David Zach, futurist

Future Shock a Shocking Discard

I have a confession. I've never read Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. This always seems to shock people who know of the book in that they assume that a futurist has to read other futurists, especially the best known works. For one, written in 1969 it's greatly outdated (I was in 7th grade at the time), two, its key themes have made it into either the general culture or into the general notion of futurism.

He along with Herman Kahn are credited as being amongst the first futurists and I think that Toffler is one of the greats. He essentially put futurism on the map and doesn't just identify the trend (fortune telling) but also explores the implications of those trends. But for me the Future Shock book is just too long and I am always suspicious of great big thick books (that mostly doesn't apply to novels) in that I don't think that the writers of thick books have put enough effort into making it a thin book. Sort of like the notion of the movie director (I forget which one) who said that if you can't put your idea on the back of business card, you really don't have an idea. I'm skeptical of long non-fiction books.

And discarding such big thick, outdated books is not just my idea. On Boing-Boing, one of the more cutting edge blogs for following future trends and fads, contributor Cory Doctorow is making a collection of discarded books found in New York. He notes that Future Shock is high on the list of found discards and others note that it's a easily found book in rummage sales and used book shops. It would seem that old futures have undignified futures.

This article was sent to me by my good friend Buck Wolf, formerly of ABC as an entertainment reporter, a regular member of US Magazine's Fashion Police and now also writing the Weird News column for about.com. As I am sitting in his condo as I write this, it's a bit of an honor to recommend his writing to you. He has a breadth of knowledge of how the odd and the offbeat often filter into our everyday lives. There's a notion within futurism that new ideas start on the fringes and as they run through the mill of objection, the survivors of this process often become mainstream. Apparently weird has a better survival rate than in years past because it would help explain why we have the world we have today.

Infinite Illustration, take 2

Someone wrote to me telling me that one of the links on my old blog went to a website that I probably didn't want linked to my stuff. Yeah. So I went back and corrected that and tracked down the correct link.

It's to a website called ZoomQuilt2. It is an illustration that goes on forever, or for 88 some illustrations, all extending from one to the other seemlessly. It's fun. If you click on many of the named artists who collaborated on this, you'll see their own websites.

Let's hope this link lasts a bit longer.

Also apparently my old blog is still up in my archives so for those who want to explore the history of the future, here's the link.

Paying Attention to Color Changing Card Trick

It's attention to detail that wins the day. (I lost, btw.)

In the Shadows

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
Henry van Dyke

We should also look at some of the shadows for what they reveal.

My brother John sent this to me. Sort of hard to stay mad at the world when we can do this sort of thing.

I don't speak any of the Chinese languages but I think what most of them were saying was, "Down in front!"

At the end, it's a car ad - before that, it's beautiful.

A quick search on YouTube reveals lots more play in the shadows.

Weird Al Yankovich wishes me a Happy 50th.

Claymation of Verdi's Traviata

This is just delightful. Almost as good as stained glass windows . . .

When seeing such playful creativity, one should have more confidence about our future along with some simple reasons for wanting to defend it. Imagine what Verdi would have said if he could see what has been done with his music. Again, try to look at things from a different time perspective than your own. We grow use to things and thereby we are no longer surprised or impressed. This is flawed reasoning brought on more by being tired than by being reasonable. Children (or at least children from the pre-electronic game age) don't quite get bored with marvelous things - adults do and so we give children the sort of toys that allow them to grow bored just like us - and then we call it progress.

We should be startled by the sun, not by the eclipse; we should wonder
less at the earthquake, and wonder more at the earth.
G.K. Chesterton

Verdi - Traviata - Choeur Bohémiens
Uploaded by Quarouble

Found on a link from The Anchoress

One more reason to fear flying

Clever Xbox advert from Germany.

Of course it's not quite as good as this 405 classic from a few years back.

In honor of MKE Irish Fest

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Update: the 2007 winners are in.

Heard this on NPR this morning The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest - for the best bad first line to a novel. Of course, the novel can exist only in your mind, the point is to do really bad writing, so bad that it's good and memorable. I absolutely love this sort of abuse of the English language and really admire people who can do it intentionally.

Here you'll find many previous winning entries, including last year's winner:

Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean. Submitted by Jim Guigli, Carmichael, CA

The 2006 runner up:

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?" Submitted by Stuart Vasepuru, Edinburgh, Scotland