brushing

When I pressed the button on my electronic toothbrush tonight, it whirred to life for a moment and then abruptly gave up the ghost.  I've been away from home for about a week and half now, and it seems my brush is missing it's sweet electric cradle back in New York.

My teeth still needed a good brushing, so I pressed the electric toothbrush back into service as its understudy, the lowly manual toothbrush.  As I brushed on wrist power, I thought about how curious and illuminating it is when a sophisticated piece of technology reverts to an undistinguished object.  Like when we ran John's grandpa's fancypants '76 Cadillac convertible out of gas back in high school.  One minute it's the best ride ever (OMG it was long and gold and had an 8-track player) but the next it's a dead hunk of steel on the side of the road.

Something in my composition loves this moment of fragility with technology.  It's the humanity packaged up in our creations, and it's comforting to see them screw up the same way we do now and again.  It's possible that a nascent Luddite slumbers beneath the technologist in me too, rooting for John Henry to beat the steam drill.  But we are the machine now, no?  Maybe toothbrushes don't count.  They're waiting for web 3.0, when it's all about mobile and local.

Anyhow, it's beautiful out here in Ojai, and my teeth are clean.