"All the Hues
That Fit, We Tint"

Siberia, USA: Today, global warming. Tonight, dark, unless you count the stars. Tomorrow can be reached via time machine. Yesterday, who can remember that far back?

Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

 

The Mirror: I sensed your eco-distress

Websafe: Hello?
Mirror: Go ahead, enter the booth.
W: Are we going to take some funny photos?
M: That sounds like a plan of action you could put into practice without my presence.
W: You mean you think I am clownish looking?
M: The Evening Star, on half a shelf.
W: At least you think I am thin.
M: People are kind of scary and on the edge these days.
W: That's because they're all dieting.
M: How tiny you appear!
W: That's what everyone is saying to each other!
M: Ah, and that done, I'm tricked into speaking.
W: Are you afraid of speaking into a modifying template?
M: I could write you, my popinjay.
W: You could write my script?
M: A "hello" may fly across transatlantic phone lines.
W: Are you calling from a distance?
M: (Shows simple landscape)
W: Is the continent from which you hail an untouched pristinery?
M: I read there was a "waning of affect" in the postmodern era.
W: That's because there is nothing real to which to respond.
M: I should think not.
W: Not after the pristinery became a refinery.
M: Yet under that very pressure, it proliferates.
W: Advertising does, billboards, or as Chesterton and Gissing called them, "hoardings."
M: Try to do just a little good thing every day.
W: Write your congressperson (or MP) to eliminate billboards from what's left of the landscape.
M: How did you know?
W: I sensed your eco-distress.
M: Leaning on the edge of a stone parapet, somebody who was a friend cast glances.
W: Was it Chesterton or Gissing?
M: I can understand the benefits, but what is the fear part?
W: It's always scary to contemplate going back in the time machine.
M: Was it Chesterton or Gissing?
W: I bet they knew each other.
M: How can I know, since you don't bring me yourself?
W: I cannot bring you into the past, as I cannot go there myself.
M: A seeded eye and a jammed-up horn.
W: Jam on bread may have been consumed by either of the gentlemen in question.
M: This does not work.
W: What does not work?
M: I have very few modern recordings.
W: Are you trying to play old recordings on modern equipment?
M: Some people might be very upset by this seeming clash.
W: It could be frustrating, trying to play a Caruso 78 in an iPod.
M: Forcing me to face up to reality.
W: The reality is that we are not living at the fin de siècle.
M: And was it entertaining?
W: It is certainly most entertaining to read about it.
M: It's a lot of work to pay attention and maintain the proper respect.
W: It's more mental effort to let the long, beautifully complex sentences hang in the mind's ear.
M: Spare me these complicated analogies.
W: Perhaps you are worn out from reading Trollope?
M: People of high intelligence are not always leaders.
W: They are too busy reading, in the back of the stacks.
M: It was sad, but only in the moment of transition.
W: I must transition myself now.
M: I certainly can.
W: Bye!
M: Closing in 1 second ... Goodbye!

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