totality of the whole. People depend on it to supplement their sex drive and sexuality which constantly needs to be reused. Halberstam pays attention to the overseen and often forgotten un-masculine men men who are segregated and put into a lower hegemonic order. Gay culture enacts the same “bad masculinity” as it is policed in heterosexual culture. Halberstam questions the policing of masculinity and where did this hegemonic order come from.

In effort to further grasp this theory, Halberstam draws from the work of Sedgwick at the love triangle that acts as a common trope in films during this “silly archive” film movement. The triangle consists of two men with the same female love interest. While in pursuance of the female (object of their desire), through the classic experience of masculinity, the two men end up comparing themselves to each other’s physical, emotional, and sexual qualities which creates a homo social desire. Halberstam uses Sedgwick’s triangle and reconfigures it where a woman is in pursuance of a “real man” (straight man) and/or and a gay man. In this scenario, the rival is a queer figure. The man has to compete with someone who represents a threat where his maleness is not questioned. There narratives leave alone the privacy of male masculinity which perpetuates it as the norm in our society.

This is seen through Daniel Clowes’ most notable comic and film adaption “Ghost World” which chronicles Enid and Rebecca who after graduation from high school take hard look at their dysfunctional world and try to grapple with their own reality of what to do with their lives. While on this journey, Enid, the main protagonist falls for a middle aged man Seymour, (righteously played by a middle aged Steve Buscemi) who’s interests include records, collecting chattchkis, and listening to blues. Though she still holds feelings for a mutual friend Josh who is of her age and works as a ghostly convenience store. Even though Steve Buscemi isn’t the gay man that is being pursued by Enid’s affection in contest with Josh, but he is extremely unmasculine in age and interest compared to the boyish energy of Josh. Ghost World inevitably challenges the triangle trope because Enid eventually sleeps with Seymour which makes him able to emotionally and physically (questionable?) fill the romantic void for Enid. This thought is still unsure for Enid still maintains her personality and autonomy through her leaving her own town on her own accord for her own reasons. She leaves everything behind, so does this mean that the “real man” and the “unmasculine man” can neither fulfill the role for female masculinity?

Halberstam want to imagine a narrative where a butch woman who’s more man that a straight man is accurately depicted. They argue for the representation of unorthodox masculine images that challenge the normal masculinity of straight men. But Halberstam realizes that characters such as these are still considered “radical” or “too edgy that most conservative narratives would rather leave the straight male as the soften patriarchy. And once the conflict is resolved, their masculinity still remains in tact. In this reimagined narrative, Halberstam questions as to why the figure of the lesbian is threatening to conservative masculinity.

The feeling of inadequacy is a common reason as to why conservative masculinity is so intimidated by the presence of lesbians in their narrative. Halberstam lists the two kinds of lesbians that are commonly depicted: the femme lesbian and the butch lesbian. The listing of this dichotomy allows for the trope of “the attractive lesbian who rejects them and the butch that rivals their masculinities” (265). The lesbian phallus is considered elusive and signifies the possibility of a female body of having phallic powers. In this case, lesbians are labeled by heterosexual men and or conservative narratives as undesirable out of a manifestation of inadequacy. A common stereotype arises in the many minds of heterosexual men that lesbians are hairy or less attractive. Halberstam notes that hair women are likely put down by men because their presentation of gender challenges maleness and almost impersonates maleness. It threatens men as the bearer of masculinity through their own phallic energy.

Halberstam explores how media such as these tropes can reflect the heterosexual man to see himself. They quote Paul Smith claiming the presence of the “vast” on the male body and masculinity. As a white man, he gets himself back through media channels and everyday life. This is indicative of Lacan’s mirror theory involving the toddler’s experience of dissonance. Instead, the man is seen as a subject as seen in the works of “Althusser” of being hailed. The difficult part of this idea of masculinity that has been constructed for the context of males is keeping up with a stereotype of masculinity. This forces the man to be suspended in being so focused on pretending they’re something else that they’re immediately produced an impossible image to achieve. This refers back to Lacan’s mirror theory concerning the toddler where the brain commands makes commands while the body haphazardly tries to obey and perform. But as much as they struggle and attempt to move in sequence, they are still not one. This prompts obsessive behavior to occur in order to keep up unruly insecurities at bay.

At the end of the argument, Halberstam ends with a story of a gay man being hailed by a stranger and misrecognized as a butch or a dyke. The hailer was speaking in a voice of an apolitical unconscious where by hailing a gay man, the boy attempts to assert his own masculinity, therefor constructing a totality. The gay man is puzzled for they recognize that as a gay man he has defined himself from male versions of masculinity. Halberstam leaves us to question of how much of gay masculinity has come from butch/lesbian culture which lets us explore on our own the influence cultures have on each other.

In Meltzer’s discourse on the unconscious, we see a lot of different explanations of the term “unconscious”. There are different connotations of the word, in terms of the mind and the soul. What Meltzer elaborates on, however, is how the unconscious is in relation to the psychological; this meaning how one is never actually aware of what is taking place inside them at any given time. This idea, of the “unknown” in the human mind is an especially interesting aspect of psychoanalysis because it is used as an excuse for certain horrific acts. When someone commits a crime, for example, the excuse may be that they don’t know what got into them. Everything of this sort relates to how we define the unconscious whether it be literally as in a coma or the like or something along the lines of psychologically.

One of the most prominent aspects of this discourse was the comparison of the consciousness and unconsciousness to that of a master and a slave, respectively. Consciousness therefore becomes the master in terms of being “recognized”. When one is thinking and processing the consciousness is what helps and supports this process. However with the unconscious we see this formation of “repression” or rather this aspect of inability to access these thoughts and ideals. Analyzing the unconscious as “abstract” (152) as Meltzer does promotes the understanding of it as one that needs “concrete metaphors and analogies” to understand it. No one could see and understand the unconscious because it is unseen and un-understandable as well as different for every individual because of different life experiences. One’s unconscious is directly linked to their life experiences and the ways in which they grow up and interact with others. It is interesting to see how the unconscious can never be pinned down, in terms of all humans as well as just in terms of one. This then leads to this realization that one does not even know oneself fully and the understanding that as an individual in a certain society one’s thoughts and ideologies are not even ones own. What I took to be the most prominent aspect of this piece is how the unconscious is viewed or conceptualized. There is a systematic view of the unconscious, that I find to be the most analytical as well as the most understanding. Viewing the unconscious systematically rather than in a dynamic or descriptive way allows for the feeling of true understanding of ones self while at the same time realizing that there is no true understanding or science behind the unconscious.

‘From Preface’, a chapter from Judith Butler’s ‘From Gender Trouble’ dabbles with the question ‘why is it hard to stay out of trouble; especially for women?’ ‘I noted that trouble sometimes euphemized some fundamentally serious problem usually related to the alleged mystery of all things feminine’ (2450). This sentence allows the reader to understand that trouble is inevitable, particularly for the woman because of how they are portrayed in society. Butler challenges these views of sexuality and gender in her chapter Subversive Bodily Acts.

The human body is ‘made up’ of two parts, the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ self. Both of these differences are socially constructed however, the hidden portion of the inner self is something that is forced upon us. Butler uses the argument of the soul. The soul is portrayed as an internal force, something that separates the inner from the outer self. Butler however, does not agree with this idea. She believes that the body imprisons the soul. She believes that the inner self is strictly made up from social constructs, nothing forced. Her argument of the inner and outer self being constructed by society is how it relates back to her idea of gender and sexuality. The term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ is ‘the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by a patriarchal society’. Butler uses this term to explain to the reader how we are taught the idea of sexuality from the very beginning of human life. Coining the idea of the soul being imprisoned by the body helps her support the idea that gender and sexuality are something that is learned and constructed, not a natural connection to one’s body. Judith Butler uses drag queens to help support her idea of gender being a construct.

‘Drag is a double inversion that says, ‘appearance is an illusion’’ (2549). This quote helps the reader understand that although someone might look feminine on the outside, but be masculine on the inside or, or masculine on the outside and feminine in the inside, it is all just socially constructed anyway. Drag queens being able to portray themselves in the way that they are helps Butler prove her point that gender and sexuality is just a performance, something where you can be what/who you want to be although society might not approve. Children learn from such a young age the gender they are ‘supposed’ to be. The use of drag queens helps the reader understand that you are not ‘supposed’ to be a specific gender because society tells you that; gender is a social construct.

Female masculinity has shown up more recently in present day culture, and one example in particular is rife with the energy and power that Halberstam discusses in “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Men, Women, and Masculinity”. Brooklyn rapper Young M.A.’s summer 2016 hit “OOOUUU” embodies so much of what Halberstam (and what Halberstam cites of Judith Butler) means when they discuss the subversive power of expressions of female masculinity. “It refuses the authentication of masculinity through maleness and maleness alone” and confirms alternative forms of masculinity that rely less on having a white, heterosexual ‘male’ body, although reliance on misogyny or misogynistic expressions are to be debated (Halberstam 2639).

The most referenced and contested lyric of “OOOUUU” is the line “Damn, she make me weak when she deep throat“. Young M.A. identifies as a lesbian and she has been subject to a barrage of questioning, scrutiny and curiosity over the line’s meaning in interviews and over social media. Regardless of conversation about M.A.’s sex life and whether or not a ‘deepthroat’ is technically possible, a specific type of sex act that cannot technically be performed on people with vaginas, M.A. has expressed that the lyric isn’t for other people, especially men, to fully understand. While it is her right to speak about her sex life as privately or publicly as she wishes, she has vaguely stated in interviews that other lesbians understand the sentiment that she’s getting at and that she does not feel a need to explain herself. The lyric evokes the sense of masculine power by referencing a would-be phallus, or as Judith Butler refers to it “the lesbian phallus” that is capable of wielding and possessing masculine power while being wholly separate from the male sex organ itself. In Halberstam’s article, they cite Butler’s discussion of Lacan and the mirror stage and how the body often misrecognizes itself in the mirror stage. However, Lacan does not acknowledge that men misrecognize their sex organs as proof of their own power and superiority, and channel this back out in the world to affirm their unstable sense of masculinity. Butler radically suggests that the possession of a penis is removed from the power of the phallus. M.A. expresses the power and dominance she feels that is so often entangled with masculine sex acts. As a homosexual woman , she references a sex act that is thought to require a penis, but in fact all it requires is the symbolic phallus and the feeling of masculine power, even when it is coming from a female body.

Young M.A.’s song is also frank and unabashed in its expression of queerness and teases at the fears of heterosexual men and the “threat” that masculine women pose to them. If the threat of the masculine woman is embedded in her ability to provide the female object of desire with more sexual pleasure, Young M.A. confidently (even cockily) revels in this in her lyrics. This expression of female masculinity is without a doubt an “assault on compulsory heterosexuality” (2639).

“If that’s your chick, then why she textin’ me?
Why she keep calling my phone speaking sexually?
Every time I’m out, why she stressin’ me?
You call her Stephanie? I call her Headphanie (OOOUUU)”

“When you tired of your man, give me a call” 

Young M.A.’s lyrics are not perfect or unproblematic, it is to be debated whether the song is fully removed from misogyny. , Especially considering the way sex acts like oral sex are referenced within it and when M.A says right after the aforementioned verse, “I don’t open doors for a whore, I just want the neck, nothin’ more“. One of the more common criticisms directed at rappers is that their lyrics can invoke and become tethered to misogyny in order to highlight masculine power. It is a complex debate that is constantly happening within the genre, but, this does not negate the fact that the rest of Young M.A.’s track is a subversive and confident expression of female masculinity. It’s hard not to echo the title’s sentiments upon first listen and as a listener exclaim “ooouuuu!”

Young M.A “OOOUUU” Official Lyrics & Meaning | Verified

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Young M.A “OOOUUU” (Official Video)

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In Gender trouble by Judith Butler, she argues that we shouldn’t see bodies as the base of our identity. Gender from a traditional standpoint is looked at from when a child first enters this world. Is it a boy or is it a girl? We make the distinction by looking at if the penis is there or if it is absent.  So, why does Butler call gender trouble in the first place? Female trouble can include pregnancy and menstruation. Menstruation being seen as trouble is pretty messed up because women have no control over that. Pregnancy is a bit more complicated because it is a lifelong and life altering decision. So women, have to be careful who they pregnant by. Women are continuously seen as the “other” in a patriarchal society.  Women being seen as the “other” can also mean that women can also be seen as subjects. Althusser should come to mind when thinking of humans being related to subjects. Remember at the end of Althusser’s essay when he talks about interpellation and the he example of the police officer saying “Hey You!”

According to Butler, Foucault argues that there is no ingrained “sex” and not being able to recognize the sex binary reinforces the subjugation of all people. Foucault uses Herculine as an example. Herculine is described as a hermaphrodite that was declared a girl but showed eventual male sex physical features and characteristics. Herculine chose a male identity later on in life. Foucault focuses on the time of Herculine’s life in which Herculine was not yet labeled as a male. Foucalt claims that this part of Herculine’s life was classified as non-gendered because Herculine was not forced to obey the traditional male or female norms. Herculine experiences happiness in this gender confusion. However, Butler disagrees with the happiness point that was made by Foucalt by claiming that Herculine battled emotionally during the non-gendered period because Herculine was unsuitable to fit into a category of the gender binary. Herculine becomes an ultimate example of ‘gender trouble’ because Herculine upset the gender/sex binary and challenges the difference between lesbianism and heterosexuality.

Butler agrees with Foucalt but, thinks that he doesn’t go far enough. Body gets transformed by mental culture and tendencies. She says most of the time we look at our bodies discreetly. You have a body and I have a body. They are all separated from each other. The body is thought of as being its own thing. This can relate to nationalism/Americanism by looking at our POTUS Donald Trump. Trump and his famous racist rhetoric “build a wall” is a great example. The body is the U.S.A. and nationalists look at the body as pure and foreigners are intruding the body.

Matthew G Kirschenbaum’s Track Changes is an extremely enlightening piece of work in terms of reference to late night show interviews as well as his explanation of the writing process and how in this day and age we see many differences. A fact that Kirschenbaum begins with is George R.R Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones series, use of an old school computer with no connection to the internet. Over this discourse the main theme is the connection between the writer and the writing instrument. As unimportant as your form of writing seems, as it does to me, in this aspect Martin represents this “blend of novelty and nostalgia” (2) and this then becomes one of the most important aspects of the piece. With the modern, more digital age we see a steep incline in the use of electronics in everyday life as well as a form of support for the user. It creates this ease of indulgence and therefore becomes a sort of crutch for the everyday person. Martin’s use of a specific word processor is a fact that many people held opinions on, both negative and positive but what needs to be understood is how the art of writing becomes something with a basis in how it is produced the best for each individual. A person might find that writing, with pen and paper, allows for a more clear form of productivity and inspiration but that has nothing to do with quality. Writing, as an art, is as subjective as any other form of art and therefore allows, or rather is enhanced by uniqueness.

Kirschenbaum does not seem to agree with the idea that with the technological age we have lost anything. Keyed to in the text as “emancipatory logic” by certain modernist authors, the electronic or word processing age is viewed as detrimental to the art and relationship of inscription and inscriber. This is the most important aspect of the text because of the way that these ideologies are portrayed and how Kirschenbaum’s ideologies come through. Holding to the idea that the word processor does not allow writers to have a certain relationship with their work is something that needs to be and should be viewed as personal opinion and preference. George R.R Martin found Wordstar and it “fit”, he was able to use this word processor to create a series that has been read and sold all around the world. Composition is different for everybody and this idea of “emancipatory logic” holds very opinionated views. It is not proven in any sense that one cannot create and be productive while using these forms of technology. Even George R.R Martin’s computer is seen as old school because it does not connect to the internet, that again however is personal preference. Not connecting to the internet allows for seclusion and the ability to dive into one’s own mind and create what he has created.

We can’t help but digest the horrific martial potential of a nuclear war against, for the imminent now, Jung Un’s North Korea. There’s an unnerving inference, whenever I read a NYT’s article—about U.S. defense, NK’s arm’s program, Trump’s reassuring words—that post-WWII America had when they discovered Soviet Union now have nuclear capabilities. It makes me think about T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, published post-WWI in shade of all the evil that man is capable of, whether ideology had firm infrastructure, a thought that the U.S. modernist sought to pick at. Eliot’s famous line, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust”, a line I’ve thought of during Kittler’s line, “The dream of a real visible or audible world arising from words has come to end.” (p.14)

He goes on to argue that the monopoly over human archives has ended since the mechanical invention of cinema, phonography, and typewriter, for they have parsed out the optical, acoustic, and written data flow that originated in the poetics of pre- & post- printing press. He makes special consideration for the typewriter; saying since it’s invention and popularity, the author’s intrinsic identity is anonymously disguised behind the uniformly calligraphic perfection, thus that “strangely unavoidable traces” (p.8) of a writer, is gone. Regarding effects of phonograph and cinema, the spirituality, or primal sensuality (as I’ll define later), which was manifested from hearer/audience’s active engagement, that’s rewarded as emotional memory thru “hallucination”(p.10) or reverie, is gone as well, from the “distracted person” (Benjamin, p.1069), at least when s/he’s not disinterested in the music or film.

But going back to Eliot’s ephemeral line, that reminds the inferring reader, that this world, cynically sourced by the Nietzschian ideology’s of man, is impermanent, and certainly vulnerable to a hydrogen bomb, prompts me to challenge the notion of that “the entertainment industry with it’s new sensuality” (p.14), and mechanical ability to capture the world, that literature writes of, is necessary. I’d argue, on the contrary to this notion, it compromises primal sensualities, or simple sensualities (that is superior over complex sensualities) subsequently compromises at-present emotional memory, which is more important than prudent memory, that mechanization promotes among other things, because the world, as war has proven, is impermanent. I’ll begin with two super brief historical antedotes that highlights the moral risk of complex sensualities, brought by exotic stimuli.

Mid-17^TH century, prior to the Dutch arriving tip of what’s considered Battery Park, the Lenape Indians who seasonally settled in the woodlands of the island, unaware of any European sensualities like distilled alcohol, vegetation, and fabrics; the Lenapes were content with the untouched flora and faun, and because they would migrate to the warmer south during winter, they never needed foreign clothes or blankets. So when the foreign Dutch introduction of such exotic materials, providing a vast array of unnecessary options, overtime became a livelihood crutch per se, thus fulfilling. in a psychological sense, a greater way to fulfill Maslow’s bottom hierarchy of needs, the resulting superfluous indulgences, especially alcohol, caused the southern Manhattan demise of the tribe. In confluence with the U.S. economic boom post-WWII many hundreds year later, where consumer consumption—driven by commercial ads on TV, billboard, radio, about appliances, cars, and clothes—was at it’s highest, psychologically, the private dwellings of white America had a gaping hole the size of a meteor, that an array of materials could only fill. Consumption, positively reinforced by the country, was, and still is, therefore the interminate culture.

It is this manufactured narcissism, that historically, on a mass scale, this American dream had numbed the primal sensual self, that, again, is more important during a nuclear age, than human mechanical archiving. The solution is not to become a luddite, because technological advancements, in general, helps further distance society from the prehistoric wilderness. And I’m not proposing any transcendentalist retirement from urban America either. But to first be aware such exotic and mechanized stimuli as an inevitable sensual crutch, and two, to engage in sensual primal simplicity, because of three reasons: (1) leisurely, it’s the greatest way to interact with yourself and others casually or intimately, (2) morally, it’s the greatest way to keep a society from developing crutches, as witness from the Lenapes, and (3) psychologically, it possibly ends this anxious rat race of becoming “independently successful”, through greater emphasis on community, through the primal sensuality that bornes empathy, as the Lenapes had prior to trading with the Dutch. Knowing that such, if our nuclear-era consumer culture could, to put it simply, do more with less, we can return to what matters more than the mechanization of the human footprint, as Shelly’s Ozymandias writes, “The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The introduction of Track Changes by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum starts by telling of an interview between the Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin and Conan O’Brien. Through this encounter, the world seemed shocked to find out that Martin uses WordStar to write his books, mainly to avoid any distractions that come along with having a computer that is connected to the number one mode of procrastination: the internet. Though I have never used WordStar, this alone almost sells me on using this outdated DOS-era computer. I remember using websites to block any social media usage on my computer when writing papers in high school, solely for this reason.

Kirschenbaum goes onto describe how on top of that, Martin prefers WordStar for other reasons too. Martin spoke about how WordStar does exactly what he wants it to do, and nothing more, which is very important for writers: everything they write is important and purposeful, so of course they do not want a word processing program to correct something that was not a mistake to begin with. This brought Kirschenbaum to writing about the bigger idea of the way people get accustomed to ways of writing. He writes:

“ Martin’s intimate knowledge of WordStar’s functions and keyboard patterns might be best characterized as tacit  knowledge, the extraordinary combination of muscle memory and unarticulated experience that enables is to perform very complex tasks without conscious effort or consciously knowing how to do them. Tacit knowledge is necessary for the flow states many writers cite as characteristics of their most productive sessions, and they deeply resent anything that jolts them out of that zones.” (10)

A deep connection to and necessity of modes of writing seems a little dramatic, but without a doubt does exist. It is interesting to notice the way in which writing with a pen as opposed to writing on a computer changes the way that people write, along with the way they feel when writing. To connect it back to Martin, imagine if he was for some reason forced to switch from WordStar to Microsoft Word. Who knows how his writing would change. Of course the words may not be dramatically different, but the act of writing and the feeling of the writer to the writing would very much be different.

It is very interesting to think about the significance of the modes of writing. Of course it has been something I have noticed on a small-scale, like, for example, I have a pen that is made by one of my favorite musical artists, Mod Sun, and on the pen he has written “Write when it’s Right,” and even though it is not a great pen, very cheap quality, if I am going to write in a journal or write a poem, that is THE pen I use. It just has some personal significance that makes me feel totally different about what I am writing. But, even though that noticeable difference of meaning connected to that pen is something I have thought about, I never really thought about how far that extends. I never thought about Google Docs versus Microsoft Word as an area of change in what people write. Kirschenbaum does a great job exploring a seemingly basic thing, and making people think more about how much meaning exists in the different modes of writing.