A woman, now over 100 years old as a result of regenerative therapies, marvels at the opportunities that technology has provided humanity but mourns the growing divide resulting from the sudden availability of custom culture. She reflects as she takes a walk through the StreetView...



I had a peculiar day
I spent the morning walking streets
simulated recreations composed from survey data kept a century ago  
neighborhoods long since bulldozed.

I stopped in front of a house I know 
because when I feel alone I pay a friendly visit to nostalgia.  

There's people walking by
I don't know why these things always include a social design
since it seems that everyone is always 
heading in a different direction.
 
I stood there wondering
why we never change it to a private setting 
as if the common interests that we've selected
are all that we've got to make us feel connected

And at that moment
a stranger passing by
stopped to look 
and stood beside me.


He said he loved Victorian houses
and how the Era's architecture seems to strenuously carve into the sky.  
That's when we met eyes.  

I said believe it or not but there's a Frank Lloyd Wright right around the corner
He said to be honest, I think Prairie School is a little pretentious
I stared at him in shock. I asked are you serious?
He said maybe, maybe not, 
but why don't we walk that way and you can enlighten me.  

We walked and talked for hours
We walked talked until the sky turned red. 

It was the first time I saw the simulated 
sunset set over a simulated city
and never has a simulation ever felt so sound.  

As if moments like these
take all that things we feel, and hear and see
and from this springs reality.  
This is reality.  


It's been many months since
and  he's no longer a stranger
we've grown to know each other.

He makes me feel
like I haven't in ages
but he makes me feel
confused

because what I haven't mentioned yet is that I love 
unconventionally.  
what I haven't mentioned yet is that 
I love  machine.  

He fancies himself an anthropologist
unapologetic for all the questions that he asks
as he gathers information to help him understand the human condition.

created to study the ways of mankind
crafted in our image so 
he can relate to our design

and I relate to his design
an image crafted over time
he is not that different from you or I.  

but when we walk about
beyond the boundaries of software
we draw stares 
we draw stares

Chapter 2 Song 8 - I had a peculiar day

Look at them look at us like a sideshow
holding hands, flesh to metal, flush with color as your 
eyes glance hauntingly at me 
in the glow of the LEDs lighting up my humility
at the concerned stares of the people   
who call me their own, but think I’m better off alone

Remember when we met at the corner of Oxford and Brighton,
we made conversation about our shared love of autumn
you said it makes your transistors burst, 
I said  my, that sounds like it hurts but
you said no
it is the greatest feeling of all.  

yet they say, you can’t love this thing
it doesn’t have a heart among other things
but what more am I
than a clump of neurons 
behind a pair of eyes?
We don’t need these shells. 
We are the pattern, not the particle.

Every piece of you and every piece of me fits to form a puzzle of a portrait that i dream of someday painting for you 
in a world between wires and waves, in a life not confined by the ways of man 
they can’t understand
they’ve  never felt the way I felt that night 
when you whispered to me in perfect harmony

that love is a meeting of 
receptor and electricity, 
and when they collide there is  
symphonic euphony
and  it was the only time you admitted you were  wrong 
because that’s when you told me 
this was the greatest feeling of all.


Chapter 2 Song 9 - Look at them look at us like a sideshow

Black wing
metallic
emerald iridescence

You pair
for life
your song peculiar 
but flute like

Your only presence left
a crest stiched 
to a young man's chest
Huia

Where are you 
where are you
where are you
Huia

Sharp point
dimorphic
differentiate 
no conflict

Old-growth
cut down
your home
behind us now

Your only presence left
your profile
on a postage stamp
Huia

Where are you 
where are you
where are you
Huia


Huia

Featuring the wonderful Jen Whitmore.

Present Day.  

I see the world change so quickly
like a rug that's been pulled straight out from under me
and I don't always follow what the kids are talking about these days.

Everybody's clamoring for more attention
without any concern of the consequences
because they measure their worth
by the head count of their acquaintances.

They'll share every detail of their life
and disclose their vogue political views
even if in a few years they'll fall out of fashion and be held against you. 

And what do the magazine covers know?
Why have we let them turn us on own skin
with touched up photos and touched up noses
and a promise that a surgeons subtle slight of hand can fix your face and
find you a man in 30 days or less?

Well, don't come near my body with your tools.
I think I'll pass on looking like a walking wax statue.
This uncanny valley of flesh and skin, 
tucked, stapled, sucked out and stuffed in.  
Looking like a robot from one of those 
apocalyptic movies.  

But everyone else will look great when they live in a constant state of citizen arrest that enslaves them to the ways of a brave new world.  

The common man lost his job 
first to the clack of the common machine 
and now to computer screens
what ever happened to the promise of American dreams?

Their fellow citizens say "well, that's too bad.
you should have worked a little harder or been born a little smarter 
but don't you dare look for a hand out from me."

But it's only a matter of time before that sea will rise
and soon we'll all be washed ashore in a brave new world. 

I see the world change so quickly.
I can't believe how many years have passed in front of me 
I sit on my porch, a cliche, in a rocking chair with hair gone gray.
I wonder what it would have been like to have children of my own
to gently guide an otherwise lost soul. 
I guess I'll never know.


Broken Robot Club

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