Before the act or the word, the telephone. In the beginning was the telephone. We can hear the telephone constantly ringing, the coup de téléphone which ... sets going within itself this yes ... the tele- phonic yes ... marking, simply, that we are here, present, listening, on the end of the line, ready to respond but not for the moment responding with anything other than the preparation to respond (hello, yes: I'm listening, I can hear that you are there, ready to speak just when I am ready to speak to you). Jacques Derrida, "Ulysses Gramophone" (1984)¹