Titanium Spork (tiny tweak)
Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:38 pm
(moved the colon as per Crayon's suggestion, corrected spelling of "tenant" as Ray noticed...)
Titanium Spork
Titanium Spork: You get the idea:
a spoon, knife and fork together in one
so no need to purchase the separate utensils
and probably also, in this simplistic,
unritualistic day and age, you will not need:
the napkin rings,
the sugar tongs,
or the pearl-handled oyster knife...
and neither need you
ever replace this Spork,
this transcendental utensil
as Titanium is indestructible
by any plausible, normally causable,
disaster of the kitchen or dining room variety
which doesn't involve a volcano.
Titanium Spork: You can clean it with a blowtorch
should the dishwasher break down.
Titanium Spork: Let's now take stock
of other ways in which it rocks;
the less direct benefits, accruing to you
the owner of this better-than-sterling tool.
You are cool
the other geeks will think you neat
you may even wish to skip
the ritual chopsticks for lunchtime sushi
and scarf the stuff down at a rate
that illustrates you have no fear
of ever breaking
your marvellous eating equipment.
Also... you always have
this imperishable piece
of metal about your person
which can be jammed
into any recalcitrant mechanism
like the autopilot of a 747,
a Death Star trash compactor on the detention level,
or that little door
on the front of your digibox
that's supposed to open
with a finger's stroke
and won't.
Titanium Spork: so now you own it:
the ultimate accessory,
but is this shiny thing necessary
or appropriate
to the ethically constructed life?
Because...
...while there are outdoorsy folks who will insist
their Spork's as crucial
as the dual-fuel CampStar lamp that twists, gently,
beneath the carbon-fibre ridge-pole
of their two person hike tent...
...and late-night coders who simply would not eat
without the additional incentive...
...is this enough?
Titanium Spork: Can we justify
the type of costs that underlie
such an object:
development,
production,
factory construction,
smelting Titanium by the Kroll process,
and the product placement surveys
by a brown, hand-knitted cardigan called Alison
with many frequent flyer miles
to major cities
in persistent light rain?
Titanium Spork: And what
of the Amazon Prime drone, that drops
like an anti-seagull from the overcast
to place implement
in outstretched hand
the moment you peel the cellophane
from the instant ramen noodle of your choice...?
Titanium Spork: how does it work--
the World devotes such energy
to cutlery perfection
while diagrams of devastation
bloom, wept at, but uncorrected
across Western Asia? How does it work
that there remain toddlers
who own no spoon of any sort
in dust
in tiny villages
in Africa?
Titanium Spork: the geeks are progressive,
their blog posts expressive
and always they'll claim:
that they'd really like to save the World
and put as much as nineteen dollars
and ninety-nine cents
in a Kickstarter campaign
to do that very thing
as recently as Tuesday.
Titanium Spork: and to be fair
many of them do more than that.
Titanium Spork: the geek agenda
is of no surrender
on any type of higher and higher
technology: Smart phones,
smart drugs, smart plastics,
smart cars, smart watches,
working smarter, not harder;
although often harder as well
on their cloud enabled,
RSA encrypted,
virtual platform
multi-tenant whateverscape...
...or sometimes just a database
of cost-effective
Mexican food.
Do not blame us
for the asymmetry
of modern life.
All we wanted
was to build wonderful machines
and turn them loose
to do their own things
to be of use
and free
at the point of need
or in any case so cheap
that they are a gift to the World
on the internet
in your phone
on every street corner
and all we want as our reward
is a comment somewhere deep in the source code
that says with mock pride
and even more mocking humility
that: Bobby-sixty-three was here
oh yes, and a salary, a Western lifestyle, a dirt bike, a car...
Titanium Spork: So much for the World,
and yet, possibly...
There are possibilities...
of an internet café at the edge of the conflict,
war correspondents post their stuff
and a teenager busses tables
for half a meal a day
the occasional human interest interview
and all the bandwidth he can steal;
at the end of the day he emerges
with six new ways to improve the ancient diesel generator...
There are possibilities...
that somewhere sub-Saharan
a thirteen year old girl
finding the third-hand maths textbook
her brother left unfinished
climbs a tree and reads
the whole thing in one sitting,
squatting, on the highest branch
and afterwards thinks
well obviously there's more to this...
Imagine her now,
imagine all the young people
who may yet learn
how to be geeks. They
have not yet heard the promises
of Titanium and technology,
of science and Sporks;
but she is listening now
as she stares speculatively at the far-off mountain peaks,
at a tiny metallic twinkle
as from some distant,
shiny,
wonderful
object.
Titanium Spork
Titanium Spork: You get the idea:
a spoon, knife and fork together in one
so no need to purchase the separate utensils
and probably also, in this simplistic,
unritualistic day and age, you will not need:
the napkin rings,
the sugar tongs,
or the pearl-handled oyster knife...
and neither need you
ever replace this Spork,
this transcendental utensil
as Titanium is indestructible
by any plausible, normally causable,
disaster of the kitchen or dining room variety
which doesn't involve a volcano.
Titanium Spork: You can clean it with a blowtorch
should the dishwasher break down.
Titanium Spork: Let's now take stock
of other ways in which it rocks;
the less direct benefits, accruing to you
the owner of this better-than-sterling tool.
You are cool
the other geeks will think you neat
you may even wish to skip
the ritual chopsticks for lunchtime sushi
and scarf the stuff down at a rate
that illustrates you have no fear
of ever breaking
your marvellous eating equipment.
Also... you always have
this imperishable piece
of metal about your person
which can be jammed
into any recalcitrant mechanism
like the autopilot of a 747,
a Death Star trash compactor on the detention level,
or that little door
on the front of your digibox
that's supposed to open
with a finger's stroke
and won't.
Titanium Spork: so now you own it:
the ultimate accessory,
but is this shiny thing necessary
or appropriate
to the ethically constructed life?
Because...
...while there are outdoorsy folks who will insist
their Spork's as crucial
as the dual-fuel CampStar lamp that twists, gently,
beneath the carbon-fibre ridge-pole
of their two person hike tent...
...and late-night coders who simply would not eat
without the additional incentive...
...is this enough?
Titanium Spork: Can we justify
the type of costs that underlie
such an object:
development,
production,
factory construction,
smelting Titanium by the Kroll process,
and the product placement surveys
by a brown, hand-knitted cardigan called Alison
with many frequent flyer miles
to major cities
in persistent light rain?
Titanium Spork: And what
of the Amazon Prime drone, that drops
like an anti-seagull from the overcast
to place implement
in outstretched hand
the moment you peel the cellophane
from the instant ramen noodle of your choice...?
Titanium Spork: how does it work--
the World devotes such energy
to cutlery perfection
while diagrams of devastation
bloom, wept at, but uncorrected
across Western Asia? How does it work
that there remain toddlers
who own no spoon of any sort
in dust
in tiny villages
in Africa?
Titanium Spork: the geeks are progressive,
their blog posts expressive
and always they'll claim:
that they'd really like to save the World
and put as much as nineteen dollars
and ninety-nine cents
in a Kickstarter campaign
to do that very thing
as recently as Tuesday.
Titanium Spork: and to be fair
many of them do more than that.
Titanium Spork: the geek agenda
is of no surrender
on any type of higher and higher
technology: Smart phones,
smart drugs, smart plastics,
smart cars, smart watches,
working smarter, not harder;
although often harder as well
on their cloud enabled,
RSA encrypted,
virtual platform
multi-tenant whateverscape...
...or sometimes just a database
of cost-effective
Mexican food.
Do not blame us
for the asymmetry
of modern life.
All we wanted
was to build wonderful machines
and turn them loose
to do their own things
to be of use
and free
at the point of need
or in any case so cheap
that they are a gift to the World
on the internet
in your phone
on every street corner
and all we want as our reward
is a comment somewhere deep in the source code
that says with mock pride
and even more mocking humility
that: Bobby-sixty-three was here
oh yes, and a salary, a Western lifestyle, a dirt bike, a car...
Titanium Spork: So much for the World,
and yet, possibly...
There are possibilities...
of an internet café at the edge of the conflict,
war correspondents post their stuff
and a teenager busses tables
for half a meal a day
the occasional human interest interview
and all the bandwidth he can steal;
at the end of the day he emerges
with six new ways to improve the ancient diesel generator...
There are possibilities...
that somewhere sub-Saharan
a thirteen year old girl
finding the third-hand maths textbook
her brother left unfinished
climbs a tree and reads
the whole thing in one sitting,
squatting, on the highest branch
and afterwards thinks
well obviously there's more to this...
Imagine her now,
imagine all the young people
who may yet learn
how to be geeks. They
have not yet heard the promises
of Titanium and technology,
of science and Sporks;
but she is listening now
as she stares speculatively at the far-off mountain peaks,
at a tiny metallic twinkle
as from some distant,
shiny,
wonderful
object.
