By Myles Ludwig When the ancient gods descended from Mt. Olympus, it’s not likely they figured their progeny would be luging down the slick course of Sanki Sliding Center at 85-plus mph. Not likely Homer could evoke the heroism of snowboarders Sage Kotsenburg and Jamie Anderson, skater dudes on snow, leaping and twirling off the rails of Rosa Khutor, though there’s a bit of … [Read more...]
Sundays: Other eyes are keeping score
By Myles Ludwig All Hail Snowdenia, as Groucho might have said. The Angry Birds have been de-flocked and added to the No Fly list. Just when we thought this tawdry, lingering spy story might be coming to an end — finally — we learned this week that you folks (and you know who you are) who’ve been playing Angry Birds to wipe away the previously unoccupied hours have been … [Read more...]
Sundays: Loving the machines
By Myles Ludwig This is a query, not a criticism. I’m wondering why we find ourselves living in the Republic of Technology, as Daniel Boorstin called it, a sovereign state with its own rules, a state in which privacy has become a philosophical issue, rather than practical one, a privilege to opt out of rather than a right to opt in. A state in which my U-verse is my … [Read more...]
Sundays: The end of advertising
By Myles Ludwig I like to stay just ahead of the knuckleball. So before the minions of Hypostan begin their campaign to whisk up a kind of consumerist Cool Whippy enthusiasm for the TV commercials interrupting the Super Bowl game — and overshadowing the game itself — I’d like to throw a pitch against American advertising in general, and broadcasting ads in particular. … [Read more...]
Sundays: Here, in my head, be dragons
By Myles Ludwig I worry that I’m losing my mind. I worry that the indefinable, ungraspable spirit that somehow, magically, animates my character, clicks on my personality, is slipping away, cell by cell, molecule by molecule, quark by quark, that my synapses are plaquing up and starting to slow down the everyday neural transmissions. For a writer, it’s one of the worst … [Read more...]
Sundays: Engineering a better human
By Myles Ludwig Computo ergo sum: I compute, therefore I am. Old Monsieur Descartes would likely be writhing in his grave had he known what his defining formula for human existence has become and how irrelevant it might be coming. I’m not suggesting that thinking, as such, will lose its place as an especially juicy characteristic of mankind (and womankind as well, of course), … [Read more...]
Sundays: What we hath wrought
By Myles Ludwig Everything falls apart. Guaranteed. Here we stand on the threshold of the Age of Entropy rather than what we hoped might look like a renewal of the Age of Good and Plenty. And the view ain’t pretty. Entropy abounds. Find its ugly Medusa head of snakes in the electronic looting of Target; the bureaucratic, who me? boondoggle that crashed the Obamacare Website: … [Read more...]
Sundays: What made, and didn’t make, the Cloud in 2013
By Myles Ludwig The annual list of best and worst seems lame. I prefer a listicle of the Liked, UnLiked, ReLiked, Archived, Deleted, Spammed and Trashed. It seems more appropriate. As the pope noted, who am I to judge? But if not me, then who? Liked Edward Snowden Pope Francis Claire Danes Don Jon and Barbara Sugarman Michelle Obama Justin Timberlake Kate … [Read more...]
Sundays: The end of an idea
By Myles Ludwig I am wondering if America’s grand illusions have become America’s grandiose delusions. Have we passed the best-used-by date of that lovely and sacrosanct idea of American Exceptionalism: An idea so long the comforting quilt of nationalistic narcissism that warmed past generations, a vanity that expressed itself in the political rationale for genocide in the … [Read more...]
Sundays: Have yourself a merry
By Myles Ludwig ’Tis the season of anxiety. Freakouts are in full bloom. The Christmas craze has descended upon the land and the shadow of New Year’s Eve neurosis is coming back again along with feigned resolutions and February’s bills. The other night, the Costco parking lot in Lantana was ablaze with the blinding colors of taillights and I couldn’t find my car for about … [Read more...]