ZAP! ZING! POW!
Thought you’d all like to benefit from my recent visit to the Genius Bar at Apple. (Regarding the Apple/Android war, I chose this path back in the early, the-world-is-lovely, we-are-all-one times, when all Apple products used the same charger, so you might run out of battery power outside a nail salon or local dive bar and duck in to use their services while the friendly barista or fashionable salesclerk generously charged your phone behind the counter. This happened all the time. These were friendly days.
Now we live in a world where even your best friends can’t help you because every new phone model requires a new ($22) incompatible-with-the-old-phone charger, and half these objects charge magically by lying on surfaces that send rays of something into the device and spookily electricity builds up in the battery without wires—to which I ask, what is emanating from the surface when nothing lies on it? What happens to water you rest on this surface and then swallow? Does anything build up in your keys? Your hands? Your very conductible gold wedding ring? What about directionality? Do the waves go up but not down or across and out? are they endlessly going up? Where does all the extra “charge” go?
But that’s not the point of this post.
Just sharing info I got from an Apple Genius: Did you know that only the outer two “marks” on your lightning plug (see the photo) are used to conduct power to your phone? All of the middle “marks” send and receive data only. So if your phone isn’t charging it is possible that there is buildup on the end marks on the charging cable, or it is possible the tiny pins inside your phone are slightly askew. If only SOME chargers work but not others, it could be that the cable is the problem, not your phone. (Knockoff cables are notoriously less “flat” and therefore “stuff” can get built up, especially on the edges, and if you jiggle these too much to make the connection then the bumps might damage the inside of your phone) - If it isn’t charging at this point, you can simply use a dry cotton cloth or lens-cleaning cloth to wipe the charging plug free of bumps.
But here’s some more random info I found out: did you know that your iPhone automatically stops charging any time its power supply is variable? Surge protectors will steady this. This is why plugging your “malfunctioning cable” from the car jack to a wall socket with a surge protector suddenly makes it work. Also it is why you can frequently plug a cable into an external battery and it works fine but never works in a plug in a rickety Air B&B. This was a revelation to me since I live in an apartment that is 100% messed up electrically (let’s just say I don’t have to loosen bulbs to have them flicker for Halloween) — and often the phone just doesn’t charge overnight when plugged into the wall. True nerds click here for more weird charger info .
Android users, I hope you had a nice, self-satisfied chuckle with your morning coffee.
Writing News
It’s official, I’m still a poet. Last weekend I was published in a poetry anthology and did a public reading of the Homage-To-The-Raven-By-Edgar-Allan-Poe poem “Speechless” in a packed Poe Cottage in the Bronx and then again in a deserted warehouse-sized bookstore’s bar/stage space (thanks Ravens home game for emptying out the Baltimore-based crowd, what irony!)
(I’m also a novelist of course because I’m SO CLOSE to completing this draft and then I’ll start looking for an agent again. Why not. I love misery. Or rather I love company, and that makes me…??? Miserable? Happy?)
(“Misery loves company,” originally uttered by the demon Mephistopheles in the play “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlow in the 16th century, said it in Latin—Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris—which AI translates “To have comforted the wretched companions of their pain” More on this.)
Anyway - I took lots of photos in the Bronx and in Baltimore. The link will take you to the first one and then you click right arrow to scroll the rest of them. It was a magical trip. I also got to glimpse an old dear friend and reconnect with a terrific literary journal editor (and meet his cool son!) — excellent vibes all around. Talked a lot about The Hills of California, which I saw between my NYC & Baltimore readings.
This week is all catching up. Visited with my mentor, saw the VP debate, went to an art gallery opening, saw Megalopolis, saw Redeemed off-Broadway, and rounded out the week by watching Wild Robot at the movies, and tonight I’m seeing nearly my whole writing workshop in a reading at Shade Bar. I wrote some mini-reviews of three of the things I saw—warning, spoilers!
Random Final Thought
Music is so effective at mood-altering, I am surprised there isn’t a line of mood products that are music-based the way that “aromatherapy” is a thing. We have playlists but no one seems to be making spa-level money off sound.