Stanley writes: This is my first time being published on the net. It provides interesting alternatives to the traditional print medium-- access and flexibility over solid durability and physical manufacture. Immediacy over the tangible. I was thinking the other day about how technology affects style and voice and how Jack Kerouac would tape pieces of paper together to form a roll for his typewriter so that he didn't have to stop and break the "flow" of his "blowing": A "technological innovation" which aided a stylistic innovation-- sort of like LP's allowing for longer solos and songs, i.e. Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"-- though interestingly I think the song had to be broken up into two parts for the single... Anyway, I've always thought Kerouac was brilliant and yet suspected that his "spontaneous bop", liberating as it is, also made a certain kind of "laziness" (though "laziness" is too derogatory for what I mean) easier. Let's face it-- at least some editing might have helped. His physical apparatus (not to mention the drugs) made speed and immediacy practical as a medium for expression-- and revisions and crafting more easily avoided-- (who has time to ponder and craft when you've caught a great riff?). The computer on the other hand combines both. To compose on the keyboard allows one to "blow"--and then to easily edit--it even invites editing and revision by its ease (much quicker than long-hand--and easier than a typewriter). What stylistic innovations might that encourage?
