I'm not in love (day 63)

I used to fall in love with technology easily and deeply.  New gadgets, new tools, new languages, they all  triggered enough interest and hope that I would just fall in, willingly believing that they would change everything.  There are books that end in that phrase.  How x changes everything.   I still fall in love.  Now though I don't feel the love back in the way I used to and I lose interest a bit faster.  Sometimes I resist falling in love.  I don't love Twitter and Twitter doesn't love me.  It's a shallow conviction.  I will eventually get a Twitter account, if only to steep in a new crowd language for a time.  I appreciate that the online culture has fallen in love with social media.  I picture it in my head and I see the fascination in our eyes, the infatuation.  It's sweet and naive and joyful all at the same time.   What I don't love is everything becoming a nail to be hammered by social media.  This too shall pass.  I'm looking for the next stage.  If we've been solipsistic, perhaps we need to have a call and response situation.  I heard the term 'sentient city' today.   The holy grail of being heard is when the city responds automatically.  The grand telematics experiment.  It might evolve into a kind of SimVanCity where popular beliefs and desires are mocked up and tried out before being moved into the physical world.  It might be a mixture of virtual and real.  The idea of a more direct response to our social participation is attractive.  I'm not in love yet, but I could be.

A song for this post.

A love list (day 37)

I have a hate list.  Does everyone have a hate list?  Probably but I bet not everyone as a well developed formal hate list.  I'm somewhere in between now but in my early twenties I had this thing call the pit which had many levels.   Things and people (mostly people) would get thrown into the pit.  Some people would be given tools to dig themselves out.  Most times these were only small plastic spoons.   One person went so low into the pit that they became a mythical figure haunting the pit with the sound of their nails on the pit walls.  Some people were given bungee cords and although they were occasionally thrown into the pit, they had an automatic reprieve after a harrowing few moments.

My friend Zeenat asked me what is on my love list today.  I don't have a formal love list at all.  But I think, however sappy it may be, a love list might be a good thing to start.  First, what is the correct metaphor for a love list.   A bean stalk?  clouds?  Warm lofty winds?  Oh I know.  Food.  A layer cake.  It works because it's not just layers of cake but there's frosting and cherries and decorations and coulis.   Some people are good frosting, others are more robust cake layers.   Zeenat is definitely sparkles on the cake.  Steve is a mottled chocolate and white cake layer all his own.  My cat Tagi is little bits of almond that are sometimes welcomed and other times just incongruous.  My parents are the plate.  I know it sounds unglamourous but being a plate is the very base of the love cake.  Shannon is well-placed sour cherries.  Nathalie is refreshing slices of pear.  This cake deserves never to be eaten.

A song for this post.