Want to cultivate a sinister air?

[elfs]

Want to cultivate a reputation for sinister activity? Turn off your cell phone!

In the days before office life was subverted by the cult of personality, your average working stiff was always looking for ways to be out of contact. Phones were left off the hook, smokers popped down to the mailroom, phantom meetings were arranged in mystery locations across town, time-serving professionals sat alone on park benches and secretaries were regularly entreated by semaphore to deny one's availability. That was in the lazy, hazy days before the mobile phone. Nowadays, being unavailable is understood to be an act of aggression equal to driving tanks through the walls of the Danzig Post Office. To fail to answer your mobile phone, or to turn it off completely, is merely to announce that you are deep in the throes of a secret life. You don't care, you're not reliable, you've got something to hide, you're screening. There are few modern crimes so remarked on as the crime of unavailability. Answer or you're evil. Answer or you're dead.

Hmm, there's some really skiffy ideas in Andrew O'Hagan's latest essay. I am totally and without shame stealing the word "communiverse" for the foreshortened self-inflicted horizon of the consensual reality you share with your friends.

Comments

[intrepid-reason.livejournal.com]

I find myself battling this. It's actually become a game I try to play with myself, "can I leave my phone in the car, while I go have dinner?" or "can I turn it off while in the movie instead of just to vibrate?"

I have also become addicted to instant communication, and have problems coping when I can't achieve that with someone. I've been known to be a re-dialer. I am trying to quit it, but it's a tough habit to break.

Great op-ed piece, I appreciate you sharing this.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I must laugh. I always leave my damned cell phone off unless I'm either about to call someone or am expecting someone to call me. That stupid piece of electronics is for my convenience, not anyone else's.

That and having the theme from Airwolf unexpectedly blaring from the vicinity of my left hip can be a little embarrassing in public.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Depends on the circumstances. One of the IT guys (the department right next to us) has two major ring tones. The Airwolf theme and the A-Team theme.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The four themes I have on my phone are: Burly Brawl (the Mr Smith/Neo fight scene from the second flick), God is God (the Juno Reactor hit), The Mission Impossible theme from the third movie (heavily pumped up remix), and the scene from the Z-grade film Rectuma where the crazy doctor says, "Have you ever heard of the Mexican Butt-Humping Bullfrog?"

I couldn't find a good clip from A3's Woke Up This Morning (the theme from The Sopranos), Valley Girl, The Time Warp, or Inner Universe (the theme from Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Season 1, that I liked enough.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I am lame. I use the supplied ring tones because I don't like the Razr's use of the ring tone as the text message alert. When I had a Nokia, the Spouse was the Imperial March from Star Wars and BF#1 was Ride of the Valkyrie.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

I assume you have Inner Universe in MP3 format? I do, if you somehow are lacking it.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I have it on the iPod, yes. It was a matter of clipping out the right moment from the track that was loud enough to be distinctive. I never did find one. My Burly Brawl is actually two clips edited together: the Davis-style screeching violins from about one minute in for about seven seconds, followed by the high-speed Juno Reactor parts about mid-battle.

[jenk]

I used to have Pachebel's Canon. A cello-playing PM was very relieved when I switched to Linus & Lucy.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

You have to tell them why! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM)

[pteryxx.livejournal.com]

I've succumbed reluctantly to the demon phone, but with my contacts scattered across the country and no phone in my current residence, cell was really the only option. Free long distance saves my sanity.

After testing multiple ringtone clips for their ability to cut through background noise, I use the opening of Juno Reactor - Masters of the Universe. It'll make most of a room look round in amazement.

[tehrasha.livejournal.com]

I guess that makes me the defacto evil-overlord.
I do not, nor have ever owned a cell phone.

Just TRY to contact me away from home!! *muahaha*

[xengar.livejournal.com]

I agree, those of us without that demon inspired device strapped to our hip are looked at with disbelief of our very existence. I was actually once told that it's un-american to be without, although I don't think that the person was serious.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

I primarily have a cell phone for safety (calling for cabs late at night) or putting together last-minute plans, plus for the few people I call long-distance. I'm still amazed by how... confused and pissed people get when I won't freely give out my cell phone or they find out I almost never have it on.