Are We Still on Talking Terms? A Case for Landlines

Here I am, in present day Astoria, Queens, on my landline. There are no tricks in this image, no filters, only a bit of cropping. I’m on my AT&T trim-line 210. It’s no nostalgia kick; I’ve been on the horn for years. One of my first jobs was hustling Parents Magazine as a telemarketer. I enjoy the aural stimulation I suppose. The unbeatably clean, crystal clear audio of talking on a real phone. The human qualities and nuances you can exploit and pick up on.

I refuse to live without such a competent and sturdy piece of telecom gear. A friend of mine (who also uses a landline) and I concur that landlines are what grownups use to make phone calls. They’re basic and simple. A landline phone is one of those classic, ‘perfect technologies,’ that reinvention has only diluted and distorted in the digital age.

Remember 1990’s cable TV? You could grab your remote and BLIP — instant satisfaction. Now, you wait a few seconds every time you press some boomerang shaped button. First, the audio comes on and the screen is still black. Next, a Pokemon-style menu pops up and tells you what program you’re listening to. Finally, a choppy and fuzzy picture affected by bandwidth-overload and digital compression comes through. But it still takes a moment for the image to turn the right color, for the aspect to refit itself, and for you to achieve something watchable. In that amount of time, the 1996 version of me would’ve already decided he didn’t want to watch channels 7-15 as he jumped from 6 to 16.

But back to 2012 and my precious landline. Am I being an elitist? Probably a little. It’s not that I’m too impatient to locate the cellular sweet spots at home. Moreover, it’s that it’ll bother me if I have to try; enough that I’ll be prompted to call and harass some innocent customer service rep in another country, where they might not even understand my dilemma, because they’ve leapfrogged right to cell phones and the future.

But I’d rather stay connected to my phone jack than solely rely on the ever-dodgy tech of cellular; praised from the heavenly tops of sky-high service bars by an industry that still won’t promise functionality. The spotty disappearances of 3G and sudden surrogacies of EDGE coverage have placed me beyond indignant, and into the abyss of resignation. And the constant glossing over by the precious advancement of high-resolution screens, the evolution and compactness of lithium batteries, the wonderful connectivity of today, the at-your-fingertips-licking-grin on Bill Gates’ face — ugh… it’s just incredible.

Still, the 30+ year-old technology that can’t beat my landline’s clarity won’t stop at absurd. Absurd is not the correct word for cellphone providers that are literally in the process of competing with birds for open skies.

But the outrage over dropped calls is a fading topic in itself. Voice and talk have had their heyday, quieted by texts, e-mail and web. Not only are these functions of smartphones and devices pacifying a modern culture whose OG fear is public speaking; now providers have begun to introduce beyond talk plans.

“Talk is so two years ago,” the barista in the ad says. And if she’s right, I guess I might as well see the bright side of things. Perhaps this is the rebirth of the epistolary tradition. A republic of letters. The sharing of sentiments.

But who am I kidding? Obviously the movement towards texting must have something to do with convenience; who should know better than New York? The city that’ll keep tossin’ plastic forks and salt sachets in awful plastic bags; sidestepping sales-tax just to keep a line movin’.

At first I thought I should have some epiphany and switch to a beyond talk plan. But I won’t, because I still insist on the next best thing to authentic intimacy — phone calls. The magically audible spectrum of correspondance. Texting as opposed to opening my mouth are two totally different things. To my friends and to myself, I know I’ve spent weeks of life digressing into debates over the content of lovers’ texts — quarrels and professions. You know, those classic architecture-of-response seminars where everyone triages their friend on what to text next. Fiddle me this: Why do people always come to the most vocal of their friends for advice? Why are the entrusted ones the outspoken, loud mouths? Is sharing your voice with someone a fundamental characteristic of intimate behavior? Is it merely a sign of communicability? If you want to talk about it, let me know and I’ll give you my home number.

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