Michael Martone
Warren Wilson
2008
The first iPhone I saw was Anthony Doerr's. A group of us at dusk were gathered around him, outside of the dorm where we were staying, waiting on the van that would take us into Asheville for dinner. He held up the black plastic puck, searching for a signal. Its flat screen flickered. Fireflies flickered in the rhododendrons all around us as if they were talking to each other. Earlier that day, Tony had given a lecture on "defamiliarization," and how we get used to the strangeness of the world. The funny thing is, he said, I don't even use it as a phone, and showed us how the letters of the keyboard that popped up exploded when he touched the twitching glass-like panel cupped in the palm of his hand.