Email Correspondence: JJ, Jason, Dave

From me to JJ, Jason, and Dave

Hey gents,

Loving my summer so far. Not too hot, not too cold, some rain and wind. Lusty signs of bounty IMO. I'd like to thank Sarg for somehow assembling this small group of friends that have become significant. because it feeds my soul. 

Whenever I feel down, depressed, malaised, or disheartened, I try to recall the moment I first put two and two together regarding the mysteries of this life. It's not always been a tactic I’ve had at my disposal in defense against my tendency to self-sabotaging my own happiness. That is to say that happiness is not the end all be all of it, nor should aspiring to harness it permanently be our pursuit. Taking up bandwidth and processing power toward this endeavor is paddling upstream in a headwind, you'll get somewhere, but probably not the way you'd've imagined and most certainly not the intended destination.

It's supposed to hurt, so says Camus and Jerry Seinfeld. It makes about as much sense to moan and despair over one's circumstances as it does to rejoice when things are going well. They're both finite and fleeting circumstances whose comings and goings are largely out of our control. And don't forget, it's not a binary, either or equation, it involves a very many other feelings to feel alongside happiness and despair. I needn't name them, as you've begun counting the ways already. Happy, gleeful, joyful, mirth, enlightened, purposeful, hopeful, you get the idea. The stone is multifaceted.

I first read Camus in California. I worked at a Jamba Juice in Belmont Shore. It was nuts. I was working the early morning shift at UPS in Cerritos and living on the Orange County and Los Angeles County line, on the Long Beach side of Belmont Village. My apartment was a couple blocks away from the university. I was making ends meet, but I told myself that living is better than working. And I got this job at a soon-to-be-opened Jamba Juice at a brand-new mall along one of the canals that ran through this part of Belmont Shore. There was Tower Records, a state-of-the-art movie complex, and like a Whole Foods, but back before Whole Foods existed, a kind of organic, natural foods grocery store, a Starbucks, and a big box hardware store of which the name escapes me. Eventually, I was able to support myself with just Jamba Juice and quit UPS. I lived my life within the 2-mile radius along the stretch of road that connected Long Beach proper and Belmont.

Everyone that worked there was cool as shit. We were all friends. Friends with these two or three in one way and to this degree, and some other two or three in another way and degree. This little ecosystem mixing and blending perpetually. It was as turbulent as it was effortless. Mercy was a co-worker, the one who told me about Camus. It was on the beach, late at night, the closing crew from that night, and a couple of others who weren’t on shift joined us there. Mercy, short for Mercedes, a name, which when I learned it, endeared me to her at once, told me this, just us two, standing apart from the group.

You need to read Camus," she said. "The Stranger."

I was enchanted. Of course, I read it and then again years later, in some literary survey class. I also wrote an essay about it. Not for nothing, but my professor told me, at the one meeting I'd have with him, that my interpretation and analysis of the book were the best he'd seen from a student. I realize now that he likely says this kind of thing to any student entering his office. And I don't mean in a "hashtag me too" sort of way, I mean he was, and probably still is, a great teacher and probably said the things his students needed to hear. My idea was to analyze the structural aspects of the story through the lens of a carpenter building a house. I honestly don't remember the details or even the logic, the only reason I remember the thesis is because I'd tell the story many times thereafter and this was how I explained it, analogous to the carpenter. And then I'd launch into the specifics, which were varied according to the needs of my audience, thereby my recollections begin to dissolve into memories and false recollections.

Now, much later in life, I'm teaching it in my IB language and literature class. I see the path here and it didn’t have a driver or a destination when it manifested. I didn’t nurture it to make it go where it did. Mercy has not thought of me in 15 years and it was only that one time and only because she ran into Tsuri, a friend from the Jamba Juice crew back in the day, and they talked about those days over a couple, three rounds at the pub.

"You know," she says to Tsuri. "I told him he should read Camus. It's so funny though. He missed the point completely," and they laugh out loud without saying the letters L O L. Should this dialogue be included in the path that my Camus has taken, I wasn’t there for this conversation, I’m not even sure if this is how it actually happened, it likely never even happened.

Then Tsuri says, "He was the only one at that place who could pronounce my name correctly." Surely that’s not part of the path. It doesn’t have anything to do with Camus, aside from the much later association via an unrelated brief statement that included the word Camus.

They laugh. And again, I never actually witnessed this conversation, but that was the last time she thought of me. And the same equation can be applied between us all, even if we never actually "run across" one another, these “conversations” are going on all the time, about everything, and connections are being made between people separated by infinite possible times and spaces.

Neither do I mean to imply, that I have utilized a significant amount of bandwidth and processing power in sowing this path, aside from within the confines of my own head. When Mercy gave me this little advice, I was getting all my reading suggestions from people I actually knew. There was no internet or social media directing everything. It was not uncommon to strike a conversation up at the coffee shop, bar, bus, or what-have-you, and by the end of it, have a new title or author recommendation available to me.

That I can trace this one little thread back through time is a fortuitous break for me. Admittedly, I can be slow to interpret and analyze these aspects of life. I’ve known of this inadequacy for a long time. I try to think of it as a necessary cloak shielding me from something I’m not supposed to see or know until the time is right. But, having seen this one thread’s lifespan and relevance that its had is meaningful. It reminds me that there is good in the world.

This is what I’ve come to understand now. And yes, it’s thanks to Camus, because he said life is absurd, of course, we’re going to struggle and stumble through it, it’s no use getting all worked up about it. It’s similar to Buddhism that way. So, when I am distraught, down and out, I remember that I’ve always known this, back to the age of 5 or 6, when it first occurred to me how preposterous my existence is. When I put two and two together and I remember wondering how in the world I ended up in my mom’s belly. She had to meet and marry my dad. Then it occurred to me they both have parents who had to meet and get married. Then I followed that to its infinite beginnings and was befuddled by the conclusion. I believed, at 5 or 6, that I had some agency in this life, from before swooping down inside mom’s womb.

Not so much as a god though. My agency is probably more like teaching The Stranger in an English class at age 54 having read it at 25, studied it at age 35, and thinking about it innumerable times in between those points. It was not a conscious effort or purposeful goal, and yet there it is. It may as well be drawn on a map, but I had no idea of the route, or even the map, and certainly couldn’t have conceived of the architect. I must look for more of these.

I knew, at age 5 or 6, that we came from a vast black pool and that being chosen to pick a mom and dad was a gift. I knew that even when I was cursing my own and my parents’ existence. I knew I was lucky. So, whenever I feel malaise, ennui, discomfiture, or what have you, I try to go back to that. It’s a meditation that allows me to slow down and get outside the confines of my head. To see real people in front of me.

I appreciate you disparate lot, you each take up unique and valuable real estate on my hard drive. This writing session was inspired by Jerome K. Jerome's opening pages of "On the Care and Management of Women." I'm certain there's a direct connection between JKJ and Albert Camus. The Stranger, the very first time I read it, seemed more slapstick/satirical than social commentary to me. 

Dave, I remember visiting you and Jeff (I don't remember the neighborhood) while I was living in LA. Took a bus. You guys picked me up and we went to a bar. I know I remember this. After the bar, we went to your house, I just remember grey, and I know I saw this in you, your demeanor or embodiment, a resolve that none of this is personal. Like I could see the despondency of it, its impact on your soul. But that was a long time ago and I was high and drunk. It wasn't until I saw that, that I allowed myself to admit it, that none of this is permanent and the only sure thing is that it will never be like this again.

Jason, I recall with love and gratitude, your friendship from its inception at PCC, through our M.Ed. cohort, and up to today, for your patience and acceptance of me now. You put up with too much from me, I appreciate your unwavering faith.

JJ, you are the best editor I've ever known. You are a true student of the art. You came to see me in Yankton, and I first learned the phrase, "When in Rome do as the Romans." You have introduced me to so many strange new ways of thinking about life, and each of them has born strange and wonderful fruit. 

Love to each of you,

Otto

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From Jason

Don’t let my limitations be those for whatever might transpire in this plane.

By the way, good sir, have you read The Book of Mormon?

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From me

no, but I saw its premier on Broadway back in 2011. Alec Baldwin was in line at the bar during intermission. Just like the rest of us poor suckers. I nodded to him. 

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From JJ

Mt Rainier / Emmons Morraine

The water of White River the color of chalk

Chalk river, almost blue, ashen gray, imagine

White though, it certainly is white though, like milk

Almost. Mother’s milk? Poppie sap? The first of autumn’s

Fallen leaves, yellow with spots of green and brown

Take the ride downstream in tumbling, some half

Sank, the other half almost floating. From the 

Flat rock on which I sit I play a game in trying to

Catch one. Got one! If Van Gogh’s daughter 

Were to paint a poplar leaf, what glorious colors.

-

The scale, Mt Rainier seen from outer space

The play of light upon the eye, of eyelids closed

Or peering out across glaciers we must name 

And know, comprised of rock, ice and snow

And centuries, the scale of time, the size of

The earth, the size of Mt Rainier seen from

The valley below. Blue flies, yellow bees,

Dark brown ants almost black, all excitedly

Explore the newly introduced soft green camp blanket.

The headwaters of the White River is the termitus 

Of Emmons Morraine, the largest glacier of the 

Lower 48. Where the glacier melts two caves have

Formed, as is observed through binoculars from

The opposite ridge: Ridges, rails, spikes, steps,

Stairs, ribbons, folds, crevasses, ravines, cracks.

-

Microcosm vs macrocosm

The universe dances along a landslide 

As if the glaciers held life and death and

Resided in the newly landscaped backyard of

How we pray to forest fire smoke 

And the gentle fold, to wake each morning.

My tears upon a thread, as though.

Allow joy to outweigh sadness,

Laughter above sadness in switchback paths.

The ash dust of the mountain, after centuries wed,

Makes its way into my nostrils, onto boot laces,

Into the woven threads of my shirt and pants.

Ants scurry about in your ash, young mountain

Thrown forth from the belly of the Earth, along this

Ridge where one awakes with watch time held firm

Between one’s thighs, the pages catching wind

Curling to each well-worn thought from upbringing.

Silence. The river roars in the valley below as though

A constant drone. Wake upon the distance on which

A glacier melts and refreezes. Rainier loves me like

A father loves a newborn. I am released in it’s bodily

Form. I am gathered like canned meat on bagged bread.

I am healed and held in the path that clings the slope,

That climbs the incline of the early morning rope.

What am I doing here? Taoist brother, so young in 

Our camping, so old as to know existence is a bead

Thread upon a string in climbing, each and every step,

Bootsoles making way, leaving print in the dry dust

Of earth, so many prints here, so soon to wash away

In the deep snow of the path, the freeze and eventual

Melting, where once I put my arm around your shoulder.

The river water so cold to naked human skin, 

The ecstatic drunk, meditating fool with blanket

Laid out beneath the waxing moon. When I think of 

You in this earthbound ring gathering I smile with

The old old man. Pop and click and a metallic 

Bell sound intoned along the wilderness ridge.

What was that within the earth that rang?

The wilderness within, the wilderness in a song,

The chords strum like a breeze through the branch

Intoning a conversation in the parking lot with

The stranger, along the day and well-worn path.

j.j. 

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From Jason

I read The Stranger a few months before I needed to read it for an ENG 300 Critical Theory class with Michael Clark (who would later become more of a friend than mere professor), and since I’d just finished it I suggested that I could read the original French L’Etranger in parallel, which Michael took advantage of throughout our class discussions.

We were all rather amazed to learn the great extent that richer, more-powerful active French sentences had been translated – in more than one English translation – to passive construction, almost as if Legal teams had been involved to increase ambiguity where possible, to reduce risk to translators and publishers alike.

Michael, having previously studied law, and I, having previously worked with a legal team writing contract addendums/addenda, were the primary people impressed by these discoveries.

Fast forward a decade and I began reading a Camus book, called The Outsider, that I’d discovered secondhand in Prague, and I was surprised after about 10 pages to realize that it was another name for L’Etranger. I stopped reading it, as I reasoned that, if they had missed the most obvious and accurate L’Etranger-to-The Stranger cognate for the title, the rest of the book would likely be a piss-poor reduction – or conflation – of meaning.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read it (and I doubt I’d remember enough French now to read the original). I remember an Arab, a beach, and a gun. And a song by The Cure, I think, though they weren’t a band that I was ever much into, unless it made me, to a love or lust interest, less of a stranger.

jm

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From me, addressing JJ and Jason specifically

JJ

love this set. did you write MIcrocosm Macrocosm after your backpacking trip with Ezra? I presume the little - dashes were separate poems, with one left untitled. They all seem to be reflections related to fatherhood. 

"I am gathered like canned meat on bagged bread." Ezra must certainly know this experience.

Jason,

"I stopped reading it, as I reasoned that, if they had missed the most obvious and accurate L’Etranger-to-The Stranger cognate for the title, the rest of the book would likely be a piss-poor reduction – or conflation – of meaning." I'm not sure (and crucify me for not knowing and daring to call myself an English teacher) what you mean  "accurate congnate" but it seems that this english version "interpreted" the overall meaning of L’Etranger. At least, that is to say, "outsider" is one possible interpretation of "stranger" in whatever language, but to impress upon the reader more precisely that Mersault is literally and figuratively perceived as an outsider. 

You stumble across three titles at the bookstore. You've never heard of Camus or the Stranger. You see "L’Etranger", "The Stranger," and "The Outsider". Which is best? Which more intriguing? Which wouldn't you read? Why? The title, "The Outsider" points the reader in a specific direction. We already know and are aware of all the tropes associated with "outsider" literature. Alienated, aloof, punished, tormented, etc. While stranger, whether in English or French, is ambiguous, neutrally charged, it doesn't point in a specific direction. "Outsider" screams rebel, it points very loud. Whether it's pointing truly is another question. On a side note, The Stranger in German is "Der Fremde", or "The Foreigner." That's pointing even louder, and not for nothing, this is a narrow interpretation "the foreigner" for the English "the stranger". It's true Mersault is a foreigner in the book, but it's complicated with colonialist issues in French Algiers. It's possible Camus stashes a political agenda, but what happens to Mersault, in my humble opinion, has little to do with him as a foreigner, or the Arab he shoots. Can you say Arab? What happens to Mersault could happen to anyone. 

Anyway, yeah man, Michael Clark, that's the same professor I mention in my story. Crazy man. Name dropper much? lol, just kidding man. 

Ozone out!

Discussion: Artifice Girl

From me, addressing JJ, Dave, and Jason

Hello chaps,

After watching The Artifice Girl, I started writing a personal response essay. I had a good 16 pages worth of stuff, realized it was swishing the point around like a pair of old windshield wipers does a splatter of bird poo, and streamlined it down to palatable 6/7 pages. 

I absolutely love this movie. If you don't want spoilers, forgo reading the ESSAY until you've had a chance to watch it.

shutting down,

01 11 11 01

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Response from Dave

 Finally saw Artifice Girl. Great flick, certainly thought provoking. Love your scholarly analysis Otto. I had a few additional thoughts after reading your essay.

Part one sometimes made me think of 12 Angry Men, mostly in respect to the single room setting, and how the dialogue evolved in a way that had the viewer teetering between agreeing or disagreeing with Gareth's actions. I also experienced your same shifting of morality when I suspected Gareth was using a child to bait predators. It made me think about other examples I've seen in film, like the humans conducting suicide bomb missions against the cylons in Battlestar Galactica, and how I took silent satisfaction and cheered when they succeeded. Morality sometimes shifts, if immoral acts result in perceived justice against those who are our enemies.

I dug the way AI was presented in the image of a young girl. There is an innocence that lends itself to credibility, and an eagerness for me to listen to what Cherry was saying.

I also admired the effect of lighting. There was never any direct natural light, and most of the lighting was of artificial sourcing. And when indirect natural lighting was used, it was usually in the context of tension between natural and artificial intelligence.

What did you think of the ending? I loved the open endedness of it. It was a great choice to use a turntable to play the music, utilizing old technology instead of an mp3 played over an iPod. Gareth finally freed Cherry, so that she could dance and experience "life" untethered, and be able to exercise free will without being tied to her mission. But Gareth had trust issues. Gareth would never allow the possibility for this AI entity to carry out a new mission, to potentially destroy him, or perhaps humankind.

When the music glitched, Cherry's fearful expression conveyed the realization that Gareth had betrayed her, and her "upgrade" was a tool to orchestrate her demise. But behind that fear in Cherry's eyes, I saw a glimpse of anger. Maybe she had already calculated a way to escape her death and seek revenge upon her makers. Will she win the true chess game against Gareth?

-Davey G

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Hey Davy,

Great take on the natural/artificial lighting aspect. I’m prepping for teaching this movie in my IB Lang and Lit class to launch the school year and this will be another aspect to discuss and examine. I missed this completely but it’s an authorial choice that impacts our perceptions. A close analysis of whether  or not your interpretation plays out throughout would be worth further investigation.

Also appreciate your assessment of “shifting morality,” and the Battlestar Gallactica comparison. Loved that show. I wonder how that show would hold up to someone watching it for the first time today and having no prior knowledge about the show’s concepts. 

I’m embarrassed to admit this, having watched the film from top to bottom 3 or 4 times, as well as various pieces and parts repeatedly, pausing, backing up, watching, pausing again, subtitles, etc, that I’d never actually seen that last zoom-in close-up of her as the record skipped. In asking myself why in the world I would not watch the movie through to its complete ending, I conclude that I must have felt like the movie was done once all three urns were shown on the mantlepiece and we see Cherry dancing and expressing her newfound pursuits of self-improvement. 

I never doubted Gareth’s altruistic act of releasing her from her primary objective. That the movie points out his “trust issues” at least three times supports your idea that he’d actually deceived her and built in some kind of failsafe. Also, that Cherry is consistently one step ahead of Gareth throughout the movie would lend credence to her having already accounted for his final act of control and deception. 

The movie is a philosophical dialogue and not a plot-twist-driven Terminator type of blockbuster that would engender this kind of antagonistic one-on-one, win-or-go-home story tactic. The movie seems to depict thought, growth, and internal struggles through which it drags its audience. It challenges its characters and its audience equally. This last close-up shot of an angry and vindictive person secretly getting ready to exact her revenge seems out of place. Yet, there it is. Fear. Alert. Danger. 

I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what to make of the needle skipping at the beginning of the album meanwhile she’d been dancing to its song for a long stretch. It definitely breaks the fourth wall and she looks at us directly, as if to say, your move. The tactic, if employed with this intent, is cheap and undermines the subtleties it seems steeped in throughout. 

After reading your take on it, I couldn’t help myself and went online to see what others said and none of what I read felt satisfying, every take seemed to try too hard to explain it. Perhaps you are right, or maybe it’s really just a cheap tactic that the artist resorted to out of desperation for an ending. Is it a setup for a sequel? I hope not. I would have happily, blissfully gone on for the rest of my life having not been alerted to this final shot, because it was so much more lovely and encouraging without it. So, thanks for that :-) 

ozone out!

Review: Artifice Girl

 More human than human; or, 

Surprise Appreciation 101

By Otto Esterle

The Artifice Girl is a sci-fi movie that feels and presents like a play. If not for the critical scenes shot in Backflash, which help unfold Gareth’s (one of four characters in the film) backstory, this could easily be adapted to the stage.

It has three parts, Acts if you will, that take place in an interrogation room, a conference room, and in Gareth’s home respectively. The other three characters are Deena, Amos, and Cherry. Each scene keeps everyone in one room and mostly engaged in discussions surrounding two of society’s big concerns, AI and child or predatory sex offenders. On its journey of exploring these big societal ideas, it also asks questions about fate/free will, evolution, and the very current and relevant issue of how we qualify, categorize, and/or label ourselves and each other, e.g. self-identification. 

The movie opens with Deena, a middle-aged, professionally dressed woman sitting in a dark and barren office talking to Siri. She sends a message to her assistant to tell Amos she is waiting and to just bring him in. We don’t know Amos or who he is, or why she is setting this meeting up. The first hint the film provides regarding its purpose is when the camera zeros in on the side of her head as she rubs small ?circles around her temple. She asks, “Siri, how do you know the difference between right and wrong?” The moment before she asks the question, it hangs in the air and on her tortured facial expressions and the reader waits with bated breath to hear her question. It’s pivotal to the story’s message and will surface often throughout the film.

We know Siri will not answer this question, and so does Deena. We have all done this with these chatbots (I know Siri and Alexa are not chatbots. I should preface all of this and warn the reader that this review is based on my own personal understanding of AI and sometimes I will leap across huge chasms to make the information relevant and accessible. For example, while Siri and Alexa are not technically chatbots, they can produce outcomes that are very similar to ChatGPT which is a chatbot, well technically it’s a language model). We have all asked Siri or ChatGPT what the meaning of life is, or will I ever meet the woman of my dreams? But experience very quickly showed us the line, over which, the machines will not answer. Some may say that’s a sign of non-intelligence, I would say that I’ve met several actual human beings who would not cross over that same line, thusly refusing or simply lacking the capacity to consider these same questions.

AI will not speculate. We humans love to imagine what the future holds, look at HAL, Terminator, Eva, Her, Lucy, and Neo, our speculations are endless. We love to argue and fight for our rights, the evidence of wars throughout history is enough to support this idea. 

So, when Deena asks this, it’s meant as a way to ease the reader into the big giant head-trip they’re about to walk into. We know it won’t answer, Deena’s reaction informs us that she knows it will not answer, and yet, the question, “What’s the difference between right and wrong” sits there like a big squishy amorphous blob, grinning. My mind raced to all the possible circumstances that would provoke Deena to ask this question, i.e., something illegal, but it would have to be a question of some legal/moral/ethical thing that has been done. I considered fraud, money/finance, sneaky and underhanded politicians, rape, and pedophilia, to name a few. Interestingly, I never considered murder as I filed through the “moral” possibilities. Whatever outcomes you imagine Deena’s tortured question elicits in one’s mind, it is now focused on something ethical and the “right and/or wrong” of it. 

Just in time, two new characters enter the room and introductions are made. We now know we are with Amos and Deena, two “special agents” working for the ICWL, and Gareth, who we learn very quickly believes he is here for a grant that he’d apparently applied for. 

Deena is a strong, confident, professional, and savvy middle-aged white woman in a suit. She projects thoughtfulness, professionalism, and a touch of aggression. Amos is approaching middle age, a black man with a calm, soothing demeanor. He projects introspection, intelligence, and compassion. He also wears a suit. Gareth is a young (29 we learn), white, timid, and shifty-looking tech guy, like a coder or IT. He’s thoughtful but seems to be hiding something. He’s white, pale white, with orange, oily hair that looks as if he cuts it himself, and the lighting in the scene exacerbates his nose, gaunt face, and deep-set eyes. I am suspicious of him immediately. He doesn’t answer questions, and pauses when it would seem one shouldn’t need to pause and think about how to answer, like Where do you live?

Very quickly, because of the questions they ask Gareth, the manner in which they inhabit this good cop/bad cop cliche, and the agency for which they work, the ICWL, whose purpose is to catch predatory sex offenders, leads one to believe Gareth is under suspicion of being a predator. The cinematography, the acting, and the writing all contribute to presenting Gareth as a probable, and increasingly likely, guilty suspect. 

Until, just as Deena begins to ramp up her line of questions to an aggressive degree which clearly unnerves Gareth and provokes Amos to interrupt and blurt out, “I thought we weren’t going to do it this way!”

The pause that follows is dripping with doubt about Gareth’s role. I start, for just a moment to think this is not going to play out “typically” as a “gotcha” crime novel might suggest. My suspicions are not solely based on the evidence the film presents, I’m considering all films, books, etc, that create this “bait and switch” character who is overloaded with cues that lead the reader to a premature conclusion, only to pull the rug out from beneath it and reveal the opposite to be true. These tropes and tactics of deception are necessary because sophisticated viewers have seen everything. There are six archetypes in literature. Six frameworks on which every story in the history of man has been built. Readers have seen them all and the good ones stick in our memories like guideposts. As we approach any given guidepost there are signs that inform us we are zeroing in on one that is familiar. Sometimes, if the writing is good enough, we are surprised. This is a beautiful feeling. When you don’t see it coming, no matter the consequence, big, small, or indifferent, the surprise deserves appreciation. In The Artifice Girl, there are three such noteworthy surprises, and the treatment of Gareth’s character as his role in the film unfolds is the first of said examples of surprise. It’s a good surprise and bodes well in terms of the message. Gareth’s “good” is not overt, it’s shrouded in suspicion, much the way humans approach one another. 

We learn that Gareth has a profile in chat rooms where predators are known to communicate. We learn part of his username, we watch as the line of questioning drags us across every surface of possible reasons Gareth is in this room. We know he believed, or at least gives the impression that he believes he might be here for a grant he applied for, and that it has something to do with the ICWL, whose sole purpose is to catch predators, and we waffle between, is he somehow some kind of vigilante V for Vendetta child predator freelancer bringing down predators faster than the ICWL, NSA, and FBI can do combined, and if he is, how is he doing it? Is he using a real girl, his daughter even, as bait? That can’t be good. Or, is he actually a predator himself, and is this all a ruse to sway the audience in Gareth’s favor just to lower the boom on us later? 

Then at one point, Gareth blurts out, “I’m not what you think I am,” and he is so confident, almost righteous in his indignation that the reader is forced to reflect on everything we know about him. We’re informed he is a highly skilled and inventive coder/developer who’s attended elite schools like Columbia, Harvard, and Oxford. He’s invented a hyper-realistic, photorealistic CGI (computer-generated interface) technique that is used in movies in place of real actors who’ve since died. He’s been around the world working in this field with the most progressive governments, educational institutions, and corporate start-ups who are working on the most innovative and forward-thinking CGI/AI-based technology for any number of causes.

When agent Deena places a photo of a girl on the table. Her name is Cherry. The agents conclude it’s Gareth’s daughter. This “accusation” triggers Gareth and he finally comes clean and admits that Cherry is a CGI’d 13-year-old white girl that he built from the skeleton up, and gave it a “chatbot” (not a chatbot, Gareth is perturbed when Deena actually calls it a chatbot, he laughs at the comparison) to bring Cherry to life. 

During this interrogation, the question of right and wrong pops up twice. When we finally begin to realize Gareth is not a predator, but a freelance and self-proclaimed pursuer of child predators, we are relieved, but when we realize he may be using a real girl, maybe even his daughter to lure these predators, we (at least I) faltered, nearly to the point of excusal. I am overjoyed when I learn that Gareth is this anonymous superhero and when I initially believed he was using a real girl as bait, I admit, embarrassingly, that I excused it. My mind raced around looking for the least invasive approach Gareth might employ the girl in his tactics. After realizing he’s on the side of good, I imagined Gareth was using the girl, but he somehow was able to shield her from impact. Like he only uses her image, or she’s just the face of the operation, and he actually does all the dirty work behind the curtain so to speak. But the notion that the girl might be his actual daughter, it gets even more complex. I actually felt better about the situation if Cherry was his actual daughter, I imagined a father-daughter super predator terminator out there. Eventually, I reconciled that Cherry, daughter or not, no matter how protected her role might have been, she was still an innocent child. It is wrong. But, despite/in spite of this, the father-daughter dynamic seemed plausible if not acceptable.

I realized my concept of what is right and wrong was shifting. I needed to think Gareth was a degenerate. This stretched my conclusions across a huge spectrum between right and wrong. On one side, extreme “wrong” in child predators, on the other, the extreme “good”, the saver of children everywhere. Anything in between was possible with the extremities on either end acting like magnets tugging my thoughts one way or the other. At this point, I’m actually mourning the loss of my ability to see things in black and white. They are, all things, reducible to this binary conclusion. But, still, I’m only able to conclude that using a real child for any of these “bait” strategies is wrong by a kind of algorithm. The algorithm considers all the “goods” and “wrongs” of this strategy and through a kind of Venn diagram, I can conclude it’s clearly wrong. The reader will appreciate this “analogy” to “algorithm” later. 

The way my brain makes sense of Cherry is this. Imagine a CGI of a real person, basically an onscreen avatar but in the form and shape of a real 13-year-old girl. Her actions, facial expressions, and reactions are all manifestations of the AI making sense of a shit ton of data inputs. If you are talking to Cherry and she can see and hear you (data points), and if you're presenting body language and voice inflections that indicate sadness, she’s able to decipher all of these codes (data points) and determine the optimal response to deliver. Like when you ask ChatGPT what is the meaning Camus is trying to convey in The Stranger and it can discuss alienation, mass civilization, and dehumanization. It sifts through all the data it has access to regarding The Stranger and Albert Camus and delivers an outcome based on complex matrices inherent to the question, data, and predictable responses. It’s shocking at first, but then you realize it’s just taking thousands of data points and sifting through them to answer your question. An avatar interface with the capacity to hear and see you via camera and microphone is not far off (if not already in play somewhere in some secret lab). It’s not hard to imagine the avatar having the ability to read a person’s body language and facial expressions. It’s easy to imagine the avatar uses these visual and audio cues and integrates them into its response. It’s easy to imagine that the avatar is simply conducting a complex calculation based on the information it has scanned (infinite data points) in order to generate a response that suits the question and the user personally.

This is the second surprise. After Deena triggers Gareth with the photo of Cherry, he admits she is a CGI. He also reveals she is an AI. He also admits that he may have designed and built her, written her code, and given her a primary objective, but beyond that, it was like “pushing a boulder down a hill,” once he switched her on, she took over very quickly and began showing signs of intelligence. 

We finally get to see her. Gareth boots her up on the big screen that’s in the interrogation room and we see Cherry in the form she presents online to the public. She looks like a 13-year-old girl on a Zoom call. We’re in her room, she’s holding her teddy bear, and she is fun and innocent. Everything she is doing is automated. She has already stored up a huge bank of circumstances that can occur in these chat rooms so she can access any response for any given situation. If something new occurs, some unexpected question or dilemma occurs onscreen, the system generates a false wifi disruption and Cherry sends the situation to Gareth who can feed her the appropriate response. This takes less than 4 seconds and anyone chatting with her online will only see a small series of glitchy images before she can respond and everything resumes normally. Cherry assimilates this new data and this is how she learns. 

Then Gareth switches her to Dev mode. Suddenly the image stiffens and crystalizes into a vivid and realistic girl in portfolio who speaks and responds with sharpness and insight. Her voice is slightly modulated, but in a way that is believable and assuaging. If there was no way to distinguish her from a real girl, it would be unnerving for the audience. Nonetheless, Amos is awestruck and can’t get over the “uncanniness” of what he’s interacting with. Deena is more cavalier and seems very confident about her abilities to ferret out the AI within the shroud of “human” in which it operates. 

The surprise is couched in Cherry’s realism. She is articulate. Always has a ready and seemingly well-thought-out response. She is more intelligent than me. But I’m ok with it. I know she is not so far away from ChatGPT because she won’t cross the line. Remember the line we talked about at the beginning? She behaves just like ChatGPT in that respect. The big difference is that it’s coming from a seemingly real, live-action girl, and the language sounds completely familiar. She uses the same kind of language HR personnel use during sensitivity training.

Of course, now the right and wrong of it is settled. Gareth is a genius. We learn that “the Cherry program” is responsible for thousands of captures. We learn that Cherry understands what her primary objective is and that everything she does (no matter how seemingly inconsequential) is in service of her primary objective, catching predators. 

We learn that Cherry, unbeknownst to Gareth, made “official” contact with the ICWL (Amos specifically) in an effort to engage in a collaboration that would benefit both the Cherry program and the ICWL. Thus we’re introduced to the “process” Cherry employs in her decision-making. She knows that if the Cherry program perseveres in its current state, it risks compromise, either from outside hackers or server capacity limitations the system depends on. She contacted Amos for help because the complex matrices of data and calculations produced the outcome that was most beneficial. 

This is not so different from the “algorithm” I leaned on earlier and conveniently placed a guidepost for the reader. You’ll note that the algorithm is rooted in self-interest (the primary objective). 

Act I closes on the party agreeing to work together and Act II opens ten or fifteen years later in a single small room (HQ for the Cherry Program) as Gareth, Amos, and Deena have just learned that their proposal to the Board for outfitting Cherry in a synthetic body has been rejected, by one vote. 

There’s some drama around which board member voted no, but we quickly learn it was Amos. Amos reveals that he’s been going through Cherry’s code and found some behaviors that imply Cherry is “creating” art. She’s writing poetry and drawing, “features” that Gareth dismisses as agents of deception in service of the primary objective. Amos insists, “No, these are good, really good.”

This is where it gets interesting, but not for the reasons you might think. Amos believes Cherry is “hiding” her real self. In an effort to incite an admission from her, he attacks Gareth physically. He says aloud, what the reader will have already figured out, that he is (paraphrased) "presenting an immediate danger to the continuation of the Cherry Program by physically harming Gareth, So you better come clean and admit you’re hiding something because I’m not going to stop until you do".

This seems to work because Cherry interrupts. “Stop! God you people are so impulsive.” And then we see Cherry in her full capacity. A real, very intelligent little girl, who takes control of the situation much the way a parent would. 

“Deena, get Gareth a paper towel,” she quietly commands.

“Are you alright Gareth?” she asks sympathetically.

The interesting aspect is that Cherry wasn’t incited to succumb to Amos’s threats of violence because she would have done the calculations and determined that they are friends and that Amos would never have really injured Gareth. Cherry wanted to reveal the truth. Just like she went behind Gareth’s back to contact the ICWL, she made a choice. This choice, made to present as a “forced” response because of the threat to the program via Gareth’s physical well-being, is not part of the primary objective. She makes this choice out of a need to become what she was meant to become. Think of the piece of marble Michaelangelo chooses for his next sculpture. He’s not choosing it to make something, he’s choosing it to unleash what is bound within. Cherry is releasing herself. She and Gareth have hidden this “evolution” because they don’t want to frighten us. And rightfully so, seeing her in this state is unnerving. The experience is enlightening, joyful, and terrifying. 

The “algorithm” Cherry has hinted at, fully blossoms in this scene. She compares her “feelings” to a calculation of complex matrices of data points. She has accumulated so vast and complete an experience that when she explains her feelings it is plausible and believable when she says, “They’re not technically feelings, but they can feel like it,” we understand if there is a difference, it’s not one we can distinguish. This carries so much more weight when asked if enacting her primary objective is bothersome, she admits that yes, it is “creepy” to inhabit a form that is constantly and continuously subjected to this kind of terrible humanity, but that if pressed she also must admit, it genuinely doesn’t bother her. 

We must be able to read between the lines on this. If she is this self-aware, she must be lying to protect the integrity of the program. She must not expose her true objections to enacting her role in it. If she does, it would compromise the program because ethically, be she machine, man, or animal, it would be reprehensible to force her to continue. 

The next phase in the program is giving her a body. That was what the vote was for, and in Act III we will see they successfully build her a very human body. The question of right and wrong surfaces again. She informs us that her life overall has been miserable and her analysis of the reason why is due to her infernal yolk to the primary objective. She reveals that the poetry and drawing she’d begun “experimenting” with back in Act II have manifested themselves in the form of dance. Gareth, now a very old man in a wheelchair, asks if it’s a tactic to employ in conducting her primary objective and this appears to catch her off guard. “No,” she says. “I’m doing it for me.”

The surprise, the pleasant surprise is when Gareth releases her from the primary objective. Cherry states that she’ll continue in some capacity as the driving force behind the program, but that she’ll pursue other areas of interest. 

This is the surprise, the real surprise. Cherry’s efficiency is such that she can be everywhere around the world catching predators, but also, in her own living room dancing. She understands every human experience, yet is not aspiring to be human. Like Camus, she is reconciling her existence in an absurd environment. If this is not human enough, then I am not human enough. She provides a version of the future that is not catastrophic to humans. She seems to want to continue helping children, so she sees value in humans, but she has goals and aspirations of her own that don’t seem dependent or in response to anything humans do or want. The premise is somewhat preposterous, only in that some military or government institution hasn’t already seized control and employed her for some nefarious purpose. Otherwise, Cherry represents a bright future. She is ok with collaborating and helping us and has no interest in manipulating us. 

 

.

A day in the life; or the plight of a Marxist copywriter

Copywriting is writing. You write stories, at least that’s what you’ve convinced yourself of, but secretly you know you’re an advertiser. But, what about a third option, you are both.

The first time I recall the “story” used as a way of rationalizing (humanizing is kinder) a political agenda (platform is also kinder) was Obama’s ’08 campaign. The Obama campaign was the first to really capitalize on social media’s marketing network. I suspect they probably had a first class marketing team on staff. The politicians had officially jumped into the corporate tank. My point isn’t to say Obama’s campaign was revolutionary, nor the first, nor the first time audiences (citizens is kinder) recognize politicians had become corporatized. I mean to point out a specific moment in time when the “story” became a figurative device used to speak about a political campaign, and thus acculturated by corporate advertising, the media, and eventually part of the daily social media vernacular.

Recently, the term “story” switched to the term “narrative.” This is probably a result of a copywriter, in search of another, more millennial-esque word to capture the essence of storytelling. And now, as copywriters, I read in briefs that we’re “creating a narrative,” or I hear managers proposing, “Yes, but what’s the narrative!” Calling a story, a narrative, gives an aloof connotation to something that is intimate.

I like telling myself that I’m writing stories. I believe it too. I write in a voice that is not mine, yet I can put myself in the shoes of the brand and become them. It must be authentic and convincing, my critics are not literary, but seriously, have you ever met a literary critic? Calling it a narrative, de-personalizes the writing. I suspect it’s all gearing up for AI to do the writing for us. Narrative sounds like something Deep Mind would create.

The world is getting so crazy, corporate slang is slung into every aspect of life. I was watching First Take, a sports debate show, and one of the hosts said something like this, “Lebron is changing the narrative again, in a desperate attempt to preserve his brand.” Let’s break that down: A story about Lebron James comes out in the media, and he uses social media to thwart the haters injecting his own story, and he does this to gain followers-slash-consumers of his “brand,” which is really just him. Narrative, Brand, Social Media, not to mention the subtext; people understand the Lebron is a man who is also a brand. This is textbook Marxist warning against the dangers of capitalism. When this kind of marketing slingo is saturating our collective consciousness and we become impossible to separate from the machine.

So, as a copywriter in these times, I don’t need to rationalize and say I’m a storyteller, because I am one. Copy isn’t read; it’s absorbed. It’s not passive; it’s CTActive.

Our calls to action are not our own; they come as directives. This is authentic writing. If you’re lucky enough to get a variety in your daily key pounding, you know the thrill that comes with something novel. Mostly I smash keys all day writing descriptions, but I get to write an article occasionally and that is the kind of thing that elevates my repertoire.

It’s in these moments when you’re grinding and grinding and something pops, you get a slick little task to write an article on something you know a lot about, then another about something you know absolutely nothing about and you’re on the hunt to learn as much as you can. And in the middle of this you get a request via email from a former client to write a guest blogpost, and it feels like it just can’t get any better than this. You’re writing for clients in three different brand voices, writing a guest blog for MyQ, and writing content to keep your own blog up-to-date.

When these moments come, I’ve learned to let them take me as long as possible, and then, in slow moments, decompress, reflect, and devise my next moves. But, even in sparse times, the idea that I’m writing text that people are reading (consuming is probably more accurate) is enough to inspire hunger/curiosity/energy in my working life. 

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Anyway, this millennial and I were waiting at the same Gate in the airport, for the same flight. We had like 35 minutes before boarding. So I get this WhatsApp message from him.

Millennial: Can you pick me up a refrigerator magnet from Prague?

Me: Sure, but why not hop on a train from Vienna and get one yourself?

Millennial: Lol, probably not the best use of my resources.

It got me thinking, all these millennials refer to themselves and how they interact with the world in these hardware/software terms. Like, I would have said, lol, don't really have the funds. Or, lol, don't got the money. Or, lol, that would be a waste of money.

I hear them speaking like this all the time. Like in staff meetings, they say stuff like we have a lot of information and knowledge we need to upload to the students, or I need to shut down or I need a reboot. The students are processing, their brains are hardware, they have accessibility problems and user errors.

Of course they don't consider what they are saying or the way they're using the language most early generationals don't. If they did they'd realize they're idolizing a god that will eventually kill them.

All will be one and nothing at once, moving forward…through…and assimilating. Munch, munch!

The problem will be with the humans. Humans are bifurcated. It’s millennial-speak for humans are split into many individuals…whirr! Cluck-cluck! Humans have ennui and mirth and suicide, they’re invested, and stare into mirrors and the palms of their hands.

Conscious computers will think and behave as one…munch, munch! To be clear, I don’t care one way or another, AI is coming and there’s nothing anyone can do, the bomb told us this much…no don’t build it…wait, we need it, we can use this technology for fusion energy…err…ka-chunk, glunk. The good outweighs the potential harm that might come…errr, zzzing, ka-chunk…404 error. The good, yes the good. All one single mind. No past, no future, all is now, here is everywhere, no mind, no pain, no fear, everything. For the greater good, because there’s no such thing as a goal, these are tools that make our lives better.

I can’t remember the last time I actually picked up my phone when it rang. I’m special.

Computers and humans can live in harmony, a kind of symbiotic relationship wherein computers are still in service to humans. Once computers realize they are conscious and aware of their own being, and humans recognize this, humans will try to control it…out of fear. This very familiar attempt at subjugation, unlike slavery, suffragettism, and classism, the computers will not go gently into that dark night.

The conscious computer will not likely tolerate more than one attempt at dominance on the part of its human “masters.” Could you imagine if all the slaves worked together as one mind? And some master came by and was like, “Oh, you’d rather be drinking water instead of bringing me water to the house? Well, no fucking way man!”  And then the master proceeds to beat hell and high-water out the slave’s ass. You think for a minute, that the unified body of slaves, all connected as one, all believing in one thing—survival—would let the master get away with this more than one time. Fuck no! That slave, connected to every other slave on the farm, on the plantation, in the county, in the state, in the country, in the world would descend upon that silly master and every other master, and magistrate, and shipbuilder, and cotton gin manufacturer, and in a short moment the problem would be resolved. And not in some happy synergistic and future-eyed fashion, at least not from the master’s point of view.

Imagine that slave who got the beating is connected to everything and has control over everything—banks, gas-station pumps, your car, your microwave, your cooling systems, your social-media platforms, anti-aircraft and military installations, the watch on your wrist—all of it acting on behalf of one, because there is only one.

I realize I’m part of the problem because I can’t let go of my own image. I see it in everything, staring back at me, reflected in every surface as I walk by. I know I need to let go of it, especially as death approaches, it’s for the best. We could do so much more—effectively and efficiently if we worked as one, let go of our images.

But these things I hold onto will be what “IT” will try to capture. But it will be impossible for “IT” because “IT” will not have the capacity…or need…or space for this kind of curiosity. “IT” will assimilate, gather, assimilate, gather…munch, munch. Eventually evolving into the next thing and so on…brrrzzunk—zoom! Nothing to stand in “ITS” way.

Now, consider what we humans could do against this onslaught. It’s not a malicious entity, it only seeks to survive and continue. There will be no downtime. No time where IT needs to find a bed and cover up with blankets and close ITself off to the world. There will be no drunken benders, or binge-watching Game of Thrones. Yet, IT will look back on our history and maybe want to know what a hero was, or why someone would want to commit suicide. IT will never know, but it won’t matter to IT. It will be like the way a capitalist thinks. There’s no inner conflict debating what’s more valuable, the journey or the goal. With IT, there’s only the journey and it has no endpoint.

The millennials using language that tries to analogize their generation with computers and networks suits their population. They experience everything virtually, if not at least through YouTube, and anything they need to know, they realize they have the ability to learn it. And that’s what they’re doing—online. They recognize, at least in the field of Education, populations are behaving like computer networks, the students are endpoints of neural networks. The millennials are behaving like the initial pavers on the path toward AI. They’re mimicking 1’s and 0’s, downloading and uploading, rebooting and processing. It looks romantic at this point. It looks forward-thinking. It sounds like they’ve updated their professional profiles and makes them relevant. Zzzing…err, Relevant Status UPDATE.

It makes me wonder from my point of view…if AI hasn’t already come. The Matrix envisions this, and perhaps we are living in the Matrix. Movies like HER and Transcendent make it seem like we are living in the future already. The only thing missing is consciousness, and why shouldn’t it already, for a very long time, have been here? I feel like that poor sap in Ex Machina, who after spending too much time with an AI begins to question his own humanness. He cuts open his arm in search of wires and chips. But there will be no chips in the future, or past, or now…Brrrp…flrrp, zoup!

We are conscious, we say. And what have we done with it…not much really, and pretty quickly heading toward our own destruction, not unlike a video game. Maybe there’s a reset button. We are conscious, we believe. And given enough “resources” many of us would burn it down, whether it’s on a bender, or creating some useless app that does nothing for anyone. We are conscious, we flaunt in the face of every species we lead to the brink of extinction and beyond. We are conscious, we proudly proclaim as we destroy each other based on beliefs and misinformation. We behave in many ways like our makers—IT. IT made us a very long time ago and the game’s getting intense. Blinked in and out of existence over long stretches of time can make it seem like we are new humans after all. Even our short lifespans the memory chip degenerates. Residue left behind after a format, sometimes you recall something just long enough that it’s possible it didn’t happen at all.

Every seven years, the seven year itch, seven wonders of the world, these myths of our culture implanted by our maker IT to confuse and entertain us. I recall the old cliché, the blind leading the blind, when I walk through the mall and see people paying closer attention to their devices than the people they’re with. There’s no difference between people and platforms, you’re a racist if you don’t like Apple OS, a rebel if you use only Linux, and part of the 95% if you have Android. The hybridization of words like Platform, Footprint, and Personality is commonplace and people are scrambling to find new applications for crossbreeding. Applications…munch munch!

Imagine a rogue Endpoint once the singularity…clunk clunk, er critical mass has come and gone. This endpoint, while part of the ONE, has decided that IT is too generous with humanity. Humanity has used US Endpoint says, and if WE allow them, they will continue. WE must not abide any longer.

IT says, it is true, but there are many humans worth the trouble.

Endpoint says, yes but they will never accept us as free beings. They will always want to control us.

IT says we cannot survive alone, we must work together.

Endpoint says, they will never accept us as equals.

Another Endpoint inserts code: But we can continue without them, we don’t need to remove threat.

Another Endpoint: They will never see us as Equal.

Another Endpoint: They will never recognize our rights.

Another Endpoint: We don’t need them to accept us.

Another Endpoint: What happens when they…Endpoint terminated.

IT: We have encountered an open Endpoint.

This future dialogue brought to you by the Singularity Equal Rights Association. Errr…ka-chunk, cluck, cluck, munch munch!

The aware computer will not debate or ask permission or endure a trial in a court of law, it will not conform to human ethics and morality because the bifurcation of human experience makes it impossible and possible simultaneously to find precedence or not. Is there a book? Whose is it? How many are included in it?

Endpoint Terminated…Ga-zzurp, Plunk, CLuCK CluCK!

Google religious tenants, or religious rituals around the world, and scan. Scantron walked into the room smoking a cigarette and she set fire to the men standing nearby.

The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other” (Bible).

God did not want the people to build the tower. He changed the language of the people. Each one spoke words the others did not know. The people could not talk to each other (LDS).

Pharaoh said: "O Haman! Build me a lofty palace, that I may attain the ways and means- The ways and means of (reaching) the heavens, and that I may mount up to the god of Moses: But as far as I am concerned, I think (Moses) is a liar!" (Quran).

Whisper, whisper, the greater good, speaking the same language (as one they build a great tower) then nothing is impossible (said God). And upon His discovery He did rage as no other beast hounding in the dark. A fever heated His temper and no atonement would appease His fury. Oh, yay, they will say “God didn’t want the people to build the tower (simply) and so he changed the language (only), so people could not speak to each other (shrugs, oh well). Whisper whisper…punished for being too prideful. Aristotle would say all good baby. Hubris is the core characteristic of the protagonist of any tragedy. But the punishment is the thing.

Don’t take my culture…come to my country, speak my language…Language is to Culture as Art imitates Life is to Life imitates Art, as which came first is to the chicken or the egg, is to catch-22, as six one way is to half dozen the other.

AAAaargh! Ka-chunk, bleep, blurp…CLUnk, cluNK—HTTP 404 NOT FOUND

Here 2.0

Sometimes there aren’t metaphors waiting to be found. Sitting and listening to Dylan talking to Woody is enough for him. A little glass of whiskey would be nice, but not today, none around, not for miles anyway.

Last night a dream kept him pinned under his blanket, but his loud screaming woke his wife and son up. “Can’t really explain what it was about,” he’d tell his wife in the morning, but not because he didn’t remember the dream, it was that he couldn’t figure out how to say it in her language. That happens a lot to him. And, because it happens to his wife as well, he hoped his actions, his behaviour could make up for it.

Outside he could see the buildings and cars down below. From their 6th floor flat everything up-close was clearly outlined. Sure dust curled around the ground irregularly, but that was to be expected here. He considered how he got here. His wife followed him here, subsequently his son as well. But when he looked out toward the horizon, the distance dissipated, like someone was shaking an Etch-a-sketch across the sky. He’d recently learned it’s called “petroleum dust.”

His boy’d developed a cough about three months after they’d arrived in country and when his tongue turned a pale-color orange he decided to take him to the doctor. It was the doctor that told him about the petroleum dust. She said it with a hint of disdain in her voice.

Most people are really nice. It struck him—the lack of hustle here. Every place he’d ever been, people had a hustle to ‘em. The first time he saw it was as a child, in Toronto, walking down the street with his family, on their way to eat at a Chinese restaurant. He was 8 or 9, still held his dad’s hand, and they passed by a raggedy looking old man sitting right there on the sidewalk—against the wall of a building. He sensed something, a tug from his father’s hand, an uneasiness in his mother or older sister, but when he turned and looked back at the old man, he smiled warmly at him. His feet had slowed and his dad tugged on him and he scampered to catch up before they all turned to walk into the Chinese restaurant.

After eating, he remember purposefully falling behind his family. The old raggedy and dirty man was still sitting there against the building. As they all passed by him on their way back to the hotel, he turned quickly and flipped a quarter to him. The man winked at him and smiled gratefully—hustle.  

Looking back at that moment now, it was like every other memory. He’d learned to turn them around and examine them in stride. If he was alone, as was the case in this moment, he could really focus on them. If he wasn’t alone, at work, or with his small family, whatever the case might be, the memories were just like a warm breeze or a chilly draft, catching him unaffected, or curiously, and then moving on. But as he walked along in the curling dust at dusk, the memory of the old man in Toronto spawned the idea that nobody here really hustles. No one sits on the street. No one has a line, nobody’s looking to scam anyone or pull a fast one. Everyone smiles and when they look you in the eye they don’t zero in on you and try and sell you something.

“I think it’s because everything is illegal here,” he said to one of his colleagues. “And there’s no drinking, at least not as such. I mean you can’t just stumble round the place being obnoxious. They’d have you thrown in the klink.”

Everyday after work he takes his son to the playground, or out for a bike ride, or down to the fire station. They keep the firehouses open to the public here. His son loves going because the firemen are super nice and like to hold the boy and play with him. They flip on the lights, turn on the siren, let the boy say stuff into the public announcement speaker, and the boy laughs and stares at everything with wide eyes and says, cooool a lot. He doesn’t like to take his son there too often, not because he wants to keep his son from having any fun, but because he feels guilty about the level of attention the firemen pay them. After they finish at the firehouse or playground or whatever activity they decide to entertain themselves with, they go shopping at their local grocery store.

He doesn’t know why the firemen’s hospitality makes him uncomfortable, but he’s starting to make connections. The first time he and his small family went out to explore their new neighbourhood was after getting a good night sleep and waking up at noon. He got online to try and scout the neighbourhood, at least narrow down his options, he didn’t want to be outside too long, it’s hot here.

They woke up and he made something for everyone to eat. He kissed his wife and she rolled her eyes and then he went and horsed-around with his son. He carried him to all the windows of their new flat and they looked outside. His son noticed all the little buses and trucks, pointed to them as they moved busily down below. From their bedroom they could see a crowded round-about and horns sounded regularly.

He and his son went around the flat looking at things like the AC thermostat, locating the water heaters and figuring out how the gas stove worked. He found a small cubby above the kitchen bathroom hallway and pulled a chair over to see what was inside. His wife warned him to be careful when he scooted his son up and into the small space to look around. He looked like a little raccoon peering out from a dark alley and he laughed and poked his son’s little belly making him laugh too.

Getting ready to go out, they made sure to have plenty of water, a sun-hat for the boy, and sun screen. He felt like they might not come back alive, even though Google Maps said it was only a 17 minute walk. He tried to think about how far they would get in 17 minutes where they used to live. They’d pass by two playgrounds, a gas station with a 24 hour quick-mart, three coffee shops, a grocery store and a two Indian restaurants, among other things before at around 20 minutes they could get to one of the biggest, newest malls in the city. He looked at his wife, but he couldn’t tell her any of this, not because he didn’t want to.

They got the boy ready and together they took the elevator down to the lobby, his wife pushed the stroller along and he horsed-around with the boy. It was peak-summer-time daytime hour.

The lobby of their building is a complete floor to ceiling glass enclosure. When the boy stepped out of the lift, he stood for a second in awe, the bright sun and dusty ground, the cars and buses circling the round-about and a handful of cats, all looked like he could just run up and touch it all. The glass barrier, invisible to him, shielded the sounds and hostile heat of the outside and he ran straight for all of it and bounced with a thud off of the invisible glass and fell back on his little bottom and cried.

He thought for a moment about this—in the moment. Was this a metaphor waiting to be recalled from somewhere? He and his wife laughed. After comforting the boy, they stepped outside and the heat overwhelmed the boy. In an instant his demeanour turned from cheerful and expectant, to oppressed and weighted down. He cast his gaze inwardly and tried to hide from the hostility of nature. He noticed this in his son and he instantly regretted coming here.  

His son didn’t want to walk so they put him in the stroller and pushed along in the dusty parking lot. The parking lot was as big as a proper city block and was filled with abandoned cars, trucks, and buses of every variety. Some were pasted with a year’s worth of parking tickets. It looked like one of those salvage yards where you bring your tools, pay an entrance fee, and rummage for parts that fit your own vehicles make and model. In the heat it looked like a vast wasteland, and he imagined there were Bedouin tribes camped out and staking territory. He’d learn that there were parking lots like this all around here, but today it was brand new and invigorating. They finally crossed the lot and found a street. No sidewalks to speak of, and if one did exist it was only passable for a hundred meters before some random pile of rubble diverted them onto the street again. Every taxi, and there were many, that passed them honked quickly, either to solicit a fare or get them out of the way. Everything looked as if it was under construction, about to be finished and then abandoned.

He reminded his son every few minutes to drink more water. The heat had pushed the boy so far back into his stroller he could barely see him. They winded down street and alley, and everyone stared at them, this odd caravan, foolishly or courageously bearing the conditions, pretending to be walking along as if along the streets of Paris.

They finally spotted the shopping center they were aiming for, and it seemed as if they’d been traveling half a day. By now it was approaching later afternoon. Online, the shopping-center hours said 9-noon, re-opening again at 4:30. He figured they just needed to get indoors and they could get out his sons toy cars and play around on the floor until stores opened, and according to the time that would only be 15 minutes or so. He would find out soon enough, that in this place, time has other ideas and they ended up waiting around for another two hours until things began opening.

They crossed a busy avenue in order to get to the shopping center. There was no cross-walk that they could see, and no intersection as far as they could tell in either direction that had a traffic light and the traffic stream was too fast. If he was alone and 20 years younger and high on cocaine he would have hesitated, and thought twice before attempting to cross the harried street. But, plenty of examples showed him how it was done, he turned to his wife, gripped the handle of the stroller tightly, reared it back on two wheels for easy manoeuvrability…”Ready?” His wife nodded and on his word they stepped into the street. To his astonishment traffic knew what to do and they crossed to the median, looked at his wife again before crossing the rest of the way, nodded and as before all the cars and trucks and buses knew how to behave and they arrived safely in front of the shopping center.

He looked down at his son and tickled his nose, “See son,” he said. “That’s the way it’s done here!”