iPod

I bought an iPod shuffle today. It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I am dumbstruck by it. In my head I have two images. One is of a black guy dancin on the sidewalk holding a thirty 5 pound ghetto blaster on his shoulder. The other images is of this iPod: smaller than a cigarette lighter, white, simple, minamalist design perfected--hanging from my neck like a crusifix. A monolith. A pure white virgin monolith, a religious symbol in a technoligious culture.

Another image comes to mind. A king sitting on his thrown in his court ordering muscisians to play music. Armies at his call, treasures stored in vaults, the power to lop off someones head, and a skinny pimple faced harp player trembling with the fear of hitting the wrong note in the presence of his magisty. Only the powerful--the lordly--had the power of music so freely at their hands. Today we all have the power of kings (except poor people, those pagens, still worshiping those gods of old--the cd player, the 82 datsun hatchback).

Consumer democracy.

The girl who rung me up at the register believed the iPod was too small, that she would lose it. How many lighters have I lost in my life time? With all of my reading on nano technology lately it is kind of fun to own something so small that it can be lost. The day is close when invisibly small computer devices will be sold. And then we will have to all decide as a society... is the emperor wearing anyclothes?