lines can haunt you

2006-06-07

We are Platyhelminthes

Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.
But now, drawling back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line.
~Edwin Abbott, Flatland

Before I set anything down on record, I must warn you I am feeling a little crazy today. It might be the four cups of coffee, it might be the resonant consumption of drugs over the weekend - I don't know.

Why no flying cars yet? Where's my flying car? Cruising down King Edward I was struck by the two dimensionality of our world. Straight thoroughfares that intersect at regularly planned intervals, evenly meting out all of our cultivated civic existence - all in the name of transportation. Person A has to get from point B to point C; Goods D must move between point E and point G. (No F's. Now that I teach, I don't like them. F reasonably stands for failure, and there's too much of that already. Ironically, I dreamed last night I had two children whose names began with 'F'. I can't remember what exactly their names were, but they were some damned interesting names, I can tell you that.) Anyway. The point is, all these damned goal-oriented excursions are always intersecting each other and slowing everything the fuck down. Just imagine a world without ground traffic. Only bicycles and pedestrians. Imagine a world where you had to explain to your two 'F' named children what a 'road' was and why we used to have them. Because you know we'll save some of course. You know there will be memorials to those paved decadences we lay so richly across the earth like cursed Midases, everything we touch turned to a thousand miles of broken glass and bitumen. We have airplanes! We have helicopters! Let's get to these damned flying cars already!

I guess we'd need some new advanced radar as well as a whole new set of rules governing vehicular motion. Ah, details, details.


Navigation previous entry next entry latest entry archives profile notes e-mail How lines can haunt you... Recent Forays 2009-03-10: The names 2008-05-21: in medias res 2007-11-14: The things I meant to write about: 2007-07-29: More than meets the eye 2007-04-13: Where the words have gone. Links Abroad in medias res Modern Drunkard Ftrain The Onion Exploding Dog McSweeney's Internet Tendency The National Pist Higher Blogs Palinode's Palace Schmutzie Friday Films Luvabeans Sprigs Fairlywell Dirty Laundry Boombasticat f-i-n jonquill Stray Sparrow Swordfern Pablo Ashahands Erasing		2006-06-07 We are Platyhelminthes Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle. But now, drawling back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line. ~Edwin Abbott, Flatland Before I set anything down on record, I must warn you I am feeling a little crazy today. It might be the four cups of coffee, it might be the resonant consumption of drugs over the weekend - I don't know. Why no flying cars yet? Where's my flying car? Cruising down King Edward I was struck by the two dimensionality of our world. Straight thoroughfares that intersect at regularly planned intervals, evenly meting out all of our cultivated civic existence - all in the name of transportation. Person A has to get from point B to point C; Goods D must move between point E and point G. (No F's. Now that I teach, I don't like them. F reasonably stands for failure, and there's too much of that already. Ironically, I dreamed last night I had two children whose names began with 'F'. I can't remember what exactly their names were, but they were some damned interesting names, I can tell you that.) Anyway. The point is, all these damned goal-oriented excursions are always intersecting each other and slowing everything the fuck down. Just imagine a world without ground traffic. Only bicycles and pedestrians. Imagine a world where you had to explain to your two 'F' named children what a 'road' was and why we used to have them. Because you know we'll save some of course. You know there will be memorials to those paved decadences we lay so richly across the earth like cursed Midases, everything we touch turned to a thousand miles of broken glass and bitumen. We have airplanes! We have helicopters! Let's get to these damned flying cars already! I guess we'd need some new advanced radar as well as a whole new set of rules governing vehicular motion. Ah, details, details. Tell me when this blog is updated email: