when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.
The reality is that our personal data footprint is now becoming unfathomably wide, deep and large because it has become (technically speaking) entirely possible for everyone and everything to be tracked, recorded and...mined. Soon, the question will no longer be whether we have the technological skills and horsepower to do something, but why, when and where we should do it (never mind the thorny issue of 'who').
I was reading BBC's article about the tensions of our human contexts with our digital toys.
The roar of diced onions as they hit the greased pan. The smell of the skillet crowded with bacon crisps. The turning of the color from opaque to amber caramelization. The warmth of an omelet breakfast on lazy Sunday. The memories of many other rainy days wrapped with comfort food. Yeah, I wouldn't trade these tactile information for any digital replica.
I'm still partial to analog. For now.
But, I must grudgingly admit, augmentation with virtual footnotes is already the next logical step and is beginning to creep upon us. The digital tags are already imprinted on paper and ink newspapers, which show additional photographs and links. Still, still some realities are not meant to disappear with the inevitable progress of science.
Analog cobwebs still have a space to inhabit in this world. Humans, in fact, create sandboxes for all these cobwebs.
I still have our cassette tapes with personally recorded playlists--- side A for the uptempo and side B for the slower songs. Our LPs of Children's Folk Songs All Over the World is now about four decades old and counting. That's how we learned that Bahia is a real town in Brazil and not just that 70s place. Of course, our vinyl record for the Sound of Music, although scratchy with time, is still in its original album sleeve. As I write this, below my desk lay carcasses of old Betamax players, fax machines, telephones, VCD players and, yikes, an AT(?) clone.
Many of these things are just sepia colored niches and curiosities of a passing era. They sit like off-key vintage pieces of the thrift shops in Cubao X.
Here's another classic that should linger for those who, while rooted in the past, are not afraid to brave the critters and comforts of our digital future.
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
Here's a Friday find: Charles Dickens's letter to his youngest son.
"My dearest Plorn,
I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my
mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to
think of now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love
you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But
this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It
is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the
life for which you are best fitted. I think its freedom and wildness
more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever
have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other
suitable occupation.
What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady,
constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough
determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I
was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do
this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since." (Brainpickings)
Modern family is being defined and redefined anew. Co-parenting agreements, shared custody, eugenics and biology without emotional borders are definitely new species in our accelerating evolution.
What would the world be one hundred years from now? It's 2013. Will 2113 still be recognizable in forms, manners or substances in which we understand, inhabit and navigate our world today?
The Division of Public Schools used to disburse funds only from imperial Sorsogon, decades before ATMs became available in our sleepy town, Masbate. This meant that, to get their salaries, public school teachers had to travel for three hours by sea to Bulan, Sorsogon and another hour by land to Sorsogon City. My two aunts were no exception and had to make one of their long penitential treks to Bicolandia that summer.
"Für Elise" was the prescribed recital piece before we were advanced to Grade 4.
"Known also as Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, it's classified as a trifle, light piece. Sometimes referred to as an 'Albumblatt' or 'Album Leaf', these pieces are short, pleasant, and not particularly demanding on the performer. 'Album leaf' was the name for pieces written in dedication to a friend or admirer, to be inserted into their album or autograph book." (Wikipedia)
Almost daily, on the way to school, I heard this anthem played by a good number of cars backing up to park by the road. So I almost learned to hate it as eagerly as I practiced its arpeggios. Ms. Aguas's notes during each rehearsal about "phrasings, dynamics and clarity" especially in the B section of the piece has stuck with me. They have become mental tattoos!
The recital ended on a high note, thankfully.
The Big Mac happy meal bought by Gua-Kong (my maternal grandfather), after the painful wait (3rd to the last, out of 15 students!), was a "happy" relief after that ordeal at the keys. The Big Mac meal was about P27.50 then (1988), it's now P150 (2012).
Inflation and economic value systems can really be arbitrary. The Big Mac is definitely more expensive now than Beethoven's Bagatelle which is available as a free download on the internet.
Ideas travel. But there should be a feedback mechanism and a network to link the ideas, their creators and other creators.
Social networks, in all their primitive forms, proved to be the tides that brought foam and freedom, novelty, variety and dissent to distant lands.
It's interesting to actually see, not with our mind's eye, how the light that burned in the minds of these great thinkers spread across physical spaces.
The VR Glasses actually look minimalist. They don't appear too android-like or,
if you wish, Borg-like. No matter, I like their by-line: "We believe technology should work for you---
to be there when you need it and to get out of your way when you don't." This humanistic bent is
similar to the one advertised by Nokia some ten years ago about connecting people and about
having rounded edges instead of sharp ones. Photos fromgooglepalace.
Cellphones, those hand-carried metal or plastic bricks we see, touch and hear everyday will soon be obsolete. That is, if "evil" Google (insert maniacal laugh track here) and its team of engineers will have their machinations fleshed out. Again, another augmented reality or Flesh + Machine specie. The Borg-like reality isn't really that far out or implausible anymore.
Seven of Nine with remnants of the Borg implants after she was disconnected from the hive mind. startrekdesktopwallpaper.com
Andy Goldsworthy is an "innovative British artist whose collaborations with nature produce uniquely personal and intense artworks. Using a seemingly endless range of natural materials—snow, ice, leaves, bark, rock, clay, stones, feathers petals, twigs—he creates outdoor sculpture that manifests, however fleeting, a sympathetic contact with the natural world. Before they disappear, or as they disappear, Goldsworthy, records his work in suburb color photographs.
Goldsworthy deliberately explores the tension of working in the area where he finds his materials, and is undeterred by changes by changes in the weather which may melt a spectacular ice arch or wash away a delicate structure of grasses. The intention is not to “make his mark” on the landscape, but rather to work with it instinctively, so that a delicate scene of bamboo or massive snow rings or a circle of leaves floating in a pool create a new perception and an ever growing understanding of the land." (from Goldsworthy/biography)
He says about his works:
"Movement, change, light growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue....
My approach to photograph is kept simple, almost routine. All work, good and bad, is documented. I use standard film, a standard lens and no filters. Each work grows, strays, decays—integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expresses in the image. Process and decay are implicit." (quoted from Brain Pickings)
Today is May 4, 2010, Tuesday. We're in the middle of Manila's concrete bake off. It’s only 11:10 AM and I’m already melting from the heat.
I’m writing this confession on a black Mac, which has the color of my id.
---
Like the rings of a redwood, sweat is etched in my indexes. They yield tales of the fat years as well as the lean ones. I have recently been self-employed---unplugged from the matrix of production. Technically though, I am just a capitalist in hibernation.
I also just switched from Windows to Mac last year.
Yes, I’m aware that Mac is a Q Continuum compared to that unenlightened majority of the technological divide. Those protozoans and their clones. Still, my Mac hums on XP. Defilement, you say. Well, my system can’t be purged of all eighteen years of assimilation. Redmond is still fused with my flesh.
J. Paul Getty Museum, August 2006. This guy
(I forget his name, probably a Greek philosopher
or Roman senator) looks like a distinguished
Magneto, without his helmet.
“I don’t really think about that … I’m 34 but I remember when I first went to Los Angeles. I was 24 – an agent who was going to take me on at the time thought I was 35 … I quite enjoy the lines on my forehead because they show my life. That’s my history and I like to see that in other people. Like this wrinkle is due to some girl who broke my heart. I don’t want to escape it in any way.”--- Michael Fassbender (aka Magneto)
