Friday, May 20, 2005

Powerbook you are so beautiful

I dearly love your beveled keys. They are firm but responsive, musical but industrious. Listen. Those soft clicks interrupted by the  syncopated clap of the spacebar. The tiny row of function buttons on the top, smoothly framed by the esc and eject buttons. The four arrow keys both with and separated from the others.
The subtlety of your trackpad, I wouldn't have known- I didn't know. How could I have suspect that something so metallic and bare could move me? (You know what I mean.) It's not like those other trackpads.
Silver, silver everywhere.  The powerful subdued cover opening to brightness- as if jewelry had come alive. Glowing and shimmering, facets expanding.
You resemble not other computers but the designs of movies. My apartment will never be your match until I can place you next to a door that softly slips into the wall as I near.
But even that isn't it. There is also in your features the strong shapes of modern art. Look only at the bottom half of the front it is as if I had gone into Plato's cave and switched on the lights, therefore finding the perfect button.   The long lines curving at the ends like a racetrack and then the black moat of air pulling me toward it. Made whole with the neat cupping of the frame.
Descending to the bottom it merges with other shapes- the tiny row of circles following behind larger one (like baby ducks), these circles buried into a 3-dimensional rectangle confronted by a smaller brightly framed one. In between these two rectangles, directly below the perfect button, parallel to the circle, sits a larger circle. A calm home bringing a Japanese sense of balance to the strong American shapes.   
And when you speak to me Vicki-with-an-I...

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