Friday, February 23, 2007

The Desert of the Real

This is good to know- by posting a blog, I'm not just killing time; apparently I'm also taking part in the most significant cultural revolution since rock'n'roll. Wowee! At least, according to New York Magazine I am- although I'm still guessing that there are magazines from the 1970s that have articles like "CB Radios- How They are Changing the Very World in Which We Live". So, the good news is that I'm changing the world. The bad news? The rest of the revolutionary avant-garde are borderline-retarded teenagers posting videos of themselves lip synching to Mariah Carey songs on YouTube. So, it's just like the birth of rock'n'roll, but really, really stupid.

Of course, the interesting thing (for me) about everything being online, having security cameras everywhere, and kids growing up thinking that privacy is an illusion, is that, strangely enough, it creates a sort of "lost world". The sacred world of secret places takes on a certain mystique that it perhaps hasn't had since we were living in huts. One day people will whisper of the "off-line" in hushed tones, wondering if such a thing could really exist. There is an entirely different jungle to explore- that of complete anonymity and physical response in the material world. One day the smell of onions cooking will be quasi-mystical.

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