apropos of anything

I finished The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America this weekend. It’s a very absorbing slice of turn-of-the-century American life, especially in how it makes me think about our uber-technological world affects our lives. Things are supposed to be easier for us.

Thunderbird, my friend

I know they are, but everybody is so BUSY now. Multitasking is the norm; I know I’m always doing it, calling people on my cell as I’m driving, or emailing people at bizarre hours of the day, whenever I have a few minutes to whip out a message. And it really is whipping because gone are the days when I wrote long, chatty emails or, perish the thought, actual hand-written letters.

In The Devil in the White City, Larsen makes a point of noting that people back then wrote long letters regularly. It was, after all, their primary method of communicating. As I read the excerpts, I couldn’t help wondering how these people, who did not have laundry machines, cars, or even computers, managed to find the time to do all they did (build an entire world’s fair on an accelerated schedule without bulldozers and the like) and still write letters of such length and detail.

(And also correct spelling, which is such a point with me because I hate reading anything that’s littered with spelling mistakes. It’s called a dictionary, people. Learn it, live it, love it.)

I wrote letters in high school and even through the early part of college. They were long and gossipy, decorated with stickers, and accompanied by article clippings or photographs I found interesting. They took a long time to write, but when your friends live in other cities and long-distance phone calls are a luxury (remember 10 cents a minute?), that’s what you do. I still have every letter I was ever mailed in return. There’s something more personal about them than email, and I’ll likely keep them long after I’ve deleted old messages out of my inbox.

I don’t really write letters now. It’s mostly a time thing, I guess, as I can craft an equally long email in half the time it would take me to write a letter. Also, email allows me the luxury of editing as I go, whereas once I’ve written something down on paper, I’ve committed it unless I’m willing to rewrite the entire page.

I miss getting something other than bills in the mail, though.

On an entirely unrelated note, I am looking for a good Arab cookbook. I’ve heard good things about Spice, but I don’t know if it’s Arab Arab or Americanized Arab. I’m looking for the former. Suggestions, anyone?