(no subject)

[darchildre]

Since I hit my mystery craving, I have put Nero Wolfe audiobooks on my mp3 player again. (I've done Holmes and Wimsey on audio recently enough that those aren't as satisfying. It's kind of a cyclic thing.) And, since my mom has offered me one of her mystery series, I'm trying to get her to read Nero Wolfe in a spirit of exchange and so we can have mutual discussions. So I was explaining to her about the fact that, sometime after 1938, all the major recurring characters in the Nero Wolfe books just stopped aging (because magic, that's why). Which led to me thinking about Wolfe and Archie as they would be today, which in turn led to today's happy place:

Nero Wolfe versus the Internet.

Hours of amusement are contained within this idea. See, Lily and Saul are great with computers. Even Fred does okay (though he occasionally has to call one of his kids over for help). Archie? Archie has a blog. Archie is on twitter. But Wolfe would hate the internet so much! We make up terrible new words - a man who barred the word "newscast" from his home is going to loathe "podcasting" with every fiber of his being. Hell, half of us can't spell, let alone know the difference between "infer" and "imply". The internet, wonderful though it may be, is also an enormous concentration of everything Nero Wolfe hates most. I just have this wonderful picture of Wolfe making himself read the comments to news articles, just like he used to force himself to listen to terrible radio programs. Archie totally saves up terrible internet jargon to spring on Wolfe when he least expects it. Then he tweets about it, because Archie is kind of a bastard.

(I also tried Nero Wolfe versus Cell Phones but Wolfe doesn't have a cell phone, are you kidding? That's what Archie's for.)

Comments

[parhelion]

You know, I do believe you're right.

In this scenario, Wolfe surfs the web for about a half-hour every other day, using the same forefinger for both keyboard and mouse while grunting on average -- as calculated by Archie -- once every hundred and ten seconds. While doing this, Wolfe has happened across roughly five bloggers who both discuss topics he can't ignore and garner enough of his respect that he feels driven to reply. Since he's Nero Wolfe, he dictates these comments for Archie to enter into "that confounded machine." And he also has Archie deal with cell phones, of course. After all, once he hired Archie, he wouldn't even take out his own pocket watch to find out what time it is. Mind you, Wolfe can and has quickly taken a picture with Archie's phone and posted it to the web when an emergency came up during a case, which only serves to make his behavior even more maddening.

Given how often a variation of this scenario has repeated down through the years whenever a new technology has taken off, Archie suspects Wolfe of secretly getting up to speed on weekends when Archie's hanging around with Lily, just so Wolfe can behave in a way that makes it obvious he's being deliberately obnoxious rather than merely out of touch.

[willidan]

Oh, that's a story waiting to be written. And you are so right about how much hate Wolfe would have for the Internet, let alone computers. But now I can see him with Fritz, Archie out of the house, trying to find something on Archie's computer, because that's where he types up the notes Wolfe needs. I would love that story so much!

[silveradept]

This is a great idea. And I agree entirely with the characterization of Wolfe, Goodwin, and the rest. I would love to see Wolfe stories brought forward into this era.