Automobilia

For whatever reason, an act that I have thoughtlessly performed tens of thousands of times in my life struck me in a new, startling way earlier today. That act is the simple one of putting on a seatbelt before firing the ignition of the car.

Until now, that click meant I agreed with all the safety advocates who have for years argued that my chances of surviving a crash were much better if I was belted in.

For whatever reason, though, this time what struck me with that click was that I had, albeit in a symbolic way, become one with the vehicle. Literally, I was tied to it.

Over the years of driving, I have had fleeting thoughts about the deeper meaning of automobilia. There really is a lot to think about. Stopped at a red light, I have had intimations of my mortality. I have wondered about the personality that we graft onto vehicles due to the look of the grilles. Traffic circles or traffic lights, what are the assumptions about human nature behind each? Why do we assume we can't be seen inside our vehicles? In what sense do we communicate through our vehicles? Springsteen's Wreck on the Highway. The Beach Boys' Fun, Fun, Fun. Memories of going on Sunday drives in my grandfather's '65 Ford Custom. The '72 Challenger. What happens to us when we a thought in our brain translates into the roar of acceleration below? My advice to the boys as they learned to drive: "It's not personal. Don't make it personal. Try never to make eye contact with other drivers if you are angry. Just outthink them." That moment out of time when your eyes meet another driver's, both cars stopped in traffic, and you just see each through the windshields, sitting there inside all the metal and glass."

I learned cybernetics long before I was taught about cybernetics, and it was driving, and defensive driving, that taught me. The word is from the Greek kubernetes, meaning steersman. Its proponent, Norbert Wiener, defined it as the study of messages as a means of controlling machinery and society. Cybernetic schemes are self-regulating through feedback. I get lost when I try to read Wiener instead of those who try to explain Wiener, so I will leave it at that.

In Steve Mann's Cyborg, the author points out that  "the work of Norbert Wiener allowed for a new understanding of information processing and put forth the intriguing idea that the human being would, in the future, exist in tandem with the computer as a single cybernetic system."

Click!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

:)

Image
One of the joys and dangers of studying in the MACT program is that you start to feel scared enough to feel confident enough to fool around and try simple new things with technology. The danger is that you're not good enough not to spend most of your time fiddling around doing those things. And, so, this morning I am proud to announce that, taken by the hand, I have managed to embed html vimeo code into my blog. Please, no applause. This is not much, I know. Your basic 8 year old can do more. Asleep. But it is a minor accomplishment for me, because of me. And how I get in the way with my pre-wired reaction that new things won't work. The effect of that kind of thinking (or that lack of thinking) is that I transform the machine in front of me into an antagonistic force working to undo me. But it does remind me of me when I attribute malevolence to the skies when they conspire to bring rain on a morning of golf! Either way, that's bad storytelling. On another leve
Read more

Hello!

Image
The potential socialness of a bicycle is built right into its roofless and windshieldless and doorless frame. It is easy to say hello on a bicycle. Like this morning. These sidewalkers nodded to me in unison at the exact instant I nodded to them. I said hello to the jogger, and he waved back. Hi, I said, to the dog walkers and the dog, and they nodded a greeting back. Both joggers smiled and said hello as our lives passed. I said hello to the squirrel. I said hello to the woman walking with poles and she returned the hello. The jogger looked over and I said hello as she said hello. I said hello to this fellow egg picker upper and we talked for a couple of minutes. Her bicycle comes out April 1. She is excited. Hello, I said. Hi, she said. I said hello to the  man on the other end of this leash and he said he and his dog were enjoying the beautiful morning. I said hello to this woman and she said hello, and we laughed ab
Read more

Some Late Thoughts Listening To Wheat Kings

Image
Wheat Kings in Edmonton, July , 2016 I asked a friend at work what The Tragically Hip song Wheat Kings was about, and he paused for a beat longer than he would have had he not considered the same question many times. And then said: "I don't know." I took this as a good sign both of his humility and the song's profundity. It was an honest question. I don't know much about The Hip. They were cool for the first time when I was watching my wife raise our children, and trying to help the mission where I could. Those were busy days. The 1990s are my mediated decade, preserved by photographs of my younger self. Among the art that didn't get in was The Tragically Hip's. And it was a dishonest question. I knew the song was about David Milgaard's wrongful conviction and wrongful jail time served for the murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller. And it was an honest question, because song's visual shards—that weathervane, a killer's face lit
Read more