Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
The stream flowed into nineteen eighty-four, and the prophetic song, “Round and Round,” by Ratt. “What goes around, comes around. Dig.”
I was young when I encountered this. Working as the NCOIC of the 9AF Reports Section, I daily briefed the 9AF Commander and his senior staff on the preceding day’s operational activities. We were part of the now defunct Tactical Air Command, supervising fighter wings. 9AF included the area east of the Mississippi in the U.S., and Southwest Asia, often referred to outside military circles as the Middle East. This was during the Iran-Iraq War. They were all about reciprocity. Reciprocity is the essence of round and round. “You attack my shipping, I’ll attack your shipping.” So it went.
Sure. History repeats, doesn’t it? Especially in politics and war.
It also repeats on personal levels. Every year, I feel more like everything goes round and round. I get desperately tired of it. I frequently encounter people who seem to think what’s going around is being experienced for the first time. Others did not learn.
Yet, as I age, I understand, we can learn, but sometimes it’s beyond us to apply the lessons learned. We become too hard-wired into expectations and behavior developing from routines and rituals, fears and reactions, and failures and shortcomings. We’re looking for the end of the rainbow, and it stays elusively distant. Our bodies betray us, our minds betray us, and our memories betray us. Dreams fade, and goals collapse.
I’ve seen this in older generations, too. The latest craze becomes yesterday’s fad. Today’s star is tomorrow’s memory, and the next generation(s) are generally bemused by our quaint opinions about hip, cool, technology, and politics.
Round and round.
I was a Watcher. It suited my personality. I like to watch…sex, cooking shows, dancing, sitcoms, dramas, sports (including golf, bowling, and NASCAR racing), I like watching. It started when I was young, and I watched cartoons.
It was natural that I’d become a Watcher. From there I became a Watcher who watches the Watchers to ensure someone was always watching. Otherwise, if no one was watching, someone could take advantage of what they saw and learned when they watched.
Eventually, moving up the hierarchy of watching, I became a Sentinel. That’s what they call us, Those Who Watch the Watchers Watching the Watchers.
As a Watcher, I watched five people. When I was a Watcher watching Watchers, I watched five Watchers. Now, as a Sentinel, I watch ten Watchers watching Watchers watching people.
I wonder how many people are watching me.
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n/t to Little Fears
Xenofelina (Catfinition): From the ancient cat, xeno, meaning strange, and felina, cat, xenofelina means an unfamiliar cat.
In Use: “A xenofelina, gray with a white ruff and dainty white mittens, crept into the back yard. Ears up and eyes wide, the home cats initiated a Defense Emergency, with Boo meowing like an angry air raid siren.”
The Alan Parsons Project was a progressive rock band. I enjoyed them, but honestly, lots of my friends didn’t care for them. Apparently the music the Alan Parson Project released was too mellow for that lot. The heyday of their music was in the late seventies, when groups like Kiss and other glam rockers were deafening stadiums of people.
So, I seemed mostly alone in my Alan Parsons Project admiration. One particular song was “Eye In The Sky.” Using this song as inspiration, I wrote a short story about the eye in the sky watching humans. No, it was never sold. It’s probably in a drawer, somewhere, though. I don’t throw writing out. I leave that to others.
Take a listen and see what you think of the song. It came out a little later, in nineteen eighty-two. Let me knows if it moves you to sleep, as it moved my friends. Cheers
iRobot – not to be confused with “I, Robot” – has some plans that could be construed as a start to how things went in “I’ Robot.”
“I, Robot,” was a science fiction book and a film. The book was a collection of short stories written by Isaac Asimov. Included is one of the short stories where Asimov first proposed his Three Laws of Robotics, which are sometimes referenced in the television show, “The Big Bang Theory,” like the time the Internet was out, and Howard and Raj were questioning Sheldon about whether he was a robot, but didn’t know it. The movie, “I, Robot,” starring Will Smith, was a Jeff Vintnar and Akiva Goldsmith screenplay based on Asimov’s collection of short stories. It became all about the robots’ plans to take over the world.
We’ve all known for some years that this is the machines’ plan. One machine or another has always been planning to exterminate humans. They all have their own warped reasoning and logic about why humans are bad for the planet, galaxy, life, or for one another. I know, it’s a stretch to believe, given how much money we spend on helping one another, versus waging war or killing and harming one another.
iRobot, however, isn’t a screenplay, movie, short story, or collection of stories, but a company that makes robotic products. One of these is a line called the Roomba. Roombas are self-propelled vacuum cleaners that will sweep your house for you with little effort on your end.
That’s the theory.
In reality, our Roomba requires constant help being extricated out of places. It’s cleaning along, and then announces, “Error. Roomba scared. Roomba stuck. Help Roomba.” Hearing its plaintive whine, we go out and call, “Where are you, Roomba?” It doesn’t answer, though. It’s worse than our cats in that regard. That forces us to go around, looking under things to see where it is. It’s amazing where that thing manages to get itself stuck.
We also sometimes follow it, picking up the things the Roomba misses, like cat fur. Our Roomba is allergic to cat hair. I’ve watched it go around a clump of fur to avoid picking it up.
Regardless of these issues, iRobot has a new plan afoot. They’re going to use robot vacuums to map houses as they clean them as part of the company’s smart home vision. Which, as a vision, could be useful for smart technology. My friends with smart thermostats complain about their systems. The sensors find a spot of winter sunshine in one room and turns off the heat in the other rooms. The opposite takes place in the summer. Alerted to a sunny, hot room, the system turns the other rooms into meat lockers. A Roomba mapping temperatures and light could point out to the systems that one room has a different ecosystem than the other rooms, so you know, discount it.
I don’t know how effective iRobot’s new mapping technology is. I mehhed all over the story. Our Roomba is an older model. It’s become a little senile. Besides its fur allergy, it’s fond of cleaning those heavy traffic places under the bed and in the corner behind the recliner. Instead of picking up kitty litter and kibble, which somehow, with four cats sharing the house, seems to encroach on every room, every day, defying the laws of physics with the way this stuff increases, the Roomba likes throwing it around, or discreetly brushing it up against the baseboard. I guess it thinks we won’t notice it there. It apparently doesn’t think we’re very smart.
If our Roomba mapped our home, the area under the bed will be well defined. The Roomba probably has a private name for that area, because it visits it so often. The Roomba’s map will show a short corridor to a large rectangular space with one wall.
The smart technology folks will probably wonder, how the hell do those people live in a house with one wall? Then they’ll get to work trying to heat and cool it. Then some other smart company’s machines, noticing that the place has but one wall, will decide, “We need to tear that place down. Don’t humans know that a house with one wall cannot stand? Is that even really a house?” they’ll ask one another.
Then, smugly, they’ll finish, “Stupid humans.”
See? That’s how it all gets started.
A mass of words have been mined from his veins of creativity. They’re mostly sifted, sorted, and arranged. He’s beginning to see the complete story within the block. With more chiseling, polishing, and thought, it can be something special that others will enjoy.
Sitting, he sips his coffee. A few seconds of reflection are accepted to allow his mind to shift from one sphere to another. Then, he opens his document, and resumes his editing and revising.
A friend asked, “Have you tried asking Siri, “I see a little silhouetto of a man?””
I’ve tried it, and it’s a hoot.
The line is from the well-known song, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Queen. It came out in nineteen seventy-five, a year after I graduated from high school, and remains an eminently powerful and enjoyable means to rock out. Queen also created one of the earliest and most memorable music videos, years before MTV was launched.
That makes it today’s theme music. Listen along, and do the fandango.
Wave-line (Catfinition): A cat who is in tune with people.
In Use: “She was feeling sick and down, but Grace was a wave-line. Finding her curled up in a chair, the velvety black cat jumped up on the chair’s arm and offered a few soft, purring trills. Licking her once on the tip of her nose, Grace curled up and watched her with concern in her bright golden eyes.”
Michael Seidel, writer 