The landlines are gone/And the pay phones are too/For our race has moved on/From the Anchorage Zoo
But the thing on our person/Both frees and inhibits/To better and worsen/Our lifestyle exhibits
Our likes are recorded/Our life events shared/No matter how sordid/We end up ensnared
We end up so pounded/By ask and directive/By deluge unbounded/And doomscroll invective
The stress of such pressure/Seems never to cease
Hey, end this indenture
The Off switch
Brings
Peace
With a prompt like “Enchanted,” the mind enters the Magical Realm of Once Upon a Time. Here’s a true story that seems magical to me. Once upon a time there was a man who lived with two women, and loved them both. But he found that there was truth in the Chinese symbol for “Trouble,” which draws a simplified picture of two women under one roof. He became agitated by some of this “trouble,” and it gave him an idea. Don’t people who lie have physical changes that a machine might be able to detect? And so the Lie Detector was invented. And later, the same man noticed, with the help of one of the women he loved, that comic books only had men as superheroes, so he told a comic-book-maker that they needed a woman hero. The comic-book-maker agreed, and asked for help, so this man created Wonder Woman with the help of an artist. And he created Wonder Woman with a Lie Detector of her own, a magic lasso which when encircling someone would make that someone tell the truth. And though there is no “happily ever after” to this story, the empowerment of women that can be directly traced to this man has made the world a better place. The end.
I have futurist David Rose to thank for this true story in the form I have written. It was part of his discussion of his book Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things. He gave that discussion five years ago, and since then Siri and Alexa, two well-written forms of artificial intelligence, have managed to insinuate “themselves” into our lives, working their often creepy enchantment. (In his discussion Rose speaks of “The Uncanny Valley,” wherein things designed to be more humanlike do so just enough to give us the willies.) (And the Bad Punster strikes again: If they made social robots of Willie Mays and Willie Nelson, it would REALLY give us the Willies.) (Sorry not sorry.)
So my page this time has no acrostic poetry, though I became tempted, when listing various Enchanted things, to list them as Swords, Evenings, Castles, Rings, Encounters, and This Guy’s Brain–put them all together and they spell “Secret.”
I have provided the link to David Rose’s discussion to my Facebook readership, and the link is on my Magic Clipboard now, but I will cost you a few seconds and NOT paste it here, instead inviting you to work a little Enchantment of your own via Internet search, by way of demonstrating, as Arthur C. Clarke once observed, “Any sufficiently developed technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Let’s end with a punchline. There are many people I know via social media that I have never met in person. YOU may well be one of them, and one of the reasons I want to spend my retirement on a World Tour of meeting lovely people that I have and have not met yet. From this day forward, at that magic moment when I am physically WITH someone (as I say, pehaps YOU) whom I previously have only known online, I intend to use that magic word that the French employ when they meet someone for the first time–“Enchanté.”
My last blog post, “A Ten-Poem Day,” included a scrambled-up version of the above portrait. i’d originally planned to switch images if and when Socorro gave me the go-ahead to post. now, though, I’m inclined to give Socorro a post of her own.
About eight years ago I saw an Internet ad for a social website that said “Under 50 Need Not Apply.” I was 52, and a site for over-50 folks sounded good. That site was the late, lamented eons.com. It was my first experience with social media. I didn’t do Facebook till much later.
One of the first things I found was a poetry group called Callling All Poets, which Socorro had created. I joined it and loved it, participating enthusiastically.
Her username on Eons was Pajarito. We called her PJ. She was, and is, encouraging, uplifting, and motherly. Not for her was the deconstructive critique, nor putdowns of any kind. Anyone wanting input on their writing need only ask; it would come by private message if potentially embarrassing.
Of course, a few times people joined who didn’t subscribe to the ethic of encouragement and uplift. I remember two in particular. One was scathingly sarcastic; the other one was a legend in his own mind who wanted us all to benefit from his superior approach to poetry, and no other approach would do. Socorro dealt with them both with honest directness, first with a warning and then with the classic heave-ho. She has always stayed a nurturing course.
And when Eons foundered, Socorro took us to Facebook. Now we are Poets All Call, 70 members strong.
I’ve written hundreds of poems expressly for Socorro’s group. It is a nice nesty poet’s haven. And she is a wonderful leader and friend. I’ll always be grateful to her.
Today is the one-year anniversary of the “One with Clay, Image and Text” blog. In the first year of the blog there were 321 posts, which missed the mark of a post per day but not by much. People in more than 70 different countries had a look at the blog, and one memorable day, thanks to the late, great and much lamented Roger Ebert, a single post received more than 1,500 views.
“Well, Isaac, what has you loined?” is what Judah Asimov would ask his son Isaac after they had just finished going to the theater and seeing a movie. Isaac’s father, who took the Asimov family to America from Russia when Isaac was three years old, valued his son’s inquiring mind, and was always encouraging him in his learning. I’ve found his question of great value whenever I do something, or have been through something, that was difficult yet rewarding. So now I ask: what have I learned from this blog of mine?
1) If I live to be 300, I will still be learning how to draw.
Most of my posts include at least one drawing, usually including calligraphy of an acrostic poem of mine, with the drawing serving as illustration. This is a constant challenge, and it reveals certain terrible defects I have as an illustrator, the chief of which is lack of patience. When I take my time I do far better than when I rush things. Here is an example of me not taking my time–from a weekly feature I do for the Facebook poetry group “Poets All Call”:
And here is an example of a work in progress wherein I am taking my time:
2) The social media may save the world.
Anyone with computer access and time on their hands has access to immense knowledge, not just of facts but the contents of their fellow world citizens’ hearts. We are in the mid-dawn of a new stage of civilization, and we “ain’t seen nothin’ yet” as far as its potential goes.
3) I sure love checkerboard patterns, spoons, and a soapbox to preach on.
‘Nuff said for now–I’m going to celebrate!
Here is a poem I wrote some months ago, rhymed, metered, but not acrosticized. I trust anyone involved in social media will recognize certain tropes…and I hope my calligraphy precludes the need for transcription.
One with Clay, Image and Text 