My early reading career in science fiction taught me that technology was going to revolutionize how we would work for a living. Nevermind offices and assembly lines and Dr. Kildare. In the future, working for a living would involve saving the galaxy from marauding alien species who were somehow metaphors for everything that already terrified us. Wow! Plus look at all that futuristic sex those guys wrote about. So what if most of them had never actually had sex?
This was heady stuff for a young teenager suffering in the middle of Boredom, USA, but one thing those old books and stories didn’t much venture into was what technology was going to do to the ways in which we play. (Let’s leave, for example, Robert A. Heinlein’s theories on sex out of this.)
In my case, all this tech has given me a new way to play with art. Thanks to the magic of Animoto, I present to you my latest video! Please watch it, it’s just 1:10 and I don’t want to pressure you but this may be my last chance to be famous. Why are you being so mean?
I am not what you’d call a traditional artist. Perspective is something I expect from an editorial in The New York Times. Colors? Special D explains it all for me. Awhile back, she found the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 HueColor Vision Test and loved it so much she took it twice. I took it once and it was torture.
But thanks to Animoto, I can stamp my heart out, upload my masterworks, and go head-to-head with funny cat videos! Welcome to the future. (Welcome to my blog, random person from Latvia who stopped by earlier today. Sorry, I don’t know how to say WTF in your language.) The authors I was reading in the days before I discovered girls right here on Earth had no idea what the future would really be like.
Next time: We will get the lead out.
Random Pick of the Day
Dum Dum Girls, Too True (2014)
Why wasn’t this album released in 1985? It combines the pop-music lyricism and self-absorption of Tears For Fears with the dark, otherworldly guitars of The Dream Syndicate. Give me more of that.
Bonus: On their previous record, Only in Dreams (2011), they pretend to be The Pretenders!
Random Pan of the Day
Beyoncé, Dangerously in Love (2003)
The woman can obviously sing, but why won’t they let her? On Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé is surrounded by back-up singers galore plus famous guest stars including Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, and the somnolent Luther Vandross, who must’ve been channeling Perry Como. I kept waiting for her to floor it, but except for the thunderous opening cut, “Crazy in Love” (her first trip to the top of the charts), she mostly plays it safe.
Beyoncé can definitely croon, and “Be With You” is fun with its echo of the Shuggie Otis/Brothers Johnson disco classic, “Strawberry Letter 23.” But I wanted some action. The closing track, “Daddy,” is Beyoncé’s heartfelt appreciation of her father. I’m glad they have such a loving relationship, but to an outsider this lullaby is a good time to get up and see what the boys in the back room are having. Prince would’ve turned this song inside-out. Hey, remember Prince? I haven’t forgotten. I’m about ready to tee up on his fourth album, Controversy.
Run-DMSteve 
If I ever wish to or need to have my valuable Seaside postcards adulterated (improved upon/amended…ruined!) I will call you FIRST, due to your professional abilities and obvious zeal.
I’ll definitely ruin about half of them. I throw away about half the cards I work on for my videos. Either the surface of the card don’t like the ink, or I don’t like the images I’ve just stamped. What I lack in ability I make up for in zeal.
You should keep all of your art work….even the mis-prints and don’t-like prints. Just think what would be if Whistler had done so….we’d have the complete set of his four (or were there eight in that original set?) paintings showing his mother sitting, then standing, doing some light dusting and cooking up a nice bread pudding. History will be made richer, even if you’re not, by having access to all of your work.
Ha! Whistler’s mother and her bread pudding.
The Hollywood studio that signed Karl Malden put him in an office with John Steinbeck for a few months. (I don’t know why actors need office space, but this was the 1950s and life was different then.) He recalled that every morning when Steinbeck got in, he spent half an hour furiously typing about everything that had happened to him since he woke up. He made a story out of it. When he was done, he ripped the paper out of the typewriter, balled it up, and threw it away. Malden said, “I should’ve saved all that paper and sold it later. Imagine — John Steinbeck’s rejects!”
History will not be made richer by my effluvia, but thanks for suggesting it.
So funny Steve! Loved the color test too. Your movie was great fun. Keep it up!
Thanks, Linda. Don’t let that garden enslave you!