What, Now, Have You Gone and Done With All the Wonderful Memories That I Gave You?

# What, Now, Have You Gone and Done With All the Wonderful Memories That I Gave You?

## What did you do with all the wonderful memories? (at some point this will all be rendered by a markdown renderer)

intro song, rough out of tune guitars, hints of feedback:

    YOU ARE THE WORST PILOT IN THE SKY!
    YOUR FAILURE IS LANDING TO YOUR SIGHTS.

    YOUR HEAD IS LIKE A PERSON NO ONE LIKES.


### actual piece


"I see that you are introducing some form of structure, now," said an old man with a long, rather unkempt beard. "Are you sure you should be doing this? Could be dangerous."

"Avast you old dog! Ne'er bother me again with all moodless musings such as your prior!" replied the fellow the old man had been trying to address. He was a younger fellow, but you could see by the white beardlings stubbling his face that even as a baby he must have been dealing with old demons.

"If it's going to be like that, why do you even bother to shave?"

"I don't anymore," said the man staring down into his chest, clearly wearing stubble over his face, and clearly indicating shaving activity. "I honestly do not, any more."

Here was a finger for prodding into the heart. "Lies will soothe you nowhere, young man. I can see the turn of your slips and whittle your selfish grins to bone." The old longbeard grew in size. "You cannot lie to one like me."

The young man grew smaller and looked down into his chest. "I would never lie," he stated. "I wouldn't lie if this was the last memory I would ever have of her." And he proffered the memory. "Take it. Take this last one."

"I'm an old man, I don't have use for cute little puppies riding a tricycle," said longbeard flatly.

"Well then," replied his younger friend, as they strolled through the cold streets of night Manhattan--the city that only sleeps if, well, somebody needs to sleep--"let me just toss it, then."

And there it flew, from his naked, gloveless hand as he proceeded further *without it*, muttering something about how using buzzers is not real shaving. Landed on a person who had been 'bunking' on the side of the street. On that person's head, specifically, waking him up in the city that never should have to. It was a warm, fleecy puppy, sitting on a tricycle, and now completely enjoyed by a homeless man who actually needed that extra lining.

Small Pockets of Intimacy

They say you only have 99 coins
being appended to your eyelids.
That you need an extra coin,
on your tongue, to go the way.

She says you need to give her *everything*.

"Everything? I just showed you how to access my heart!"

"In your secure tunnel?"

"SSH!"

"So I'm downloading putty, and accessing your secure location?"

"Yes? And?"

"I'm seeing how you think about women."

.

"Wait...did you go to the IP address I gave you? Version four."

"Ha, lest we be radical and introduce greater acceptance."

"I'm done fighting. You see my tunnel. You see the light I'm approaching."

"You care more about driving than being with me," she said.

"NO! I'm driving because I'm trying to reach you," he responded.

"So you're saying I'm not reachable?"

.

"There is a place," I assured her. "Just you, and me."

"Nobody else exists in this place?"

"No, it's just you, and me. And that is us."

"What do we do, just crash land here? Lower the landing gear a little too late?"

"The landing gear is lowered as soon as the flight pattern is established," he told her, "and the course is known."

"Sounds like a bad plan."

"No, it's a *good* plane," he said. "A good plane with a very small pocket of intimacy."

"Brake. Apply Brakes."

"Now?"

"STOP"

Where is the petty Shah?

He was famous for his translations. In one such work, we find mysterious ramblings, "Where is the petty Shah? Where is the petty Shah?"

These curiosities were only posthumously deciphered, when in his collection, a French audiobook for children about a boy looking for a little cat was discovered.

coffeepoem

As his coffee does suggest,
this man is more than a little bitter.
Sits in a sullen trench coat of leather alerting
passersby to the black pools of his heart.

Oaken table and oaken chair,
a murmuring candle that couldn't care less.
She only seats herself as this spill of rowdies
may soil her dress at the public house.

Their conversation starts aloof,
covert gestures regarding the fools surrounding.
They both put their elbows on the table and write out
essays about the dwarfs in the other booth.

Losing All Fear Of Wearable Devices (Or How I Began to Love My New Parietal Lobe)

It will become normal. I remember when I first came to New York and you'd see these people walking around talking to themselves, and I'd think "New York, right? Must be just another poor crazy person in the city." Then it dawned on me that they were talking on their cellphones via a headpiece as they walked. In retrospect, I can't see how I missed those large bulging earpieces from those days.

Wearable computing is the next step, and I think some of the technologies will progress beyond mere augmentations of ocular senses. For example, a small nugget that initially looks like a nose-piercing could in fact fan out a protective cover when, say, a foul odor such as someone passing gas is detected, protecting the wearer from having to experience that bad sensation. You laugh, but extrapolate, and similar sensors could shield the wearer from any harmful airborne toxins that may be making the rounds. Each piece must be carefully shaped to accommodate the nose it is intended for, creating a luxury business at the best of times and critical survival capability during the worst. Another change could be that instead of rings of diamond and gold--pretty to look at, but useless in function--betrothed would wear rings that if squeezed on one side of the world, would elicit that sense of touch right across the globe and she would know he was thinking of her (either that, or he spilled relish and mustard on his hand while eating a hot dog and was rubbing it all away with one of these 'under-sleeves' she had insisted he wear).

The step after that will be the trans-human phase, where the distinction between man and machine is entirely blurred. Vehicle manufacturers will either close down or be at the bleeding edge, offering humans the ability to travel at the speed of various vehicles, except without the vehicles--just their modified bodies. Employees at companies will be told to upgrade their eardrum with internally placed auditory motors which provide not only a constantly soothing corporate sound-collage, but also ensure that even those with worst natural sense of balance can do their job while walking a tight-rope. (Of course, savvy employees will have these hacked in the aftermarket with motors that help their bodies balance in such a way that they can step foot upon walls, and travel happily along the rooftop, upside down).

The tongue will be replaced with a sort of receptacle with a type of scoop that comes out and detects while projecting taste sensations at x1000 what we taste today (like the limits of human visual capability are known today, the limitations of the tongue will be exposed tomorrow, and surpassed).

Kissing a girl will never be the same again.

A-Type Awareness, B-Type Awareness and the Whole Study in One Convenient Bundle

A-Type Self Awareness

This type navigates happily through trajectories in space. 

It's not interested about questions of gravity, or how long it has been since its last push. 

Its primary concern is to avoid things crashing into it at great speeds, and its secondary concern is to record any data that its sensors pick up.

 

B-Type Self Awareness 

This model is designed to work *inside* the dark matter, 
and keep a guided distance from the A-Type model. 

Given the unknown nature of dark matter, B-type is primarily expected to do what it can to survive, but always try to remain in a set proximity to A-type. It is unknown whether it will be able to carry out the task, but it was sent out there with the greatest intentions. 

Overall Self Awareness Program 

Since A-Type has no interest in gravity and only (for example) avoids objects coming at it at alarming speeds, it will be up to B-Type to establish a type of gravity field and 'guide' its companion through space. This is the *secondary* objective for B-type, not the primary objective. The primary objective is above (or below, depending on your display). 

Once comfortably navigating dark matter, a booklet containing instructions that was embedded in B-type's memory unit, burned till crisp and clear, will appear in its instruction set, causing B-type to interpret its space and create gravity for its companion model. 

Both models perform experiments, but A-type performs them along the exterior, while B-type does experiments about their internal conditions.

For any records still spun on vinyl out there, (A personal account of NYCC 2013)

*Disclaimer: This one is part fiction, part reality

Preamble:

I *was inside* the New York Comic Conference. Ahem. Convention. I took photos. Some will soon be posted from accounts in my social networks at future dates as cognitive, motivational and photo processing times (in the truest sense, not just 'Photoshop') will allow. They're all in my cellphone right now, experiencing whatever it is devices do to data when left untouched for obscene periods. Many are even in 3D.

Body:

It was a hard journey to get from my Chelsea apartment to Javits Center on Saturday. I honestly could have taken the subway, or walked, but as my cabbie drove me along 34th to 11th Avenue, I watched loads of people slugging it on, many of them in *costumes*. I felt a little small inside, as though, maybe I should stop the cab driver (and cab itself), to see if any of the best costumed people should ride with me. Then I decided that would be creepy, so I decided to let him drive on.

48 seconds and $3.50 later, I stepped out of the cab, checking to make sure I didn't drop my house key or wallet anywhere in the vicinity of the cab, I emerged into: New York Comic Con.

I did a walk to survey the environs, and get an idea of the situation, then returned near 34th and 11th. It was 9.45am precisely and I  was expecting my brother, my sister-in-law and her two hobbits (one her sibling and the other her brother-in-law) to appear right around any corners of my eye. (I am a type of fish with these weird eyes that see in opposite directions).

Honestly, that may have been my favorite moment of Comic Con, just seeing all the people driving in. I couldn't help it, I began expressing a 'permasmile' (the inability to stop smiling, which if practiced repeatedly over weekly periods, this is not a desirable condition). These were my peeps!

Once I realized what I was doing, of course, I began acting a little tougher and even pulled a cigarette from my bag and began smoking in front of little kids coming in dressed as the Predator with their G.I. Joe fathers. Because clearly, these children know how the real Predator movie ends, right? (HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA)

Ahem (Kurtz is still in there).

Still, I was thoroughly enjoying this spectacle. It is so, so rare to see just herds (yes herds!) of people coming in to enjoy a good time with entirely non-mainstream (relatively) stuff. They had somehow packed in all the experiences of street-festivals in the city that always go on during this time, with one huge, huge mega-festival for everyone to come to visit! In one compact area. I was glad my baby bro (little one) and his wife arrived late, because I was able to soak in this amazing Atmosfear.

Suddenly, around 10:25 or so, well past our agreed meeting time (they were coming from Queens, forgive the poor souls), Little One tugged my arm and disrupted my imaginations. "Brother, we have to go now," he said. "We have been waiting for you for so long," he said. He dragged me over. I accepted his Little One tug and we began to enter the dojo of entrance, together, like all five limbs of Karateka.

My sister-in-law's sister and husband came dressed as very respectable Hobbits from Hobbiton, a town far, far away from Manhattan. They looked very good, and I shook their hands and felt they were genuine. I'm not good with names, so I can't remember their names, but I do know their faces. Actually, they were so well disguised in their hobbity costumes, I doubt I would ever recognize them in real life (which is a slight on me, not them). My sister-in-law came as the 10th Doctor, and I regarded her costume, and saw it it to be extremely well executed. (Later I would learn that she managed to find 10-30 other compatriots in the same vein, and that must have been some kind of fun I could never imagine!) It made me smile a real smile, and no 'permasmile'.

My brother came as a dude in a shirt and pants and a cream cheese bagel in his pocket. I came as a dude with a shirt and pants, too, (but no bagel). We never did a lot of 'costuming' as children. I mean, there was a play once in a while, for school, but it was never a routine thing like, say, the 'Halloween Tradition', so I bet neither of us feels truly innate in costumes. I cannot fully speak for my brother (maybe he would actually love to be put in a costume, especially if taken care of in the right way) but I know what and who I am. So it is highly unlikely I would wear any costumes (actually there is an old incident with my mother and grandmother, where they tried to dress me up in a costume and I hated it, so actually maybe this whole crazy theory only applies to me). Anyway, both of us ended up as plain guys with t-shirts and pants.

***Only one difference. He had a bagel with cheese in his pocket, and I was sporting a back-pack full of gourmet meats and luxury dinners***


Kidding, sorta! Anyway, once these types of introductory passages concluded, we entered the NYCC. 

Body? Any Body?

Once entered into boring 'round-the-block' entrance process, including RFID kisses and not any other types of kisses, I quickly told my brother and sister-in-law of my real plans, and made my own  way immediately to room '1a2x' (x here denotes that at time of writing, I forget the actual room number), and I managed to view a panel by IGN, a popular (but not my favorite) gaming magazine/cum web venue type thingy. Panel was funny enough and entertaining enough (and certainly different from other panels I'd experienced at PAX 2012 almost two years earlier). To be honest, it was telling that only IGN was able to make it to a panel in New York that Saturday. All those other places have no respect for New York (this is a jest, hopefully).

After that, I looked at my schedule, and realized there would not be enough time to Q and see J.M. Straczynski, who I'd (unknowingly) been a fan of since The Spiral Zone cartoon, but have probably been more so a fan of after his work with Babylon 5, a show I still deem better than any post-Shatner Star Trek incarnations (even though in subsequent years, I see those shows' merits too, and only because I don't care to watch any Shatner Star Trek incarnations due to personal issues).

Dejected, I made my way at 12:00 to the designated lunch area. I told myself this was the real reason I came to Comic Con. To check out the food.

(To be continued demain sur demande). Actually will be continued, regardless of demand.