moment since Buckley complained about it thirty years ago in God and Man at Yale . The fact is that the greatest threats to pluralism, to academic freedom, and to the values of a liberal education at Yale have always come from the Left, not from the Right or the New Right. The status quo which Giamatti has been trying to preserve against the destabilizing efforts of groups like the Moral Majority is quite secure within Yale's gates. Preserving it, however, may not necessarily be in the best interests of the University."
I write to Joe Brown thanking him for a copy of his letter, and expressing doubts that Mr. Giamatti will answer it. There, though, I must sympathize, because it isn't possible to respond when the answer would require extensive analysis to mail that arrives in such volume as no doubt it does to the president of a major university. Sometimes I wonder whether no answer at all is preferable to a very brief, formulaic answer.
Brooklyn College wants a telegram sent to be read out when Stanley Goldstein is given the Alumnus of the Year award, which will happen tonight. Stan Goldstein is a high concentrate of ability and enthusiasm who launched an accountant's firm only seventeen years ago, and now it is huge. He is deeply conservative, and so to speak ex officio he became the accountant for National Review , the Conservative Book Club, and suchlike organizations, even as Monsignor Eugene Clark, and only Monsignor Clark, gives the benedictions at our functions. I write out the telegram and feel glad for Stanley, though I fear that he will attribute his winning the Alumnus of the Year award to his jogging every day. How hard he has tried to get me to take up that dismaying practice. But he always knows when it simply won't work . I told him I would endeavor to use an indoor bicycle every other day, and he is pacified; while I am troubled by my inconstancy. At my funeral, I know he will be saying, "I warned him, I warned him."
Hugh Kenner sends me a copy of a letter he has fired off to the gentlemen at the Heath Company, complaining of the incompleteness of the instructions that appear in the Personal Computing course distributed by Heath. The problem is that one is drowned with material after the reading of which one spends hours trying to find out exactly what to do . Hugh recites the difficulties he has had and, along about page three, writes with that terrifying clarity for which he is so famous:
"So let's outline something better. Suppose Manual #595-2268-04, which comes with the machine, ended its nut-&-bolts section by saying, 'You now have the following: [outline of your hardware]. To make it do anything useful you need an Operating System such as HDOS or CP/M, both available from Heath.' Now let the HDOS manual commence, quite simply, An Operating System like HDOS configures the computer to receive data, execute programs, and communicate with outside devices such as disk drives and printers. In particular, it looks after the details of program and data storage on disks, directing traffic to and from these storage devices. It contains a number of Drivers (ATH.DVD, etc.) from which you will be selecting the proper ones to communicate with your particular disk and printer configuration. And it contains a relatively simple BASIC interpreter, so that you will have one high-level language at your disposal immediately.' "
One would want to kiss such prose, were it ever attached to an instruction booklet. But I must not go on to affect that all mechanical problems disappear on experiencing Hugh's prose. As I write, in Switzerland, I am simultaneously attempting to master not the internal mysteries of a word processor, but merely the technique of operating one; and I have here at my side identical counterparts of the machines Hugh Kenner has—the Z-89, the two disk drives, and the Diablo Printer. And, most valuable of all, sixteen pages of typewritten instructions conceived and executed by the great Hugh Kenner.
I write to Joe Brown thanking him for a copy of his letter, and expressing doubts that Mr. Giamatti will answer it. There, though, I must sympathize, because it isn't possible to respond when the answer would require extensive analysis to mail that arrives in such volume as no doubt it does to the president of a major university. Sometimes I wonder whether no answer at all is preferable to a very brief, formulaic answer.
Brooklyn College wants a telegram sent to be read out when Stanley Goldstein is given the Alumnus of the Year award, which will happen tonight. Stan Goldstein is a high concentrate of ability and enthusiasm who launched an accountant's firm only seventeen years ago, and now it is huge. He is deeply conservative, and so to speak ex officio he became the accountant for National Review , the Conservative Book Club, and suchlike organizations, even as Monsignor Eugene Clark, and only Monsignor Clark, gives the benedictions at our functions. I write out the telegram and feel glad for Stanley, though I fear that he will attribute his winning the Alumnus of the Year award to his jogging every day. How hard he has tried to get me to take up that dismaying practice. But he always knows when it simply won't work . I told him I would endeavor to use an indoor bicycle every other day, and he is pacified; while I am troubled by my inconstancy. At my funeral, I know he will be saying, "I warned him, I warned him."
Hugh Kenner sends me a copy of a letter he has fired off to the gentlemen at the Heath Company, complaining of the incompleteness of the instructions that appear in the Personal Computing course distributed by Heath. The problem is that one is drowned with material after the reading of which one spends hours trying to find out exactly what to do . Hugh recites the difficulties he has had and, along about page three, writes with that terrifying clarity for which he is so famous:
"So let's outline something better. Suppose Manual #595-2268-04, which comes with the machine, ended its nut-&-bolts section by saying, 'You now have the following: [outline of your hardware]. To make it do anything useful you need an Operating System such as HDOS or CP/M, both available from Heath.' Now let the HDOS manual commence, quite simply, An Operating System like HDOS configures the computer to receive data, execute programs, and communicate with outside devices such as disk drives and printers. In particular, it looks after the details of program and data storage on disks, directing traffic to and from these storage devices. It contains a number of Drivers (ATH.DVD, etc.) from which you will be selecting the proper ones to communicate with your particular disk and printer configuration. And it contains a relatively simple BASIC interpreter, so that you will have one high-level language at your disposal immediately.' "
One would want to kiss such prose, were it ever attached to an instruction booklet. But I must not go on to affect that all mechanical problems disappear on experiencing Hugh's prose. As I write, in Switzerland, I am simultaneously attempting to master not the internal mysteries of a word processor, but merely the technique of operating one; and I have here at my side identical counterparts of the machines Hugh Kenner has—the Z-89, the two disk drives, and the Diablo Printer. And, most valuable of all, sixteen pages of typewritten instructions conceived and executed by the great Hugh Kenner.
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