strument in the hands of a good cook, but a microwave oven isrndesigned to heat up prepared foods, just as television is designedrnto pour someone else’s thoughts—already chewed, slobbered,rnand swallowed—into your head.rn”Whatever does not kill me makes me strong.” If there isrnmore than a grain of truth in Nietzsche’s aphorism, then the reversernmight also be true: what does not threaten me can onlyrnmake me weak, and every technical aid that liberates us fromrnhard work and direct experience reduces us to impotence. I dornnot say to you, writers and readers both, that you should eschewrntechnology and live in the woods, but that you should judgerneach technical device on its merits. The most basic criterionrnought to be: does the device make it easier to do what I wouldrnalready be doing or does it create its own forms and demands.rnSynthesizer music, computer graphics, video games are all saccharine,rnand the spirit that feeds on them will starve to death.rnMost cases are not so simple, and the prudent man will have tornask himself: Can I live and work without this tool or have circumstancesrnmade it indispensable? I don’t like cars, but withoutrnone I should have to live as a hermit and give up—well,rnhere in Rockford, nothing except the half hour it would take tornwalk to the office when it is 25 degrees below zero, but I dorndrive to Madison and Chicago, and I could never “escape tornWisconsin” (as the bumperstickers advise) without an automobile.rnIf you enjoy music, you should learn to play the piano orrnforce your children to play, but even for an accomplished amateurrna concert is an enjoyable experience. In these times, however,rnopera and symphony tickets are prohibitively expensive forrna family of six, and the choice that confronts us is either musicalrnilliteracy or some dependence upon recordings and videos.rnEven in the case of apparently benign technologies, the dayrncomes when you realize that you are now content to play thernstereo instead of the piano, that you cannot live without therncontinuous chatter of Vivaldi in the background. The scholarrnmay find his computer eminently useful, but eventually he mayrndiscover that he is spending more time on E-mail communicationsrnthan on research. The electronic village may turn outrnto be a real village in the sense that it is populated only by illiteraternpeasants, and the best advice I can offer the artist in arnworld increasingly inimical to his very existence is to follow thernexample of the Pilgrim who left all he had and went off cryingrn”Life.”rnTurn off, tune out, drop in. crnThe Blessed Metaphorsrnby Tom DischrnThey reigned while the brain was stillrna little simian, holy presences descendingrnin strobing flashes of enlightenment, as whenrnthe bosomy I lagia Sofa first proposedrnthe notion of a stool: three legs in a firmrnbase and one could sit anywhere;rnas when King Solemn divided the Gordian babernwho’d so much baffled her two mothers;rnas when the gods of rain and dirt made lovernand daisies blossomed, telling their pretty tales.rnThe nymphs and shepherds make garlands and agree:rnUnless you die, you will not live again! And so.rnMy silly darlings, come—I’ll put you in a bowl.rn18/CHRONICLESrnrnrn