"I've been known to e-mail people who were literally standing next to me, which I know sounds crazy, because at that distance I could easily call them on my cellphone." -- Dave Barry
At first, this looked like it might be amusing summer reading, if Dave Barry's review in The New York Times was any indication. The book is
SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. 247 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $19.95. The authors are deputy editorial page editor of the Times and editor in chief of Hyperion Books, respectively. Both, says Barry, have "extensive, and not always positive, experience sending and receiving e-mail." Their basic message, he says, consists of two rules: "Think before you send" and "Send e-mail you would like to receive."
Hmm. On second thought, I probably have enough stories to fill a book of my own about people doing dumb, sad and unintentionally hilarious things with e-mail:
- Students who send messages full of grammatical errors... while complaining about their grades...
- Faculty members who intend to reply to a friend's message with witty comments about a colleague, without noticing that the friend's message was sent to a departmental mailing list, and that "reply" would also send those comments to you-know-who.
- Dave Barry reports a similar incident of his own when he inadvertently sent a whole list a one-word note about one of its members, "comparing him to a common bodily orifice."
- I've even seen accidental "reply to everyone" messages on a mailing list for academics who claim some expertise in communication technology. You know... expertise about things like e-mail lists.
- Such list-mail faux pas is usually followed by a flurry of messages to the list saying "please unsubscribe me" or "how do I get off this list?" At the bottom of the message, appended by the listserv program, there usually is a clear instruction on how to unsubscribe yourself.
- And then there are the tragi-comic stories I might tell about myself, compulsively checking my eight or nine e-mail accounts... But, honest, I've cut down since then.
Reading Dave Barry's funny book review didn't feel like a waste of time, but it didn't convince me that the book he was reviewing would be worth it. Writing this extended note about it is only worth my time because I get to sneak in some summer reading suggestions for the handful of students and friends who read this blog.
If I wanted to be amused, I would forget e-mail and spend the same summer hours reading a book by Dave Barry... or re-reading some Mark Twain, or Kurt Vonnegut (so it goes), or Terry Pratchett (It may be time to reopen The Truth.) ... or any of the four "going to get around to them" big books on the bedside bookcase, by A.S. Byatt, Umberto Eco, Nabokov and Neal Stephenson... Ironically, after typing this whole note I went looking for a link to Neal Stephenson, and Google found that one -- which begins with a reference to "life in the era of e-mail..." and even quotes Umberto Eco: "I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages."
Oops. That reminds me of another book-related project for the summer: Deciding to part with some of the already-read books, past editions of textbooks, and out-of-date computer manuals... then move on to recycling a couple of cubic yards of old computer printouts and academic journals... maybe even two or three old computers... activities that will look suspiciously like I'm lightening the load in anticipation of moving to a new job in a new state, which just may be true.
10:24:36 AM 
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