Woke up with this morning with an old REM song playing in my head. A cut from a different time -- strangely ancient now -- but not a bad tune to have cycling away in one's gray matter.
The first sensation on opening my eyes: disorientation, me unsure of the date, how long I'd been asleep, how long until daylight. The past days have slipped by at quietly supersonic speed, leaving memories of various moments blowing through my thoughts like autumn leaves.
Sunday: pulled myself out of bed at far too reasonable an hour, navigated my way out through local streets to an exhibit of coverage by newspapers, magazines, various writers of the Spanish Civil War (a theme that remains strikingly active in Spanish media). A vivid display of print coverage and film footage of the war's three convulsive, nightmarish years and, it turned out, depressing enough that I didn't stay long after realizing exactly how depressing it was. I'll say this: as iconic as Picasso's Guernica may be, to my eyes it does nowhere near the job of depicting the actual devastation that a modest-sized photo from this exhibit did. The print does not have the cultural weight of the painting -- and there is no experience quite like standing in el Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, where the canvass now hangs, watching/listening to Spaniards taking it in -- but the simple, stark strength of its image was unexpectedly gripping. Could be I've seen the painting too many times now. Or not. Either way, the photograph has stayed with me, surfacing in my thoughts now and then with disconcerting power.
If a friendly person such as yourself had stopped by my comfy, austere squat later that day to say hi, maybe check up on how I was doing (you never write! you never call!), you would have found me planted in front of the laptop -- why does that seem like such a sordid image? -- deep into the virtual foolishness of Second Life. Not a pasttime I expected to take control of my existence when I first created an account. I spend a hefty amount of time plugged into that laptop, but it's generally virtuous: work, email, like that. I've been mostly free from the allure of computer and video games since Bedazzled/Bejeweled had its moment. It can be a gift, burnout can, releasing us from the grip of whatever vice has had us in its, er, vice-grips, leaving us to move ahead armed with data about our more addiction-prone aspects that we can use to stay free of empty, time-wasting, high-tech diversions. (Or, alternatively, we can immediately forget about all that distracting personal information.) Yes, Bedazzled had its way with me for a while, and before that Castle Wolfenstein made me its bitch for a few weeks. But I emerged from those binges a stronger person, clearer about how I wanted to squander my time -- and it did not include passing many hours at a time sweating away at the home-computing fun 'n' games equivalent of a time-eating black hole.
But then this last summer Wired ran an article about Second Life, and their cheerfully glib prose made it sound intriguing. Given, however, that I only have dial-up service at my humble country dump back in Vermont, I was out of luck, until I realized I could sign up via one of Montpelier's wi-fi cafes. Which I did. And never got to do anything with it because, realistically, how much time could I spend in wi-fi joints avoiding the inevitable return home to low-speed internet? And what I found was that I had a fairly fierce initial learning curve, something the occasional wi-fi café sit-down could put nary a dent in.
So, the initial score:
Vermont ISP's uninterested in serving their customer base by
developing high-level rural service: 1.
Me: 0.
But then I returned to Madrid, where ISP's are so anxious to provide high-speed 'net access that they package it with telephone and cable TV service, all at absurdly reasonable prices. And once I'd succeeded in re-establishing phones, etc. ("etc."? you don't want to know), I went for high-speed internet. Which meant once the post-return dust cleared, I could sit down and begin nosing around Second Life.
Which I did. This last weekend. And the hours flew by. And with each passing day I've found myself online more and more, swelling numbers of potentially productive hours disappearing into thin virtual air. I'm only writing about it here because the
It might. Or I might find myself cloistered away in my tidy, compact guestroom, laptop cranked at all hours of the day and night, consorting with virtual playmates.
We'll see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nighttime sidestreet, holiday season, Madrid:
España, te quiero.
rws 3:57 PM [+]
Comments:
Orange Crush - that song brings back memories. Old REM songs have been jangling through my consciousness lately, as well. Most recently it was "Driver 8."
Wonder why they're resurging like this. Has REM had a higher profile lately? Something like that might get my inner jukebox playing their tunes more often.
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