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 Texas : Feature : Columns : 'The View from Under the Bus'

Brave New TechnoPiphany

By Gael Montana
"Tonsorial Artist and Hill Country Contrarian"
Comfort, Texas
My husband and I were watching the NBA Finals this week, joyfully raising Cain and being stand-up fans for our beloved Spurs. What a nice, old-fashioned, way to spend a lovely spring evening, grateful not to have to make that hundred mile round trip to Big Tony. We were feeling terribly up-to-date when it occurred to us that nearly every commercial that wasn’t pushing new cars or beer featured some kind of hand-held unit that we couldn't identify. The ad raved about 'Blue Teeth' and 'Cool Rays' and features that would do everything from ring up your late Uncle John to prepare (then eat) your lunch while making a 3D movie out of the whole thing. This epiphany hit us around halftime between the high-tech ads & movie trailers showcasing computer-generated creatures that are cuter and better behaved than many of the youngsters currently working in Hollywood. For example, take Ms. Hilton (please) who is making headline news just being the irascible and juvenile 'Paris' we all love to hate. I daresay aspiring to be the 'bad example' has become a further reach because of the young heiress, although it's hard to tell whether the bar was raised or lowered. I digress...

Clearly computers have won the race we were so concerned with back in the sixties when 'The Twilight Zone' still seemed weird. I mean, are we, or are we not, working diligently to upgrade, re-wire, defrag and clarify our increasingly complicated existence? Our Grandmothers & Mothers (I among them) think nothing of proudly firing photo's of their progeny off into space for anyone & everyone to see. As a species, we spend untold billions on 'connectivity' and 'platform interface' and who knows what all as if it were the very staple of life. In fact, we eat, sleep and dream the Linux-fantastic as if it's always been this way. If we don't know how long to boil our freshly canned vegetables to get the 'seal' why just ‘Google it’, Grandma, and hope the information offered is real.

Real you say? Yet, another wake-up call! The airwaves are rife with 'reality' shows where 'ordinary' people pretend to be in a tribe or on a pirate ship or are busily eating worms as they throw themselves off perfectly good bridges and buildings. They invite us to observe them getting rebuilt, reduced, ratcheted and rehabilitated. Real? Memorex? Don't even get me started. Have we somehow slept through the latest evolutionary membrane? We cannot even seem to identify our own erroneous inventions. Who works for whom now?

I believe the answer is painfully clear.

We can relax knowing that our computers will happily do a superior job of what we have become far too busy to accomplish. Of course, we’ll be busy saving every penny for the next, shiny new version of…uh-oh.
'The View from Under the Bus'
June 15, 2007 Column
© Gael Montana

See Comfort, Texas
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