In Reruns: Craving
From January 1998.
Reposted because mmcirvin reminded me of his fabled Magnum Opus (written at age 10) Watch Your Brain as part of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.
...
James "Kibo" Parry wrote:
WATCH MY BRAIN!!!
___
We were watching the brain.
It was a disturbing sight.
In the previous seven days billboards had sprung up across the nation, screaming the message at any passerby who had failed to integrate into their psyche the necessary survival skill of editing out advertising. The trailers had ran on TV, as many as seven times during a single commercial break. It was on all channels, from the mighty networks down to the tiny stations that not even the loving relations of those who worked on them bothered to watch.
All this with one united message, "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!"
It had started in the news media months before, at first a tiny infection here and there, but quickly gathering pace as the newsmen hungry to find something, anything, to fill the as yet empty continents of time and newsprint that had always massed threateningly in their futures. Desperately they pushed and pulled and worried at the thing, convinced that somewhere in this mass of rumour and confusion there was a real story.
They interviewed each other hysterically in rabid little circles, over and over again, knowing in their hearts that this time they were onto something big.
Soon it was everywhere, people were discovering that they their closest friends had known about it all for months, that the real cognoscenti had been discussing it earnestly on that internet thing for years. Your worried parents would call your up in the small hours asking you to explain it all to them.
Somehow it was always much too complicated to describe in simple terms. The experts agreed with this assessment, as did the growing phalanx of "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" consultancy practitioners, "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" therapists, and "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" new-age evangelists.
Polling evidence was mixed; one day watching the brain would be the greatest boon to civilisation and industry the world had ever seen, the next it would be the biggest menace to both ourselves and our children that had emerged in the last three decades. Political debate was heated, there were calls to regulate, to deregulate, to raise taxes, to lower taxes, to not even consider voting for those other guys who were soft on the watching the brain issue.
The President announced a new national "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" strategy consisting of having a firm strategy on the matter. Congress condemned the President's strategy and commended to the people a "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" strategy of their own, built upon the much sounder basis of having an _exceedingly firm_ strategy toward the issue.
And now almost without us even noticing, the moment had burst upon us. Here we were, watching the brain.
ACTUALLY WATCHING THE BRAIN!!! A WHOLE CONTINENT UNITED AS NEVER BEFORE IN THE SINGLE PURPOSE OF WATCHING THE BRAIN!!!
We knew that for years to come we would be able to ask anyone where they were when they watched the brain and they would be able to answer in vivid detail. We knew that everyone looked upon this time in exactly the same way that we did.
...It was at that moment that the phone in the callbox across the street began to ring. Distracted from the spectacle of watching the brain, I excused myself to my companions, and negotiated my way between the ranks of gridlocked traffic to pick it up.
I brought the receiver up toward my ear.
The voice on the other end of the line whispered precisely three words before hanging up.
"SEE SPOT RUN!!!" it said to me.
Suddenly I realised that it was _this_, not watching the brain, that would be the solution to all our problems. From that point forward I knew that this was something that the world had to know.
My one duty was get the word out.
Reposted because mmcirvin reminded me of his fabled Magnum Opus (written at age 10) Watch Your Brain as part of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.
...
James "Kibo" Parry wrote:
WATCH MY BRAIN!!!
___
We were watching the brain.
It was a disturbing sight.
In the previous seven days billboards had sprung up across the nation, screaming the message at any passerby who had failed to integrate into their psyche the necessary survival skill of editing out advertising. The trailers had ran on TV, as many as seven times during a single commercial break. It was on all channels, from the mighty networks down to the tiny stations that not even the loving relations of those who worked on them bothered to watch.
All this with one united message, "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!"
It had started in the news media months before, at first a tiny infection here and there, but quickly gathering pace as the newsmen hungry to find something, anything, to fill the as yet empty continents of time and newsprint that had always massed threateningly in their futures. Desperately they pushed and pulled and worried at the thing, convinced that somewhere in this mass of rumour and confusion there was a real story.
They interviewed each other hysterically in rabid little circles, over and over again, knowing in their hearts that this time they were onto something big.
Soon it was everywhere, people were discovering that they their closest friends had known about it all for months, that the real cognoscenti had been discussing it earnestly on that internet thing for years. Your worried parents would call your up in the small hours asking you to explain it all to them.
Somehow it was always much too complicated to describe in simple terms. The experts agreed with this assessment, as did the growing phalanx of "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" consultancy practitioners, "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" therapists, and "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" new-age evangelists.
Polling evidence was mixed; one day watching the brain would be the greatest boon to civilisation and industry the world had ever seen, the next it would be the biggest menace to both ourselves and our children that had emerged in the last three decades. Political debate was heated, there were calls to regulate, to deregulate, to raise taxes, to lower taxes, to not even consider voting for those other guys who were soft on the watching the brain issue.
The President announced a new national "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" strategy consisting of having a firm strategy on the matter. Congress condemned the President's strategy and commended to the people a "WATCH MY BRAIN!!!" strategy of their own, built upon the much sounder basis of having an _exceedingly firm_ strategy toward the issue.
And now almost without us even noticing, the moment had burst upon us. Here we were, watching the brain.
ACTUALLY WATCHING THE BRAIN!!! A WHOLE CONTINENT UNITED AS NEVER BEFORE IN THE SINGLE PURPOSE OF WATCHING THE BRAIN!!!
We knew that for years to come we would be able to ask anyone where they were when they watched the brain and they would be able to answer in vivid detail. We knew that everyone looked upon this time in exactly the same way that we did.
...It was at that moment that the phone in the callbox across the street began to ring. Distracted from the spectacle of watching the brain, I excused myself to my companions, and negotiated my way between the ranks of gridlocked traffic to pick it up.
I brought the receiver up toward my ear.
The voice on the other end of the line whispered precisely three words before hanging up.
"SEE SPOT RUN!!!" it said to me.
Suddenly I realised that it was _this_, not watching the brain, that would be the solution to all our problems. From that point forward I knew that this was something that the world had to know.
My one duty was get the word out.