Crazy but true, Mom actually hung on to the very same 128K M0001 Macintosh that Dad purchased shortly after the-most-expensive-commercial-to-date launched said iconic prototype in the midst of the 1984 Superbowl. Directed by Ridley Scott and perhaps the most prophetic commercial in television history, it only aired once and once was enough. Enter: the dawn of the digital happy face.
And so here it is, 25 years later and here I am, Marsha Collier’s “eBay for Dummies” by my side, running this eBay auction. This German guy, Lars who I met through Retromaccast has been with me every step of the way, even going so far as to create customized diagrams, to help me on my way towards a working computer again. While it may not be the Gene Roddenberry’s Mac (which, coincidentally, just went up for auction this week as well) it’s got an archival integrity that is hard to match, thanks to my mom, a retired librarian, who kept almost all of the fliers, documentation and even a couple of the original boxes.
Simply Shameless Ebay Shop Shill: So, as my goal is to get it to a worthy new owner, if you’re a collector and wanna check it out and perhaps even place a bid, here’s the link.
He thought of himself as an artist and encouraged his team to think of themselves that way, too. Of course that’s all obvious now, in retrospect. When I think about the promethean spirit driving those signatures in a world still dominated by “Basic” and “Pilot” and “IBM” is has to have been one of the fiercest humanistic moments in the history of personal computing. It also makes Ridley Scott’s stream fusing and metaphoric layering all the most dazzling and the experience of uncovering it, last week when picking the computer up after an internal hard drive repair, that much more satisfying.
I discovered Robert Frank’s book “The Americans” when I was in high school; it had a seminal impact on my way of perceiving/creating. Dunno whether or not I’ll make it to the East Coast in time to see the 50th anniversary of The Americans at the Met. Hopefully someone who does get a chance to will tell me about it, tho. Hmm, that’s not really the same as seeing it myself. Okay, well after NY it goes to DC and will be shown at the National Gallery of Art through the spring and so maybe I’ll be able to go and see it then.
Tricia Romano just tweeted this out Paul Hipp music video about the latest World Health Organization stats on how the US is doing, healthcarewise, on a world scale and maybe I outta try and espouse something insightful and sagelike so I’m not just blogging a re-tweet link to a You Tube vid but then it just so speaks for itself and besides…I gotta get to the gym so that I can stay healthy.
The submission deadline for this archived Politiku Shout Out has already passed as the Health Care Politiku (formerly titled “Health Care Reform Politiku) has posted. The current Politiku Shout Out, however, is only a click away.
Health Care Reform is in the air which means time for a new Huffington Politiku. Please submit Politiku via the commentary section of this post or email me at susanna (at) susannaspeier (dot) com
DNA portraits are available through a company called DNA 11 for prices starting as low as $199 USD. Granted, it’s a prohibitively expensive luxury that I would never consider in this kinda economy but at the same time, despite being a sucker for this kinda stuffand despite the fact its a prohibitively expensive luxury
in this kinda economy, the real reason I believe people outta think twice before endeavoring to embark on one of these –point of no return– DNA reads is because if someone is not too paranoid to wear his or her DNA on his or her sleeve, then perhaps he or she should be. And if confused by what it is I’m saying everyone outta be paranoid about, have you ever seen that movie, Gattaca?
Not that I’m not still deep-deep-down, secretly wishing I was one of those happy few. And if you happen to be, one of those happy few who saw the movie, Gattaca in 1997 and twelve years later are able to look back and reflect upon it as though it were something as dated as, say, retro-futurist-revisionist nostalgia is (when executed poorly, at any rate) then I envy you. I envy you for living your life unencumbered by Andrew Niccol’s doom and gloom prophetic dystopia that bodes will all one day find ourselves in a Prada clad, dystopia starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law but —okay— back to my original point. My original point here is that, I have neither the stupidity nor the faith in humanity to invest a three to fourdiget sum in customized wall art, screen savers, Facebook avatars and business cards that will publicize the my genetic info to anyone who bookmarks the permalink. Fact is, you couldn’t pay to publicize something so utterly, personal, fatalistic and inalterable! And lest you think I’m making a mountain outta a mole here, lemme re clarify the context, again: if the sickest team of glypheratti wanted to transform your social security digits into visually and conceptually fly wall art, would you comply?
