So I'm on the road, now in Albuquerque (missed connections and twice rerouted, but three airports with mountain views to compensate) , and blogging on a borrowed PC in a hotel lobby. I don't have a laptop. There is a definite trend these days, when composers gather, to see them huddled over their portable computers (usually Macs) in cafes and other public places, either composing or wifing away. Am I missing some essential tool of the trade, have I made a counter-current lifestyle choice, am I just a semi-luddite, or am I always the last kid on the block to get the cool toys? I don't have a cell phone either, refuse to carry one; I even hate carrying timepieces around with me, preferring public clocks and querying strangers for the time).
Discuss.
3 comments:
I am also baffled by the way people work in public and in groups on their laptop computers, and I haven't left the "US and A" for decades. Like most parents, you will probably get a cell phone when your daughter starts to drive. We use our cell phone as a kind of family walkie-talkie. I don't think you're a semi-luddite, but then I'm not one to discuss tools of the trade. I'm a stranger here myself.
I do consider, however, a watch as an essential tool of the trade. I would be lost without one, especially in a place like Albuquerque.
I have no cell phone and don't want to. I carry a watch in my pocket, otherwise I keep looking at my wrist twice a minute. Still haven't got a portable computer.
But the computer would be great...
I wouldn't be without a laptop; I even carried on on a hundred-mile walk last April. (Though I won't on a longer walk this summer: a handheld will have to do.) E-mail; blogging; reading blogs; looking up train schedules, hotel websites, finding restaurants... I wouldn't be without my laptop.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure about "wifing away." I don't think my wife would like that.
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