Ong and Didion walk into a bar...

Ong walks up and sits on an old, dusty leather barstool. A copy of Homer’s The Odyssey under his arm. Muttering something under his breath, trying to make conversation with the bartender, or anyone who will listen. The bar is nearly empty.

He takes a glance over his shoulder and sees a woman sitting at the end of the bar. She has a typewriter, a small notebook, and a pen tucked behind her ear. She seems focused, typing methodically and looking angrily at her pages with a furrowed brow. She has a tall piña colada in front of her, half-drank, with a tiny purple hibiscus resting on on the thin rim of the glass. It’s been sitting there for quite some time, with condensation creating a small pool of water on the daily newspaper that it is resting upon.  

“I’ll have a whiskey” Ong declares without looking at a menu.

“I don’t know how people come into a bar and order a new drink every time. When’s the last time someone looked at that menu? Eh?”

The bartender pulls out a stout glass without uttering a word.

“One ice cube”

The bartender puts a single ice cube in the glass and tilts the bottle of whiskey so that it cracks the surface of the ice as it is poured over.

After receiving his drink, Ong walks around the bar, still in search of a conversation.

“Hi there, I’m Walter, cold morning isn’t it?”

“I’m Joan” she says without looking up. 

“Visiting here?”

“I’m from California”

“That explains the hibiscus” Ong chuckles to himself, “How long have you had that typewriter?”

“Twenty two years”

"What are you working on?"

Didion has hardly looked up from the page, holding her left hand up to her mouth. She pulls the soggy paper out from underneath her glass, setting her drink aside on the rich mahogany counter next to a bowl of peanuts. She points at the title, without speaking. The title reads: Students in a state of unrest following Watts Riots

“Hmmm…” Ong glances at the title, Didion still hardly looked up from the page.

Ong looks at the page, and the typewriter with curiosity, he takes a single gulp of his whiskey.

Didion swivels her bar stool away, seeming uninterested in having a conversation.

“I’m on my way to give a speech at the University of Southern California about the Watts Riots” Ong  places a ten dollar bill on the counter before walking out the door. “It was nice talking to you – have a good day”

Didion is a Californian. Crafting each word, sentence, paragraph, and essay with precision. Marrying her love of California with her razor-sharp observation skills, she has the ability to provide her audience with context, detail, and description.  

But Ong is a historian. He makes sense of the world by understanding how human interaction has changed and how technology has altered our way of thinking and knowing.