So much noise, but you can hear me and I'll trouble your mind

[sovay]

Because I do not carry a camera with me, I did not take a picture of the cherry-colored wax heart slowly melting on the asphalt of a parking lot as I walked back from Harvard Square and Pemberton's this afternoon. It was really striking, though.

It would probably have been intrusive to take a picture of the three people I met walking up my street as I continued home, but two of them were looking at their phones and one of them was studying a tablet, so maybe they wouldn't have noticed. They were walking in a group, none of them talking to the others. I wondered if they were part of some kind of scavenger hunt, but maybe they were just conversing in print.

My walk home this afternoon was slightly more like a surrealist film than I was expecting, is what I think I'm saying. Or at least a near-future science fiction.

The late show at the Brattle tonight is Sam Raimi's Darkman (1990). On handful_ofdust's recommendation, I'm going. I really think the only movies I've seen by Raimi are Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004). I keep associating him with Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), but that's just because of Bruce Campbell.

Comments

not communicating due to devices

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

I had not heard of the immersive games, but it's my impression that many people spend most of their time heads down, into their phones somehow.
The Dixie single-use serving ware company (like Dixie cups) is running ads on TV with the hashtag #darkfordinner, suggesting that people turn off all their devices for a family or friends dinner tonight (the 14th). A viewer of the ad doesn't realize the point until near the end of the ad. For most of the time, one just sees people chatting, telling stories, someone getting up from the table to show a dance move, lots of laughing. Nobody is seen whining that they are without texts for half an hour.

Re: not communicating due to devices

[sovay]

I had not heard of the immersive games, but it's my impression that many people spend most of their time heads down, into their phones somehow.

It just startled me to see three of them walking so closely together on an otherwise (except for me) unoccupied street, making absolutely no verbal or physical contact. Like, two people talking and one on their phone, whatever. The combined total electronic silence was the futuristic part.

For most of the time, one just sees people chatting, telling stories, someone getting up from the table to show a dance move, lots of laughing. Nobody is seen whining that they are without texts for half an hour.

Interesting. I wonder if it will work.

My parents used to insist that I not read all the way through dinner every night. I still think I classify that differently from having a conversation with people who aren't at the table.