A painterly piece of not writing, mostly about New York City among other things! Thinking of eating farm-fresh blueberries watching the City's deconstructivist skyline. I haven't been to NYC since before the pandemic. It sounds like San Francisco is following the same playbook. What's to write about watching such cities where we live and love, decay and die? It makes me "a whiter shade of pale."
There's a 10-year-old sci-fi movie that has grown on me over a decade. Oblivion (2013) was another one of those post-apocalyptical alien-invasion mega movies, that didn't quite hit the billion-dollar franchise mark. I think maybe it was a little too close to home--or there was just so much you can do in 126 minutes. When the miller starts telling his tale, we are in NYC in year 2077--symbol of the whole world that had been destroyed in 2017 by some unknowable "AI" vessel, called TET. There are images of a shattered moon, and what's left of the Empire State Building, NY Public Library, the Yankee Stadium and the Brooklyn Bridge, etc., after massive thermonuclear explosions. Jack Harper, the human astronaut killed in the first encounter with TET in 2017, is cloned and sent back to earth in successive waves to first kill and then later to guard the hovering mining stations created in the shape of TET itself--tetrahedral--draining all earth's ocean waters for energy. The new and improved cloned Jack thinks he is one of earth's last defenders. Although his memory [Tech 49] has been wiped [oblivion], TET has not been entirely successful in wiping out all traces of Jack Harper's memories. Are we our memories?
Tech 49's chrome-polished sky-pad complete with a pool is spotlessly beautiful against the surface scruffy human survivals dressed like Mad Max extras, and a bit of wood, green and dirt cottage [Upstate New York?] where the clone escapes to listen to the old vinyl records he has found in the rubbles of a vanquished Babylon.
Tech 49 holds the bridge and dies well "against fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods."
But there is a perfecting functioning Tech 52 clone--in case there is a sequel!
Thanks for a brief but stimulating mention of Cormac McCarthy. I wrote this obituary of him this past Friday. It might make for either a counterpoint or a point of agreement, depending on what angle one takes.
I very much enjoyed your piece on NYC; you did not take the path of your foil in stating that it was falling, failing, reviving, redoing, etc. My interactions with NYC have always been either from the viewpoint of the adolescent boarding schooler for whom it is the epitome of cultural, intellectual, artistic and culinary sophistication, or from that of the parent with a child or two living there with all that entails from providing unimaginable personal financial data to help acquire a 500sq living space, to subsidizing rent, worrying about crime and paying for a vegan dinner for 6 when visiting. NYC also has other qualities you need to explore- appearing to be or actually being first at everything from pencil towers to vegan ice cream shops, medical
services like my friend who just has a 9hr surgery with a doctor who only does retro peritoneal lipo sarcomas at MSK, publications and publishers, start-up incubators, famous old law firms, mechanisms of transportation, dance, opera, etc. You mentioned that it is awash with bright young things, so true, but the opportunities and possibilities for advancement for them are just not as available elsewhere. My trans son transitioned while interning at NYU Langone Long Island because Mount Sinai had a full-program of care, my daughter used her sewing skills (not the expensive education in mathematics from Reed) to work at the Public, The Signature, the Met Opera and ultimately at Patagonia where she was just made the Head of Global Repairs Services, and is finally quite happy. Nowhere in the world is there the feeling of scrappiness, and possibility, the openness to new things and change that exists in NYC, which is not to deny the enormous pressure of all that is controlling as well. For me, I will always love NYC. Much love, Rebecca
Bert,
A painterly piece of not writing, mostly about New York City among other things! Thinking of eating farm-fresh blueberries watching the City's deconstructivist skyline. I haven't been to NYC since before the pandemic. It sounds like San Francisco is following the same playbook. What's to write about watching such cities where we live and love, decay and die? It makes me "a whiter shade of pale."
There's a 10-year-old sci-fi movie that has grown on me over a decade. Oblivion (2013) was another one of those post-apocalyptical alien-invasion mega movies, that didn't quite hit the billion-dollar franchise mark. I think maybe it was a little too close to home--or there was just so much you can do in 126 minutes. When the miller starts telling his tale, we are in NYC in year 2077--symbol of the whole world that had been destroyed in 2017 by some unknowable "AI" vessel, called TET. There are images of a shattered moon, and what's left of the Empire State Building, NY Public Library, the Yankee Stadium and the Brooklyn Bridge, etc., after massive thermonuclear explosions. Jack Harper, the human astronaut killed in the first encounter with TET in 2017, is cloned and sent back to earth in successive waves to first kill and then later to guard the hovering mining stations created in the shape of TET itself--tetrahedral--draining all earth's ocean waters for energy. The new and improved cloned Jack thinks he is one of earth's last defenders. Although his memory [Tech 49] has been wiped [oblivion], TET has not been entirely successful in wiping out all traces of Jack Harper's memories. Are we our memories?
Tech 49's chrome-polished sky-pad complete with a pool is spotlessly beautiful against the surface scruffy human survivals dressed like Mad Max extras, and a bit of wood, green and dirt cottage [Upstate New York?] where the clone escapes to listen to the old vinyl records he has found in the rubbles of a vanquished Babylon.
Tech 49 holds the bridge and dies well "against fearful odds for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods."
But there is a perfecting functioning Tech 52 clone--in case there is a sequel!
Keep writing, A.J.
David,
Thanks for a brief but stimulating mention of Cormac McCarthy. I wrote this obituary of him this past Friday. It might make for either a counterpoint or a point of agreement, depending on what angle one takes.
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/06/vaya-con-dios-cormac-mccarthy-1933-2023/
Sincerely,
Casey
David,
I very much enjoyed your piece on NYC; you did not take the path of your foil in stating that it was falling, failing, reviving, redoing, etc. My interactions with NYC have always been either from the viewpoint of the adolescent boarding schooler for whom it is the epitome of cultural, intellectual, artistic and culinary sophistication, or from that of the parent with a child or two living there with all that entails from providing unimaginable personal financial data to help acquire a 500sq living space, to subsidizing rent, worrying about crime and paying for a vegan dinner for 6 when visiting. NYC also has other qualities you need to explore- appearing to be or actually being first at everything from pencil towers to vegan ice cream shops, medical
services like my friend who just has a 9hr surgery with a doctor who only does retro peritoneal lipo sarcomas at MSK, publications and publishers, start-up incubators, famous old law firms, mechanisms of transportation, dance, opera, etc. You mentioned that it is awash with bright young things, so true, but the opportunities and possibilities for advancement for them are just not as available elsewhere. My trans son transitioned while interning at NYU Langone Long Island because Mount Sinai had a full-program of care, my daughter used her sewing skills (not the expensive education in mathematics from Reed) to work at the Public, The Signature, the Met Opera and ultimately at Patagonia where she was just made the Head of Global Repairs Services, and is finally quite happy. Nowhere in the world is there the feeling of scrappiness, and possibility, the openness to new things and change that exists in NYC, which is not to deny the enormous pressure of all that is controlling as well. For me, I will always love NYC. Much love, Rebecca