A render. The real one is clear and moves.
The other day I went to an event at the science museum about UPGRADING THE HUMAN. It was weird. It was headlined by a woman named Evelyn Musk who is the CEO of the (oddly absent from the internet) company called UNET and here is a video about it. Ms. Musk was wearing a ton of green eyeshadow, pink hair and a very old school Star Trek dress, and went scooting round a catwalk with sound effects and fake smoke. According to her, it is our right as a species to accelerate our evolution with pills and prosthetics and become super humans. According to the pre-recorded self-described Moral Majority, that concept only makes us jumpy because we are afraid and can't afford it. Despite Evelyn Musk's assurance that money havers liker her (?) would make shiny new brains and bits available to everyone, I felt, if anything, more jumpy.
Oh well, there were some great prosthetic hands.
They spin 360 degrees and are just killingly cool looking.
I went back during regular hours and spent a happy afternoon looking at steam engines and tiny reproductions of Industrial Revolution machinery. The one below took up about the same footprint as a smart car, was fully functional. It made my simple little robot look pathetic, especially given these machines were made on full sized versions of themselves, with no laser cutting or CNC or anything.
Those tiny tools... be still my nerdy heart!
School takes up a great deal of pleasurable, if stationary time. I do ride nearly every day, to and from and sometimes along the Thames when I have time. Other cyclists are highly reflective fitness animals. They all pass me. I have no idea which traffic laws to obey, as cycles seem to have a separate set with no signage. They do all stop at red lights, unlike at home or in Japan. It is a wonderful feeling to ride across Battersea Bridge in the blazing sunset with the Thames all glittery and the astonishingly old skyline in silhouette. Every sightline has a song or a poem connected to it in my mind.
'Sweet Thames flow softly'...
And true to its reputation, London sees rain at least once a day, especially when I am just getting on my bike. It's a sort of penetrating, cold, thoroughly unpleasant rain that makes the impulse to stay indoors and write poetry thoroughly understandable. When the sun does come out it is a revelation, a gorgeous shaft of elusive warmth sweeping across the street and everyone smiles.
Everything feels real here. The building are so solid and permanent looking, more than home, so much more than Japan. I can't help comparing, though the countries are so different. In Japan I saw wonders I did not understand; here I see wonders I think I understand, but probably don't. I love to lay my hand on a bridge rail or wander into a church and think of the hundreds of years of history in the worn stone or soaring over my head in the stained glass.
Westminster Abbey. Edward Bulwer Lytton had a bigger plaque than W.H. Auden, which bugged me.
With all this loftiness you think I would be listening to at least Handel if not Vaughn Williams, but no, I have been blasting Red Roses for Me and it fits too. I think that's what I love so much about this city. Everything is here.
All together now.....
Dear dirty delightful old drunken old days...
Not to gush or anything! I ought to buy a sunlamp, when the glamour wears off a bit I will be faced with massive vitamin D deprivation inspired lethargy.
-Isis
Oh yes, there is an Isis statue, and Isis bar, an Isis river etc etc which is delightful BUT I keep seeing my name in the tabloids because of those stupid teenagers who keep running off to join the terrorists. And I get very reserved side-eye when introducing myself and my resentment knows no bounds. Of all the acronyms they could have used they STOLE MY NAME. Not cool, terrorists.
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