Two months ago I wrote about Brian Eno’s work with music and art generated randomly by computers. At that time, “Bloom,” his iPhone app that allows one to do similar work on a small scale (and on a smaller screen: your iPhone), had been out for a while and was a hot download from the App Store. Eno mentioned that the next iteration, “Trope,” had been released on iTunes that weekend, but what he failed to mention (or did not know) was that it was available on the U.K. iTunes, but not on the U.S.
At some point since then, it’s been released here. And so, here’s a brief video that shows the application in action. I haven’t downloaded this yet, but I probably will. How much iPhone “Risk” can one play before needing something new to play with? Moreover, I remain mesmerized with Eno’s work all of which, to credit Rich Roesberg with the point, descends from John Cage.
What’s remarkable here is the degree to which smartphones are revolutionizing our work, our play, and our lives. This tiny device smaller than my hand has most of the technological power I so desperately craved when I was 12: the power to write, or draw, or record, and then distribute that artistic creation freely anywhere in the world. No one younger than 40 can imagine what it was like for homegrown artists 35 years ago to have to choose between the bad options of hand copying, mimeograph, carbon paper, or 25-cents-a-page Xerox copying. None of them was suitable.
Twenty years ago and more, I was a dead shot with most firearms: shotgun, rifle, revolver, automatic handgun, and, yes, those pump-action air rifles (commonly called “BB guns”). This came from years of steady practice, as well as having eyes and arms that were 20 years younger. I could ask a companion out in the field to load two clay pigeons onto the thrower, stand with my back to it with my shotgun broken open, yell “pull,” casually load the gun, snap it shut, turn, and pick off both of the skeet before they hit the ground. At that point in my life I probably could have shot the eyelashes off a chipmunk and left the animal alive.
This summer I went shooting again out in a field for the first time in far too long. To say that my skills have dipped is an understatement. I don’t think I could have hit Rush Limbaugh at five paces with a howitzer. I did get better as the day unfolded, though, shooting the crotch off the assailant marked on a target (I was aiming for the head), and picking off one of the dozen or two skeet my brother-in-law gamely pitched into the air for me. But clearly I need practice, and lasix.
Today that same brother-in-law emailed me the video below, which depicts exciting new technological advances in the sport of shooting. In his email, he said, “You know you want one.” And he’s right. I do. You’ll see why.
If like me you had a perfectly pleasant Thanksgiving, it’s a good time to reflect on people who didn’t, and to remember how lucky we are most of the time.
I can’t imagine what Thanksgiving was like for this family in Utah, where one of three siblings died after being trapped upside-down in a cave for 28 hours. It’s difficult to think of a worse way to die, and I’m sure this is something that the whole family will live with for the rest of their lives.
Today when I picked up my car from the dealer, the rental-car guy and I rode through North Hollywood. I told him, as I tell at least one person every day, that one out of every eight people we see is out of work. And then I noticed all the boarded-up businesses. If you’ve got a job right now, this is something good to bear in mind.
And then a good friend called me today from out of town to tell me that her father had died on Tuesday.
Here’s how I spent my Thanksgiving: The kids washed my wife’s van and my son’s car while I read the paper and supervised, then I gave the dog a bath while they supervised, then we took the dog for a long walk before going to the Smokehouse for dinner (it was okay). Then we came home and watched “Survivorman,” then a DVD, then we played two board games (Monopoly, then the electronic Doctor Who board game), then the younger kids went to bad, then the wife went to bed, then my eldest and I watched the movie “A.I.” until 2 a.m. I shared all this with the rental guy. He told me that his girlfriend worked an afternoon shift at the hospital, so they celebrated Thanksgiving at 11 a.m., then he went to another Thanksgiving meal at 6 p.m. We agreed that, all things considered, we both felt lucky.
Jerry Brown just emailed me again. He didn’t ask me for money this time (for what, I can’t figure out, since he isn’t a declared candidate for anything). Here’s what he had to say:
Dear Lee
As Anne and I get ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow, many fond memories of past family gatherings come to mind. It is on these occasions that my father would often share stories of his family, particularly his grandfather who came across the plains and over the Sierras to Sacramento in 1852. In those days, the challenges were enormous and of a type we can barely imagine.
Today we face entirely different challenges. Whether they are bigger or smaller, I can’t say. But I do know that California is still a state of imagination and boundless possibility. Our pioneering spirit is very much alive and will enable us to handle any of our problems, however daunting they may now appear.
As you take time to enjoy Thanksgiving with your own family and reflect on the year that is drawing to a close, you can take renewed encouragement from the courage and achievements that have made California such a unique and wonderful place.
My best wishes to you and your family.
With respect,
Jerry Brown
I’ve always rather liked Jerry, and I appreciate these emails. So I responded thusly:
Jerry,
Are you running for something?
Because I might consider supporting you if I knew you were running for something.
Perhaps governor? Because there are no Democrats declared in that race. Kind of embarrassing.
I’d like to install a pet door downstairs to accommodate my dog so that she can chase that squirrel with abandon and without needing me to jump up let her out every other minute.
Yesterday when I went out to my car there was so much dirt layered atop it that I thought an undertaker had been by with a shovel. Before the paranoia could really get cranking, I crossed the street and looked at my neighbor’s car: same thing. Indeed, every car on the street looked like the victim of the latest Biblical plague: airborne dirt. Later, a service writer at the Ford dealership told me that it had been on the news: Some vicious wind had come whistling through the valley last night and deposited dirt everywhere. (And no, it wasn’t anyone at TMZ.com.)
Just now I took my dog for a bike ride. (Well, I pedal, she runs alongside.) There was so much grit in the air I felt like I was in one of those asteroid disaster movies. Since 1988, southern California has had earthquakes, mud slides, deluges, drought, riots, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now this.
This year, for the first time in a long time, I’m not cooking Thanksgiving dinner and neither is my wife. Some years I do the turkey and all the fixings, especially if the holiday falls between two of her graveyard shifts or if she’s out of town with our kids (in which case I invite strange assemblages of acquaintances, as in this episode recounted this time last year). Other years she does it. This year we’re going to a nice restaurant instead. It was her idea, and it’s one I like a lot.
Her other idea is that after our Thanksgiving dinner at the nice restaurant, the five of us can go to the movies. She scanned the listings to see what’s playing. “We can go see ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox,'” she said. “Or, we can take the kids to see” and she named this movie. Given the subject matter, I’m not sure it’s the right choice for a feast holiday.