Q: Mr. Rush, I understand you are giving up on modern media. True?

A: Absolutely and utterly true.

Q: Why? I mean, you have finally learned how to play a DVD. You have a grasp of the Internet and can even use a cellphone.

A: But I can go no further. I have crashed and burned on all else. The media universe is unfolding too fast.

Q: How so?

A: First, consider Bluetooth. When I first became aware of it, I went to my bathroom mirror and looked for traces of this disease among the usual yellow and silver suspects. After all, it could only be a disease. Further, it must be treated with Blu-ray.

Q: And?

A: And I was wrong. A small child explained them to me, although I still have trouble believing that one pushes a Bluetooth into one’s ear. And there’s more.

Q: More?

A: Of course. Some company sent me a free BlackBerry as long as I agreed to use its network for 100 years. I believe the device was not only a cellphone but also could be used for email, television and celestial navigation. But I will never know.

Q: Why?

A: It arrived at a time when I had had eye surgery and I could only see as through a glass darkly. It had a number pad and a form of typewriter keypad on which one could type if one had elf fingers. But I have ogre fingers, and I kept hitting two or three letters at a time. Also, back then, I didn’t believe one could actually take photos with a phone. So, I put it in a shoebox at the back of my closet. But the bills come in monthly.

Q: I gather this is not your only defeat?

A: Darn right. I have trouble with my stove, which seems to have a computer inside. The washer and the dryer challenge me. I gave up on satellite TV. And I can’t believe that anyone understands “speed defrost” on a microwave.

Q: That’s all?

A: I’ve barely started. There’s my Rocket Stick, which came with the suggestion that it should only cost somewhere between $30 and $50 a month to access the Internet. (As you might suspect, out where I live, dial-up is the standard.) In fairness, there was some mention of charges for megabytes or multipixels or whatever. The first couple of bills were in the moderate range; but then, after some serious use, we got one for $640. I took the Rocket Stick out back and smashed it with a hammer. Then I buried it with a stake through its heart.

Q: And was that the final nail in the coffin of your relationship with modern technology?

A: Not quite. There was one final humiliation. It was a lovely day in a park on Vancouver Island, and a young woman came up to me with a camera and asked if I would take a photo of her and her friends. And I was glad to, because if there’s one thing I know (make that knew), it’s cameras. I have taken thousands of photos and had some of them published. She showed me the shutter release. I stepped back and held the viewfinder to my eye to compose the photo. And that’s where it all went wrong. There was no viewfinder, just a little TV screen. And when I held it to my eye, I could see nothing.

That’s when I realized that everyone who now took photos held the camera way out in front. Me, I was defeated. I pushed the camera an inch away from my eye, took a photo of some kind, handed the camera back and fled. When I looked back, a four-year-old girl was taking their picture.

Q: And that did it?

A: Absolutely. In fact, I’m thinking of going into the barn and dusting off my stand-up Underwood.

Q: What’s that?

A: A communication device. But I wouldn’t expect you to know.

IE