{"id":470,"date":"2008-05-22T16:04:54","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T23:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/05\/this-is-how-it-goes-when-youre-a-person-of-the-20th-century\/"},"modified":"2008-05-22T16:34:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T23:34:57","slug":"this-is-how-it-goes-when-youre-a-person-of-the-20th-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/22\/this-is-how-it-goes-when-youre-a-person-of-the-20th-century\/","title":{"rendered":"This is how it goes when you’re a person of the 20th Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

from New York Press<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

ALL THE NEWS THAT\u2019S FIT TO SQUINT<\/h3>\n

If the New York Times disappears, will the world survive? DAVID BLUM ponders a future without ink stains.<\/h4>\n

By David Blum<\/p>\n

Gay Talese won\u2019t go online, bless his ornery old-fashioned soul. He answers his phone like people used to (he\u2019s listed in the phone book and it\u2019s a land line, remember those?\u00a0Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!<\/em>) and says \u201cHello?\u201d and if you have a request he\u2019ll ask you to please fax it to him, because, yes, Gay has progressed into the modern\u00a0\"Gay era far enough to own a fax machine, he doesn\u2019t mind that particular whirring contraption, probably because it involves paper and the ringing of a phone\u2026it\u2019s like a Dixie cup and a string, only longer, looser, lighter than air, the connection invisible yet somehow tangible. He rises every morning and paws through the newspaper with the diligence of an obedient journalism student and checks his mailbox for letters with stamps on them (and there will be letters; people write to Gay Talese; I did when I was a young starry-eyed reporter; wouldn\u2019t you if you were?) and puts on an elegant Italian suit and, often, a wide-brimmed hat to match. He walks the streets of his Upper East Side neighborhood with the gait of a go-getting reporter, because he still is one, and he presses his opinions on people with the passion of a high-school debate team captain, only with more grace, more wit, more aplomb. Yes, the man has aplomb.<\/p>\n

\"Gay<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t like being Gay Talese. It\u2019s hard work and the rewards don\u2019t seem very obvious to someone with a website and a password and high-speed Internet access, the ultimate vrooooom vroooooom vroooooom\u2026 Remember vrooooom? No you don\u2019t, but that\u2019s okay because Tom Wolfe isn\u2019t New Journalism anymore, his old hats are old hat. Gonzo is the way of the world. Everyone writes in lower case. The world has abandoned traditional words and grammar in favor of shit that fits on a phone screen. Will u b there 4 a few mins? Meet u at ur apt 4 dinner? No time for apostrophes, my friend. Can\u2019t be bothered with articles. Won\u2019t.\u00a0 Fuck that. No point. By the clicking of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes.<\/p>\n

<\/span>[ click to read full piece at New York Press<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from New York Press ALL THE NEWS THAT\u2019S FIT TO SQUINT If the New York Times disappears, will the world survive? DAVID BLUM ponders a future without ink stains. By David Blum Gay Talese won\u2019t go online, bless his ornery old-fashioned soul. He answers his phone like people used to (he\u2019s listed in the phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}