Holiday Thoughts (Weird Science the Winner)

The holidays always put me in a weird state of mind. As a kid I had morose tendencies. I grew up in New York. The weather would get cold. The days would get shorter and darker. The relatives would visit. I liked reading and the New York Times kept me entertained with stories of sports heroes past and present. I always had lots of friends and valued their support, encouragement and laughter. So, what got me so depressed yesterday?

Maybe mortality? Time creeps forward. I get older and family members, some older than me. Friends get sicker, find themselves fighting disease... Where do I fit in within this cosmic organization? I've hit the sixth decade! I always heard time flies faster with each passing decade. It's true. I feel like science and technology has dwarfed our frail human forms and modest psychological tools for absorbing change.

We are overwhelmed with change at the speed of light. Too much information from every direction.  Syria, Paris, YouTube, Twitter, Fitbit, Texas floods, water level rise, Ariana Grande licking donuts. Yes, I'm at least six months behind on the Youtube revelation. Make that six years behind... or maybe 16 years!

Johnny Manziel dropped to third string. Tried to cover up video of his partying in Austin. It's not the crime-- it's the cover-up!

Science dwarfs sports. Weird science! NFL football players too strong for the game. Not enough time for a quarterback to launch a pass. The bionic, science-built defenders race in and devour the passer like so many merciless robots. The announcers drone on. Tony Romo bites the dust. No, make that bites the scientifically created artificial turf.

Weird Science 1- Humanity 0

Are things getting better or worse? I see lots of optimism in my grandchild, so things get better from his youthful perspective. He delights in everything, from books to video games.

Ah, I sound like a cranky old man... trying to make sense of this spinning globe!

McLuhan's Electronic Haiku

McLuhan is...

rhetorical
satirical
surfaces
grammars
interfaces
new and old technologies
provocative
stimulating
and
required reading
to understand
electrical and digital convergences


from "Marshall McLuhan"
by Janine Marchessault
2005
Sage Publications
(inspired by p. 116, paragraph 2)

McLuhan Predicts Cellphone (The New Yorker, May 5, 1965)

Marshall McLuhan’s prominence as the world’s foremost intellectual  cannot easily be conceived from the remove of the present day. A piece from “The Talk of the Town” column, at the front end of the The New Yorker magazine issue, May 5, 1965, entitled “The McLuhan Metaphor,” was  composed at the same time as the  the New York World’s Fair. The author mentions the Westinghouse company’s plan to place a Time Capsule for future generations at the World's Fair and suggests McLuhan himself could better serve as a time capsule. 

My family visited the World’s Fair that year. I recall lavish futuristic exhibits sponsored by Ford and General Motors,  two industrial companies representing a mechanical age. Their exhibits imagined an automotive future with Jetsons-style highways flying in every direction. But McLuhan envisioned something different, an information age—and a massive change in consciousness.

The New Yorker author describes McLuhan’s lecture at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn and quotes several startling prophecies included in his remarks:

“(He) predicted a happy day when everyone will have his own portable computer to cope with the dreary business of digesting information” and

“Dr. McLuhan next suggested the possibility of a new technology that would extend consciousness itself into the environment. ‘A kind of computerized ESP,’ he called it, envisioning ‘consciousness as the corporate content of the environment—and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experience through the corporate experience, the way dreams do now.’”

McLuhan’s accurate prediction of computers, cellphone-sized and smaller, merits no further explanation but the second insight--consciousness as the new environment-- cuts to the very essence of the digital era.  The hearing aid device anticipates the iPhone or other mobile device. Individuals study the phone and share experiences as a corporate entity creating a group consciousness and posts are exactly as McLuhan described-- personal, random thoughts offered in a dreamlike manner. McLuhan perceived the new electronic environment as consciousness— and no better, more succinct description of the modern social network has ever been offered.

McLuhan’s notion of new technology working as extensions of the human body achieves new levels of traction in the electronic era, for if clothing extended the skin, and the wheel extended the legs’ ability to achieve movement, “the computer achieved not merely an extension of our eyes, like print, but an extension of our whole nervous system.”  (New Yorker 1965)

70 degrees on Nov 6 in NYC at 10 PM!

"What's it gonna take?" The talking heads said that and marveled at the "unseasonably warm" New York City temperatures. November 6 at 10:00 PM --and it is 70 degrees in New York City.

Historically speaking, 56 degrees is an average high in NYC for November 6.

One of the Weather Channel experts smiled and wondered aloud "What if an 80 degree day came along in the middle of December in New York City. Would that shock people enough?"

Enough to do what-- get scared maybe...?

The weather guy smiled the whole time, but a nervous smile-- reminiscent of a gallows humor response. (Gallows humor--see Wikipedia below)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_humor
Gallows humor is humor about very unpleasant, serious, or painful circumstances. Any humor that treats serious matters, such as death, war and crime, in a light, silly or satirical fashion is considered gallows humor.Gallows humor has been described as a witticism in response to a hopeless situation. It arises from stressful, traumatic, or life-threatening situations, often in circumstances such that death is perceived as impending and unavoidable.

The increasing temperatures are too foreboding to consider. We use denial and rationalization. Push the problems out of mind. Crops? Warmer ocean waters? What will happen to us? We take the easy way out. We deny the facts, rationalize them, or better yet, ignore them completely.

More fun to think about Donald Trump hosting Saturday Night Live tomorrow night.

The young people of today never experienced the "old normal." My growing up years in New York had a rhythm to the seasons, a consistent pattern. September meant needing a sweater and a jacket. November and December arrived and a warm coat was needed for winter.

We have upset those rhythms of nature-- and nobody knows the price to be paid.

Instead we smile nervously about the fun of wearing short sleeves on a November night in New York City. We know better. And keep our fingers crossed.