"The telephone is a good way to talk to people
without having to offer them a drink."Fran Lebowitz
Of all the things I really needed in my life this week (rain-boots; new suit;
re-enameled bath-tub; a proper holiday; fresh white flowers; therapy), another telephone was certainly not one of them.
Like most people, I am usually slumped
disconsolately at the office desk during daylight hours, easily reachable by cell
phone, or by terrestrial land-line, or by extra-terrestrial Skype on-line. And, in writing, via instant text message or email.In fact, our use of the 'speaking telegraph,' as it was once known, has become pretty neglected as a form of communication, given that the majority of the world's casual catch-up-chatting
is now done en masse with status updates and news feeds on Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites I'm too old to know about. Its far easier to log into these gossipy, image rich public forums for discourse, debate and entertainment, punctuated as they are by wry comments and passive thumbs up
signs from the multitudes, cheering the spirits - and ego - all at once.
These are the reasons why I've managed to shuffle along very well
without a house-phone for several years.Nevertheless, having been talked into signing up for my cable company's special TV/Internet/Phone deal that includes a free subscription to the Showtime Channel, I was enthralled by the thought of having a proper phone at home
again.To unlock the door after a
hard day's work, pour a glass of wine and stroll over to find the answering
machine blinking patiently with messages, just for me.Hitting play, reclining on the sofa,
I’d be the star of my own epic movie, with soundtrack provided by iPod (smooth saxophone, jazz, perhaps a bit of Lady GaGa) and evening
shadows dancing on the walls.Not
considering, for one moment, the possibility that there would be no messages waiting for me, and that, in adding yet
another mode of communication to the mix, it creates just one more way for
people not to get in touch.
Still, something about the idea filled me with a sense of
yearning for times gone by, when we weren't quite as immediately accessible as
we are today. To receive a phone call “at home” on a real telephone is
certainly more of an occasion, more of an event than picking up the cell or
responding to a text message while in harried transit to the grocery store.
The telephone draws much of its enigmatic appeal from the crucial role it played in old films, both as plot device and as a symbolic instrument of suspense, drama, fear and romance. Take Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) in which the story centers around sixteen telephone conversations.
The main character, Leona, played by Barbara Stanwyck is bedridden, and thus
disengaged from the people around her. The only way she can connect with others
is through the telephone. The telephone calls in D.O.A.
(1949) serve to provide the protaganist, Frank Bigelow (Edmund O'Brien) with new information about his circumstances and thus help to drive the story along. In Rear Window (1954), L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) accidentally picks up a call,
believing it to be a friend and inadvertently reveals what he knows to the villain, thus making himself a target for murder. And of course, Dial
M For Murder (1954) where the dastardly
plan to kill Margot (Grace Kelly) is scheduled to take place when she answers a late night call from her scheming husband. On a lighter note, who can forget the delightful
scene in Its a Wonderful Life (1946)
when Mary flirts audaciously on the telephone with Sam “Hee-Haw” Wainwright, a
sly eye cast solely in the direction of a grouchy George Bailey hovering beside
her in the hallway. And Pillow
Talk (1959) in which a man and woman bicker
over a shared phone line, a romantic comedy of errors based on telephone conversations
and mistaken identity.
Dorothy Parker was also acutely aware of the telephone's stature as an instrument of communication - or miscommunication - in our romantic lives. The short story, New York to Detroit (1928) recounts the painful conversation between
Jack, cavaliering out of town on business, and his distraught girlfriend, left behind and
missing him desperately.
“Please, when are you coming back? You don’t know how awful
it is without you. It’s been such a long time, dear, you said it would just be
for four or five days, and it’s been nearly three weeks. It’s like years and
years. Oh, it’s been so awful,
sweetheart – it’s just ---”
“Hey, I’m terribly sorry,” he said, “but I can’t hear one
damn thing you’re saying. Can’t you talk louder or something?”
“I thought maybe you’d telephone to say goodnight,
sometimes, - you know, the way you used to, when you were away.”
“Why I was going to, a lot of times,” he said, “but I thought
you’d probably be out, or something.”
“I haven’t been out,” she said. “I’ve been staying here, all
by myself. It’s – its sort of
better that way. Everybody says
‘when’s Jack coming back?’ and ‘what do you hear from Jack? And I’m afraid I’ll
cry in front of them. Darling it
hurts so terribly when they ask me about you and I have to say I don’t-“
“This is the damndest, lousiest connection I ever saw in my
life,” he said.
And in The Telephone Call (1930) another miserable (need we say female) soliloquist sits impatiently by the phone, waiting for a call from her
beloved. Waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
Counting to five hundred in fives.
She deliberates whether to call him herself, wonders as to whether there
was a misunderstanding, barters with the gods to make that interminably silent
telephone ring.
“This is the last time I’ll look at the clock. I will not
look at it again. It’s ten minutes past seven. He said he would telephone at five o’clock. “I’ll call you at five darling.” I
think that’s what he said “darling.”
I’m almost sure he said it there.
I know he called me “darling” twice, and the other time was when he said
good-bye. “Good-bye darling.” He
was busy, and he can’t say much in the office, but he called me “darling”
twice. He couldn’t have minded my
calling him up. I know you
shouldn’t keep telephoning them – I know they don’t like that."
Mrs. Parker's sharply humorous insight into the
state
of play between the sexes nearly a century ago is slightly disconcerting: her short stories could well have been written yesterday. If the misadventures of Bridget Jones (2001/2004) or Gigi Haim (2009) are anything to go by, it seems
very little has changed in terms of our ability to communicate at all - regardless of the technological progress we
may have made over the years."
“The shrill metallic urgency” of the telephone is a key
theme throughout The Great Gatsby
(1925), illustrating again communication (or lack of communication) between the players: there's no-one quite as distant as the person who will not pick up. And Jay Gatsby's frequent disappearances from the main scenes to take
mysterious calls, emphasizes, in many respects, the slightly shady, elusiveness of his character.
To me, the iconic nature of the telephone, as reflected both in film and on paper, is best captured by images of those heavy, black art deco models of the 1930s and 1940s, with their rotary dials, gleaming brass accents, and large, ear to mouth receivers. The sleek, hi-tech equipment of today, all efficiency and little substance, just doesn’t carry
the same evocative charm.
And so, I was determined to honor my pre-war apartment with something vaguely classic, that would not look out of
place on the set of a film noir. A phone that would make me feel like the femme fatale in a Raymond Chandler mystery, or the second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca.Initially, I had
considered buying an antique
re-furbished version, but couldn't justify the cost - particularly when I
have plenty of other means by which to contact the outside world in an
emergency. However, I found a suitably 'vintage' looking replica in Pottery Barn which would serve the purpose well. It's a beauty: an elegant,
chrome colored cradle phone, complete with an enormous receiver, rotary style buttons and a
traditional jingle jangle ring that I'm told can be heard in the deli at the corner of 43rd Street. Strange as it may seem, even though very few people are privy to the new number, having a proper, old-fashioned telephone in the apartment somehow makes it feel more grounded, more complete.
Maybe one day I’ll acquire something more authentic,
but until then, I'm happy to make this little nod to our less frenetic, more romantic past.Or perhaps not quite so romantic. Nostalgia, as they say, isn't what it used to be. According to certain reports, one of Dorothy Parker’s old
boyfriends, infused with liquor, once rose from the table at an evening dinner party
and excused himself with the words: "I gotta take a leak."
"He's shy," Mrs. Parker
quickly explained to the surrounding guests."He really has to use the telephone, but he's too
embarrassed to say so."
