A ONCE-A-WEEK (or so) LIST OF WHAT I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT. WITH 10 = MOST IMPORTANT; AND 1 = NOT SO MUCH
QQ: 1 TECHNOLOGY
It's the technology, stupid! Social unrest is teetering on the edge of possibility as we confront the reality. There are no jobs because there are no jobs to do. Call your cable company, speak to a computer, do your banking with a computer, buy your next gadget on Amazon, order your groceries online, diagnose yourself, wank, friend, poke, design, consult and sell. All this without interacting with a single human animal.
We don't need us any more.
QQ: 2 TWITFACE
Is it just me? Or is Zuckerface committing the ultimate destructive strike against everything that makes us human?
Monotheism reflects the miraculous reality of our uniqueness. We have lost our uniqueness. We have become one with Zuckerface and his holistic agenda.
Until Zuckerface came along our unique quality was the last gasp of humanity. Now, our every keystroke belongs to him to use at his will. We are no longer unique individuals. We are trendsetters, viralists, fans, bloggers, posters, groups, twits, sharers, taggers, pokers and publishers, working as uncompensated slaves for the ultimate Antichrist.
“SELL ME SOMETHING GOOD”
Art is dead. Long live Zuckerface.
QQ : 3 TRAPSTER GUY
And then there's his henchman Park Shaunster, who speaks of "culture".
One day someone will 'splain it to him. Zuckerface and Shaunster, a match made in hell.
May they live long and prosper as they rule their Galactic empire. Where is Darth Vader when we need him?
QQ : 4 MY CLOUD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR CLOUD
The oldest written documents of which we are aware, are around four thousand years old. Computer hard drives will ultimately fail in less than four thousand weeks.
Does that mean that, as we burn the books and store our QWERTY tappings in the cloud, that all of human history will be lost?
Cuneiform scratchings on stone tablets seems to be a better way to go.
QQ : 5 SOFTWARE UPDATE
I never thought of myself as an anti - technology guy. I am not. Technology is neutral.
Frank Gehry has embraced 3D software used in the aerospace industry to design his beautiful buildings. It's organic rib and bones stuff used in the design of Boeing jets and the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Gehry's buildings would not exist without this software and his utilization of it.
But, he is the only artist that I can think of, who has made an innovative cultural statement utilizing the possibilities that technology can provide.
QQ : 6 MORE FROM TRAPSTER
"Innovative cultural statement" Now, there's a concept!
Who are the true innovators of our era? Only history will decide. In 50 years, what cultural statements from our time will endure? Will our grandchildren listen to Lady Gaga? Will our grandchildren watch old episodes of Dancing With The Stars and laugh at the Jackass movies?
QQ : 7 IMMORTALITY
It seems to me that sometimes a peak of excellence is reached, and then a door closes.
Bach endures for a reason. He reached a peak of artistic immortality surpassing everything that did, or could follow. He is constantly rediscovered, by Glenn Gould, by Pablo Casals and young piano students of every era that has followed.
Something similar occurred when Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw and Duke Ellington took up the baton and created the ultimate American music of a quality that never was, and can never be again. They swung!
QQ : 8 IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Albert Einstein told us that time and space could bend. Nature does not move in straight lines. However, our mortality would presume a straight conceptual line from birth to death. There are no curves except for the quality that we give to that line. If all we have is the quality that we can bring to our absolute trajectory, then we have a responsibility to acknowledge that as fact.
Unfortunately, societies throughout history have embraced the concept of life after death, which gives them an excuse, a way out, a reason to pass on the ultimate responsibility of giving quality to that line between life and death.
Although space and time can bend, Einstein did not postulate that either were infinite. He is said to have been uncertain about the concept of infinity. Perhaps the universe does in fact have a beginning, middle and end.
How dramatic!
QQ : 9 THREE WORDS
There are three words that continue to fascinate me:
QUALITY
CULTURE
INNOVATION
QQ : 10 THE SHORTEST DISTANCE
We share our life experience through our stories. Our stories have beginnings, middles and ends. They take the form of novels, plays, movies, phone conversations, emails, songs, poems and chats. What did you do today? How was school? Guess who I saw at the market? How are you?
Stories reflect our lives, our human-ness and our social interaction. Stories can be real, fictional, engaging and irrelevant.
But ultimately all that we have, on our straight line that can bend, is our story.
Our story can be expressed in a song, a building, a spaceship or a piece of software. But after we are gone, all that remains is a story. It can be the story of an old soldier, who retells the battle worn tale of past glory. Or it can be the musical story told by Bach, the visual story left by Pablo Picasso or the iconic human tragedy as unveiled by Shakespeare as true today as they all were in times past.
We should tell good stories. At least, that is what I teach my song writing students.
QQ : 11 END OF TIMES
If beginning, middle and end are universal absolutes, then where does that leave Bachman - Palin Overjive and their fundamentalist agenda.
Tell you children that Santa (orium) is not real, and that White Perry, the Texan executioner, is really Perry White, Superman’s boss at the Daily Planet.
Bring on the rapture!
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