Early this morning I watched a library copy of Werner Herzog's "Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World." Fairly quickly I realized that I had seen it before. This time I took extensive notes, including noting my body sensations and emotions -- nausea, feeling chilled, feeling scared, feeling fear, feeling chilled, feeling chilled, and feeling chilled.
After watching the film in which all the "experts" laughed nervously when admitting how dependent we have become on something as truly fragile as the internet, I went to my laptop and HA!, I abruptly lost my internet connection for the second time in the past two weeks. Two weeks ago, several thousand XFINITY subscribers on my side of our town had no internet for most of a weekday at a time when more and more people depend on the internet in order to be able to work from home, not to mention working from anywhere else. So much now depends on an internet connection. I began to wonder if widespread internet outages are the wave of the future, like fires and floods and water shortages.
This time, though, it seems that it was just my very own corner of the internet that was down. A kind XFINITY tech named Grace (!) spent close to an hour with me on my cell phone doing diagnostic tests. It was determined that she needed to send an XFINITY technician to my home, and it was arranged for a technician to appear within the hour.
Within a few seconds of thanking her for her help and clicking on "End Call" on my cell phone, the internet connection was mysteriously restored and I cancelled the tech visit.
Hmmmm ...
This experience has not been reassuring.
*
Gonna save my money and rip it up!
Lo and behold! Lo and behold!
Lookin' for my lo and behold,
Get me outa here, my dear man!
(Bob Dylan, "Lo and Behold")
