The press and politicians. A delicate relationship. Too close, and danger ensues. Too far apart and democracy itself cannot functi...on without the essential exchange of information. Creative leaks, a discreet lunch, interchange in the Lobby, the art of the unattributable telephone call, late at night.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not ...intrude upon each other. The Navajos are not much in the habit of giving or of asking help. Their language is not a communicative one, and they never attempt an interchange of personality in speech. Over their forests there is the same inexorable reserve. Each tree has its exalted power to bear.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the de...af, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
TV's exploration of the game of consumption and sociability is, by the nature of the medium, on a far more subtle level than anyth...ing ever done by the movies. It can dramatize and expose and suggest ways of transcending social banality that are impossible to the screen, largely because of the very "actuality" and "interview" format of TV that at the same time produces so much of its rubbish. It is terrible but true that TV has probably elevated ten times as many family conversations in Sourwater, Georgia, as it has degraded there.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have "really happened,"... or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most condensed format of the conversionist motif is the TV commercial, which has become essential to both network and religiou...s broadcasting. Embedded in its structure are sentiments from our religious and political heritage: salvation and choice. Newness of life can now be associated with a change of heart about politics, the purchase of a new car, or the selection of a beverage. A Pepsi commercial, for example, designed to fit the charismatic personality and gifts of singer Michael Jackson, became an invitation to make a decision and join in. Images and sounds of the soft-drink ad drew viewers into a growing throng of happy, dancing people following the steps of a dynamic cultural hero. Even couch potatoes might have been roused, vicariously at least, to skip lightly behind the agile Jackson as he led his ecstatic followers to the right choice. The conversionist call in this instance is to come on up to the good life through Pepsi. Nonetheless it plays upon the persuasive motifs of turning around and becoming a part of something larger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given a...nd received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The source of all life and knowledge is in man and woman, and the source of all living is in the interchange and the meeting and m...ingling of these two: man-life and woman-life, man-knowledge and woman-knowledge, man-being and woman-being.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Computers "remember" things in the form of discrete entries: the input of quantities, graphics, words, etc. Each item is separable..., perhaps designated by a unique address or file name, and all of it subject to total recall. Unless the machine malfunctions, it can regurgitate everything it has stored exactly as it was entered, whether a single number or a lengthy document. This is what we expect of the machine. Human memory, on the other hand, is the invisible psychic adhesive that holds our identity together from moment to moment. This makes it a radically different phenomenon from computer memory. For one thing, it is fluid rather than granular, more like a wave than a particle. Like a wave, it spreads through the mind, puddling up here and there in odd personal associations that may be of the most inexplicable kind. It flows not only through the mind, but through the emotions, the senses, the body. We remember things as no computer can--in our muscles and reflexes: how to swim, play an instrument, use a tool.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »