de.tech.ting

When my arms wrap you round I press

My heart upon the loveliness

That has long faded from the world

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty / William Butler Yeats

today’s new york times story — yeats meets the digital age, full of passionate intensity — made my pulse quicken.  seriously.  this, i thought, is what digital-ism is all about.  a notebook that captures the intimacy and fire of yeats’ five-decade-long relationship with maude gonne is now on display at the national library of ireland.  so what, you ask?  well…it’s not just sitting under thick glass.  it has been digitally reincarnated, bringing to life faded words and images put to paper 100 years ago.  there’s a touchscreen that lets you actually flip through the notebookand see passages up close, audiotapes, short films…all bringing us inside, letting us feel their connection , their hearts, still beating.   the nyt talks of “software that brings light and breath to aging manuscripts.”

the exhibit may come to the us in 2009.  i hope…

I have spread my dreams under your fairy feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven / William Butler Yeats