I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Not in Kansas Moments Life, being what it is, one tends to simply live it. In broad strokes the changes in my lifestyle have more to do with returning to school than with simple geography, despite the geography having shifted by three thousand or so miles, one ocean, and a different country. I live in a house, which is much like houses in the US, albeit with upside down light switches and showers that are far too small. (Although to be fair, most US showers are also too small.) I ride a bus, which in most particulars is like a US bus, even if it does drive on the other side of the street. I shop at markets which look a lot like US markets, and when I go to the supermarket, I find it to be quite similar. And then, when I least expect it, something happens to remind me of just where I am and what I'm doing. I had one of these 'Not in Kansas' moments the other week. I had been at a rehearsal for a 12th Century French play that would be opening soon, although that was not something particularly atypical for me even in the States. I stepped out of my school, located in the King's Manor, which was the home of the Abbot of St. Mary's, pre-dissolution, and has been in use ever since for various purposes. That wasn't the moment either, although the building is great, familiarity breeds contempt (or at least complaisance), and, besides, I'd been in a room which had been fitted up as a fairly modern classroom. No, the moment when I was struck by just how far from the metaphorical Kansas I had come, was when I looked out across the street to see the moon peeking through the clouds above the Bootham Bar. The modern world fell away, even as I and those around me snapped photos-of-opportunity; the city looked new and old all at once. Behind the Bar, the Minster glowed dimly, and although I knew that both it and the Bar were lit by modern lights, I could pretend that it was the moon which illuminated them. And then I went to catch my bus. The Bootham Bar, by the way, is on the site of one of the gates to the original Roman fortress of Eboracum. It is not, however, Roman, being of much later vintage. While most of it is 14th century, the arch is 11th century. All parts of it are remarkably lovely in moonlight. Luddite'sLog, 4 December 2013 © 2013 Jeff Berry

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