collapsible and they are limitless. i  stop

on the shoulder of the road to be peer

to that collapsing house. the young woman

who'd built her empire and then died. in every window

grew a tree and every lawn of grass, in the sardonic-

slogan 1990s, was painted with opinion. they say

that's what killed her; she had too much; said too

much. she cast her likeness in everything.

telephones, televisions, microwaves, and even computers (snicker!) had dials. i have a large monitor at home that is only about three years old; and it has a hybrid push /dial under the screen to adjust the colour, contrast. etc.

yet other than that and one or two other items, the dial seems to have been phased out.

 a partial list of things that (still) have dials:

thermostat

robots (i hope)

retro-futuristic computers (think 2001 a Space Odyssey)

the stove

electric guitar

chapstick

radio tuner

microwave at work (powerful, but of dubious vintage. it goes ding! rather than beep to signal the end of your meal. or the beginning.)

it was when i reheated up my famous jambalaya at workies and almost went for the newer microwave and chided myself for such an ageist philosophy when the dearth of the dial really hit home.

a recent study conducted by researchers and reported on the tv news last week suggested that, when given a choice, americans unconsciously favour the more youthful-looking salesperson, travel agent, etc.

if you walk into an appliance store, which may or may not feature items with dials, would you approach a craggy-, or smooth- faced salesman with your inquiries?

& why?

i can only guess that the phasing out of the dial is a result of two major factors. First, it may simply have gone out of vogue. Somewhere along the line someone decided that the dial was less sleek and convenient than the button. This brings us to a second theory: if strictly for convenience’ sake, is there any proof that the button requires less of an effort to manipulate than the dial? on which items?

dial = continuum, nuance, fine-tuning, analogue. reheating my lunch, i eyeballed the timer and approximated slightly over 3 minutes in a spatial manner rather than pinpoint an exact number over 3 minutes. let’s just round it to 3 minutes and 27 seconds.

who could fabricate that arbitrary shit with the more modern push-button version?

car radios that have push buttons lose that hair’s breadth of nuance required to get a clear signal for that hair metal song in Philadelphia out of, say, Jersey.

things that never had dials

cellphone

keyboard

xbox

if cellphones ever posessed the rotary dial, then mine would certainly have one.

I fell to two distinctions. What would you wear in a fire? probably I would grab my cell phone. And what would mean an easier death, perishing in the burning
building or being all alone outside at 3 am?
 
So when the alarm sounded at that time, but hardly surprised, I hesitated. Warm cooking smells, maybe, on the flights down to the street. Neighbours clustered on the sidewalk, on the useless lawn. A second story window flickered. Everyone comforting pets.  I'd left mine upstairs.
 
A whining firetruck pulled up and its inhabitants strode up in to the second storey. Smoke rolled from the open window next to the flickering. Looked like an argument. Finally, a proclamation: burnt sausage. It had, according to a sagely woman, ignited before.  
 

·         hermetic.
dormant. weighty but brittle. once it fell facefirst and reminded me of mashing down piano keys several at once. somewhere along its life it became stringless. i was more interested in piano. every sound mapped out before me.
·         voiced.
years later, i wanted something to practice after playing my friend’s guitar. even restrung, it was an underwater instrument. each note collided.
·         unknown.
i can tell you about my other guitars:  my nylon string, my hummingbird pickguard. one traveled across the country with my friend. the other was given to a neighbourhood couple moving to a virginia farm.
but i do dream of finding my mom’s guitar in the basement. it’ll be elegant. fleur-de-lis. maybe a dobro top. it has too many strings, like a hand with extra fingers. and it is as large as furniture.