ISSUE 10
February 2000

ISSUE 10

 

Editor's Note
 
A thought is born. A synapse in the brain triggers an impulse which is routed through the nervous system to the muscle cells where, in a sequence of contractions, the finger clicks a mouse or taps a keyboard, and the impulse begins its journey as an electromagnetic signal interacting with other computers in the network we call the World Wide Web, each preserving the integrity of the initial impulse, passing it from one to the next like a baton, guiding it toward its final destination where The Cortland Review's computer is waiting to serve any signal that introduces itself, announces where it came from, and requests the latest issue. Quick to comply, The Cortland Review's computer responds electronically through the same network to the point of origin, where a human eye re-accepts the signal via the visible electromagnetic spectrum, and the brain gets what it wants: TCR's Issue 10—and the whole trip took less time than you spent reading the first sentence of this paragraph. 

At the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1999, we celebrated the new millennium (though some would argue we were a year early). Nation by nation, we turned the page on a new chapter in history. This era arrives during the proliferation of a new thinking with technology as its catalyst. The Internet brings us the first global network using the very same framework the brain uses. It allows us to communicate regardless of geography, race, religion or gender. 

The Cortland Review is excited to be part of this revolution. We recognize, however, that we ride on the coattails of some pretty impressive thinkers. Scientists, inventors, printers and writers have brought us to the ledge of this new world: Johannes Gutenberg created moveable and reusable type; Benjamin Franklin published "Poor Richard's Almanack," the most widely read periodical in its time, and discovered electricity; Thomas Edison took Franklin's electrical current and invented the phonograph recorder; and Walt Whitman, the father of contemporary poetry, read the first poem ever recorded live.

In the tradition of that pioneering spirit, and mindful of the entire community of writers and readers, The Cortland Review is pleased to present Issue 10 in both text and audio, our very own electronic entry in the ledger of the new millennium.

Guy Shahar
Editor-in-Chief


If you wou'd not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten
Either write things worth reading,
Or do things worth the writing
—Benjamin Franklin


 

 

 

Editor's Note
Copyright � 2000 The Cortland Review Issue 10The Cortland Review