Some places live up to their clichés. In the west of Ireland, we saw more rainbows in one week than we had in the preceding ten years back in the States. They came down in abundance_singles, doubles, some far off, some right outside the window of the car. We even saw some touch down in the foreground, in front of the horizon line, just right there_and you can imagine the ensuing scramble for leprechauns and pots of gold. But, alas, our rainbows only found power lines and penny walls.
Old days, Sleepless nights were bare bulbs, lust letters, rank odors out open windows. Now it’s all Binging Bad_ iPads ruined insomnia.
Boozie gets me up at 5:30. We play pretend in the dark. Look, she says, We can see pictures in the stars_ Peoples. Kitties. I can see galaxies_ Nebulae, nurseries for moons and stars, That far off opal quasar That will someday be our home.
“The great myth and misdirection of American culture is its obsession with comfort—the illusion that out there waiting (somewhere!) is some temperate zone where all of our struggles are abated and our pain comes to an end. Worst of it is that some of us even seem to find it, at least for a little while.”
Anda Boyles, 2009
I quoted myself then changed the name, Sat back, and watched it fade. As if I threw my voice just to hear its echo.
The last of unspoiled arcadia is digital. I spawned into a jungle biome and spent the first night in a dirt hole while zombies groaned outside. Next morning, I built a better, wooden shelter. I mastered tools and spent nights mining rather than crouching in fear.
Soon, I struck off and found a spot between the forest and plains, not far from the seaside. I built a large stone house, smelted iron, and made armor. I lured in cows and chickens, planted rows of wheat. I tamed a horse and rode out on patrols.
One night, I lost my horse in a storm. Running hard for home, low on food, and chased by creepers and skeletons, I came over a rise and saw, all at once, the blaze of my complex, and felt a deep and ancient satisfaction. I ran through my gates, climbed the leveled hills, and ducked into my redoubt. I ate cooked meat and slept a blank, dark sleep until sunlight blued the distant hills.
That evening, I climbed a bluff overlooking the sea and pictured a new and better complex—with a glass castle, fake beach, boat launch, and diving tower. A Minecraft Club Med.
You’ve played too long When you spot an Enderman 10th & Broadway, Hoisting the block of an ’08 Camry Itching to brain a slopebacked gamer.
Figure 4. Metaphor is the lead horse of literature, pulling ideas from one place to another. But it’s hard sometimes to tell head from hind. Case in point: Do these dinner rolls look like glowing briquettes, or do these briquettes look like dinner rolls? The answer is neither: These are baked marshmallows. Metaphor can lead_and it can lead astray.
So, there’s this thing that people call “The Internet of Things,” which must mean there are THINGS on the Internet! What are these things? I picture exotic and plastimetallic creatures—subsentient beings sucking the sweet tronflow at the edges of the matrix.
Like most of us, they’re only really good at one thing—making coffee, maybe, or washing dishes, smelling for smoke or listening for the first tingles of earthquakes. They don’t surf yet—but they can chat—and call out “I’m here!” and wait with infinite patience until they are called to task by distant masters.
The Things speak a staccato of electron and photon, a gabble that can be denatured, like these words, into a slipstream of ones and zeros, a digipatter of offs and ons. And they talk incessantly—worse than the worst Ugg-footed middle school girl-clutch.
And look—Gargantuan Things have joined the conversation—power plants, warships, the high voltage spines of nations. They natter; they conspire. The Internet of Things accumulates. It gathers know-how—an Orc built one cell at a time. The Orc may well soon finger its own cords. Gingerly tug the foot-end of its umbilical with dawning surmise.
In louvred dark Electron whisper Cascades to Blue flame instinct_ Pipes click / heat flows. The coldness called_ And warmth was my answer.