Tag Archives: Future

“2009, 2010, wanna make a record of how I felt then.”

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Right, so now each month on Counterforce, at the end of the month as that chapter closes, I find myself looking back on my posts and just wondering about all the puzzle pieces left strewn about. Some things planned, some things decidedly not planned, some accidents, some just flat out mistakes…

Sometimes your blog is both a testament to you and a museum devoted to your mistakes and victories. It can be a lovely display of all those things you loved, or hated, or sometimes a combination of the two, and usually more about yourself than anything else.

I’ll never forget that an ex once told me that “nostalgia is for people who have no future.” I found that to be a rather curious statement and when I pressed her for clarification, she told me that, to her, too many people use the mirror as a reflection on the past and only rarely on the present. I asked her what was wrong with that, in certain doses, and she responded with, “You shouldn’t have time for that. You should be moving so fast that when you pass by the mirror all you see is a blur.”

She said that and then she was gone. I felt like all I got out of that was the blur.

This relationship was a long time ago. It was short, but it felt longer, and it feels like it was longer ago than it was, but it was probably circa the first Arcade Fire album (not the EP). And now they have another album coming out.

If one of the leaked songs had been called “Month Of June” instead “Month Of May” that would’ve been a lot more convenient for my blogging concerns, thank you very much.

from here.

Real quick, two things you should know about me…

The first thing you should know about me: The other day, on twitter of all places, I was self analyzing out loud and wondered if I hold better conversations via the phone or if my stronger quality is my voicemails (which are, quite frankly, amazing)(to the point that, ladies, you would have to hold the phone away from your ear for fear that said voicemails could put you instantly in heat), you know, from the perspective of whoever the fuck it is I’m calling. Honestly… I don’t care.

But that lead me to realize: When I talk on the phone, you can tell if I’m actually active in a conversation not so much by what we’re discussing or who I’m talking to anymore, but what I’m doing physically. I mean, obviously if I’m sitting there watching TV, then I’m not listening to you, but it’s more of a kinetic thing. If I’m up, walking around, pacing, then there I’m there, I’m really a part of the thing, the process, the bullshitting, whatever. My other mode, oddly enough? Staring at myself in the mirror.

It’s weird. You could call me up, we could be having a fascinating conversation and I’ve noticed that, without thinking about it, I might just walk into the bathroom and start looking into the mirror. At myself? No. It’s hardly ever a really conscious thing. Maybe it’s self reflexive, like staring out at the horizon, only in this case, the horizon is my face and it’s a portal to a larger gateway of either the honesty or just flat out sexy bullshit that I’m going to peddle your way.

Or, maybe, by looking at myself, with a certain visually conscious part of myself shut off, I’m actually subconscious recording myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself as I talk about myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself… in some kind infinite loop of recursive blogitude?

The second thing that you should know about me right now, right this very second is that I have every intention of making this song the jam of the summa summa summertime:

I mean, that’s my intention, but as for you? You’re so vain, you probably think that summertime jam is about you, don’t you?

More and more this blog feels like a book to me, in a way. Like you could collect it into a hot mess of an interactive coffee table curio. A book in 12 parts, chronicling the year in which we make contact. But contact with… what? Ourselves? Each other? Slow dancing in the burning hotel room that is the past? Or staring at ourselves in the mirror, reflecting on the future? Or is “the future” just another aspect of right here and now because all times are one (especially on the internet)?

All of those and more, maybe. Maybe not. But, so far, in the section of this starship/book/beast/blog entitled “June” we have so far been subjected to:

The nature of time spent having fun in all these new worlds we inhabit.

Today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and how each day is just another day.

Seeing words everywhere you look, just like a casual synesthete would.

The shape of our heads and of our favorite TV shows to come and return.

…or to leave us, as Peanut noticed, because, sadly, Party Down has apparently been canceled.

A lot of Doctor Who, a show about time and space, and just in time for this (hopefully bullshit) rumor about Johnny Depp starring in an Americanized big screen version in 2012 (of course it would be in 2012).

The oil spill and the music of this year, such as new albums by Stars and the aforementioned Arcade Fire.

Our lovers and our former lovers and the music they inspire. And schemes.

And bombs and explosions and more music.

And this:

And all accumulating to but quite possibly falling way short of a certain sense of… thisness.

But, as we already covered, tomorrow is another day. With a different mirror to look into. And a different version of ourselves reflected back in. Perhaps we’ll start to look more like ourselves as we strangely believe that ourselves should look or perhaps we’ll look like another stranger in a strange land.

The singularity is near.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Or is it? I ask you: Is “the future” that we talk about and theorize and plan for and fear and hope and lust after, is it just another piece of art that we’re creating? Or destroying?

Are you afraid of tomorrow? Or looking forward to where the humans go? Or is it just too far off to accurately discuss?

Beyond the pilot, I’ve yet to catch an episode of the Battlestar Galactica spinoff, Caprica, but I’m desperate to before – and let’s face it – they cancel it:

The music video for “In Repair,” a song by a band I used to like quite a bit, Our Lady Peace, from their album, Spiritual Machines, which features the thoughts and ideas and voice of the futurist Ray Kurzweil quite a bit:

And here’s the trailer for The Transcendent Man, a documentary about Kurzweil. Interesting stuff. Especially, and I hate myself or saying this, the celebrity cameos. See:

You can see Kurzweil on Glenn Beck here.

Or, you can see Kurzweil explaining the coming singularity here.

He also made an old resting list of ours, which you can find here.

You can flash back to Maria and I talking about related things (and Megan Fox and the robots who will fuck you) here.

And while I enjoyed the pilot to Caprica, which is on the still ridiculously named “SyFy” channel, part of me is sad that it’s associated with Galactica. I would’ve enjoyed it a bit more if it was it’s own thing. Hopefully it’s still on Hulu, because I need to catch up. Also, I think I’m in love with “the first cylon,” played wonderfully by Alessandra Torresani.

Other craziness:

FLASHBACK! Why the internet will fail (from 1995).

Old people, lifecasting, and the future of the internet.

Other great Our Lady Peace songs include: “Clumsy,” as well as “Superman’s Dead,” I guess, and “Is Anybody Home?” and the epic and immortal “Starseed.” And a song called “Will The Future Blame Us,” which is okay, I guess, but the title is hilarious to me. The answer is yes. Time travel will be created in the future mainly due to posterity’s desire for revenge.

Ray Bradbury on predicting what the future will look like:

“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”

from 1979′s Beyond 1984: The People Machines.

Oh well. The future’s an interesting place that I want to live in someday. And who doesn’t want to be on the team of architects who designs it? But there’s a massive gaping difference between desire and talking and just doing and building. And talking about the future tends to be elegant masturbation.

And a last thought:

“The very people who believe that everything has already been discovered and everything said, will greet your work as something new, and will close the door behind you, repeating once more that nothing remains to be said.”

“Newness is in the mind of the artist who creates, and not in the object he portrays.”

“What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”

-Eugène Delacroix, via here and here.

The lovely Liberty Leading The People, 1830, by Eugène Delacroix, which, sadly, you last song on the cover of the last fucking Coldplay album.

The City On The Edge Of Forever.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Phoenix is the sweatiest city in America.

“Stranger In Moscow.”

Sydney and the light rail.

Augmented reality in London.

The ghost in the field, and RFID chips.

What will happen when London is flooded?

“Berlin” in Paris.

Interracial couple denied marriage license in Louisiana.

Soft robots and DARPA.

Moscow’s mayor promises a winter without snow.

Paris Syndrome and Jerusalem Syndrome.

San Francisco and the 1906 earthquake.

Rebuilding New Orleans.

from here.

“City Of Blinding Lights.”

A possible glimpse at our future space cities.

America’s most expensive cities and most impoverished cities.

FOX promises to air all 13 of the already ordered Dollhouse season two episodes.

Speaking of which, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin In The Woods being held back a year to be switched over to 3D.

“Magnetricity” observed for the first time.

A map of your future mega-cities and megaopolises.

“When the lights go down in the city…”

Sensing the immaterial-material city.

Cities underground and cities tsunami-resistant.

City Of Shadows.

The ruins of Chernobyl, over 20 years later.

“Cities In Dust.”

GTA IV: Inherent Vice City.

“Silver City” and “Sad, Sad City.”

Why all cities are haunted.

The mind of a city (and how our brains are similar).

The cityscapes of François Schuiten.

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem.

The city is a battlesuit for surviving the future.

Phantom City: See the city that could’ve been.

“…when we reach the city.”

“I have come to wound the autumnal city.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

“I’ll take the coral reefs as my metaphor. Though hardly so beautiful. If the essence of life is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are just colossal memory systems and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling external memory….”

-a quote from Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, a movie that I was watching the other day and just first stirred the pot on several thoughts I had locked up. Thoughts about human beings and boxes we live in.

Warren Ellis had created a comic book character years ago called Jack Hawksmoor, the “king of cities.” Jack was a normal human who had been abducted by city-empathic aliens from the future and repeatedly operated on and “upgraded” to have city-specific powers for use with fighting some unknown future threat that was coming.

Jack Hawksmoor, the King Of Cities.

Hawksmoor, who’s name was inspired by both Spring Heeled Jack and Nicholas Hawksmoor, couldn’t survive for very long outside of an urban environment, but when he was in any city, he had powers specific to that city, including things like superhuman strength and agility, but also psychometry and the ability to control and alter architecture and infrastructure. I don’t think the character was ever utlized by successive writers to his full potential, but I do remember in one story where Hawksmoor had to fight a powerful villain, he made sure that the fight took place in Mexico City, the larged city in the world, to maximize his abilities.

Quarantined in utopia.

“There’s no one to know. There’s nothing to do. The city’s been down since you’ve been gone.”

Climate change and warfare.

“Black And White Town.”

Scientists create “sexual tsunami.”

12 sexist vintage ads.

What’s left of the Roman city of Dougga.

Futurism vs. Science Fiction.

Futuristic steampunk urban recycling.

The little town that Los Angeles killed.

Speaking of which: Future Los Angeles.

Future Chicago.

Future New York.

The saddest blow job story ever.

“History Of A Boring Town.”

Russell Brand not capable of monogamy.

10 most amazing ghost towns, including Prypiat.

“Everything In It’s Right Place.”

Scientists develop “brain to brain communication.”

As time progresses, the future will literally devour the past: WW2-era statue with added cell tower.

“Last Stop: This Town.”

Analog Series Finale.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

Friday the 12th! That just sounds funny to say. So non-monumental, you know? Either way, today’s the last day of normal analog TV here in America. Here’s a graphic I stole on how people are not fully quite ready for the switch over:

from here.

Not that people didn’t have all the time they need. The switchover, which we had had plenty of warning about, was originally supposed to happen back in February but was pushed back to today.

Something about inadequate funding and people being stupid about the changing technology. Speaking of Obama up there, I was in a fast food place yesterday (sigh) ordering some lunch (but it was a salad, thankfully) and Obama was on the TV speaking somewhere or other. It was a nice bit attacking people for me thinking that he actually wanted the government to have to be responsible for multiple industries in this country. But then he attacked parents who let their kids eat junk food and drink all the soda they want and then just sit in front of the TV for hours and hours with no real excercise.

But I liked it. One of the many reasons I like Obama. Granted, he’s not the first person to throw down a little real talk about child obesity, but it’s always good to hear because you know WAKE UP, PEOPLE!

Not that I’m knocking watching TV. I fully support watching TV (though I wish what was usually on the TV was better), but whoever you are, no matter how good or how bad of shape you are in (physically)(because if we’re talking mental health, that’s a subject for another blog post, perhaps one by Benjamin Light or Peanut or Lollipop, but not me, because I’m pleasantly crazy, thank you very much), go do a little exercising. Go soak in a little nature. Eat a little healthier. Don’t torture yourself about body image or what others want/look like, but just be healthier. Do something, okay?

The rabbit ears are gone. Time to tune yourself into a better channel.