I'm probably not the first (certainly not the last) person to use new media to mediate feelings of love and affection for that certain some one. In the Romantic era, they used mail (and the new speedy mail coach and national mail system) to mediate love, such as in the novels of Austen, and others. Now we use email, web sites, and digital music to do the same.
Here I'd like to mention music. I find myself, as I record music to my computer hard-drive, and then to my iPod, that there are certain songs I'd like to play for my boyfriend Wallace. I am, in fact (in my mind, at least), making a sound-track of our early romance. What kind of songs are on the sound-track?
"Love's Divine" by Seal
"Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinead O'Connor
"Salve Regina" by Francois Poulenc
"Love's in Need of Love Today" by Stevie Wonder
"Tantos Desejos" by Suba
"Sanctus" by Maurice Durufle (from the Requiem)
"Iko-Iko" by Zap Mama
"We Are All Made of Stars" by Moby
"I Need You in My Life" by Undercover Agency
"Responsory: Spiritui sancto" by Hildegard of Bingen (by way of Anonymous Four)
A strange mix--pop music, world, classical--but one that reflects the eclectic taste of me and my boyfriend. What makes this moment different is that I can so easily transport my soundtrack with me. With my iPod, I can create a song list including the above and carry it around with me everywhere. I can keep the same song list on my desk top computer at home, on my lap-top, and on my iPod itself. I could even upload them here for me (and you) to listen to online.
I am in fact encoding this music with my romantic feelings, at the same time that I am encoding my romantic feelings with the music. That may seem a particularly un-romantic way of looking at it, if you ascribe to the idea that technology is un-romantic. But I guess that's my point here--media is not inherently un-romantic. It is something that can be used to mediate romance, in the way that Christian, in Cyrano de Bergerac, used Cyrano to mediate his feelings of love for Roxanne. There are probably plenty of tongue-tied lovers that use iPods in this way (not to mention email). Though maybe we need to change the metaphor in the digital age and say "finger-tied" instead of "tongue-tied."
And now I should let my lover read this and decide whether my whispering sweet nothings into his ear piece (through songs on my iPod) is as romantic as I think it is.
"whispering sweet nothings into his ear piece"
This phrase alone is worth the price of admission.
An unromantic question about the Romantic era: what scholarly works would you recommend about the mail system during this period?
Posted by: gzombie at May 3, 2005 11:42 AMGood question, gzombie. I'll post something when I found out (I'm currently doing my comps list, so I'm up to my neck in books lately).
Since it took me three weeks to respond to this, you can expect my answer in, say, 3 months.
Posted by: jeb at May 19, 2005 5:06 PM