Sun Dial: Pieces About Phones

Selections from the Archive

“My parents had a very different experience with the phone,” says comedian Gary Gulman. “They used to talk to people on it. To me, the phone is just this seldom-used app on my phone.” I’m about the same. That’s why it was so exciting to hear from a phone evangelist, Becky Mandelbaum, who describes the hours at a time—hours!—spent with her ear to the receiver, and all the pleasure she’s derived from it, in her essay in our November issue, “The Telephone Mode.”

Phones have been an integral part of our lives, from old-school rotaries to the slick ones in your pocket or purse, and they’ve come up in The Sun about as frequently as you’d expect. Below are some selections from our archives where a phone plays a pivotal role.

Take care and read well,
Derek Askey, Associate Editor

Livestock walk, mostly single file, on hilly terrain. — © Clemens Kalischer

Essays, Memoirs & True Stories

The Telephone

By Anwar F. Accawi August 1997

Sometimes instant connection to faraway places can hamper your connection to the here-and-now. Anwar F. Accawi describes the changes that are brought to Magdaluna, the small mountain village in southern Lebanon where he grew up, when the first telephone is introduced: its once-leisurely pace quickens, and the old spots where people congregated to play games, smoke, and drink are transformed forever.

Several people stand on the sidewalk and look down at the phones in their hands. — © Gianpaolo La Paglia

Photography

Our Own Devices

By Gianpaolo La Paglia March 2019

Gianpaolo La Paglia’s photos show us as we so often are: heads down, flicking around with our thumbs, oblivious.

January 2008 cover of The Sun. An old man with glasses looks into the camera. The photo was taken in the late 1970s on the Azores Islands, an autonomous region of Portugal. — © Vernon Salvador

Poetry

Long Distance: England

By Ellery Akers January 2008

Ellery Akers’s poetry always knocks me sideways, and this one’s no exception: while talking on the phone, she thinks about the people who worked to make that call possible, and about the long series of cables that must reach between the author and her beloved so that they might speak.

A woman lies on her side in bed with the handset of a rotary phone pressed to her ear. — © Susan Rae

Readers Write

The Phone Call

By Our Readers September 2002

Bad news about a parent, flirty messages on an answering machine, staying on the line with 911: our readers’ stories about “The Phone Call.”

February 1986 cover of The Sun. Photograph of Tara Singh.

Poetry

A Tacky Love Poem on Corny Old St. Valentine’s Day

By Alan Brilliant February 1986

I’m often quite enthralled by obsolete technology, and especially so when I can hear about how it affected someone’s life, good or bad. In 1986, purchasing a speed dial—now irrelevant, of course, with phone numbers saved in our cell phones—is reason enough for Alan Brilliant to write this “tacky” love poem.