Out of touch?
September 28th, 2009
I was in the midst of a business conversation today, speaking to someone about the clever technology their company has developed, when he tried to give me an example. “It’s like the video of the skateboarding dog.” I said I’ve never seen the video of the skateboarding dog.
If you want a definition of stunned silence, that’s what confronted me. It was like that scene in David Lodge’s Small World when Philip Swallow admits he has never read Hamlet.
I don’t think being ignorant about the skateboarding dog puts me in the category of fuddy-duddy high court judges — “What is this Beatles of which you speak?” — or the first president Bush who was amazed by a supermarket bar code scanner. But perhaps I’m wrong. Am I now disqualified from being in touch with the technology zeitgeist?
By the way, after our conversation I was sent a link to the skateboarding dog. I haven’t watched it, hoping my ignorance gives me a certain cachet.