This "Diary Me" command came from an article in the New Yorker by an author I admire (I've read all of his novels, in fact, and that's ME who really only reads non-fiction unless it's for the LGBT Literature series and for a week I have to write something) who was one of the winners of a contest Google had to become a beta tester of Google Glass. I've had this in my draft file for a few months, but since Azazello wrote a CUA diary on this on April 1, I figured now was a good time to ponder what a novelist thinks of Google Glass and what I think of it based on what HE thinks of it.
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That's our writer, Gary Shteyngart. The caption in the
New Yorker reads
I hear that in San Francisco the term “Glassholes” is already current, but in New York I am a conquering hero. Photograph by Emiliano Granado.
Ah, yes. "Glassholes." I can see that very clearly.
Honestly, the first time I heard of Google Glass my reaction was "You're kidding. This can't be a real product." I'm fairly horrified that it's real, because this is yet another step toward the world Ray Bradbury described in "The Murderer" (1953), which I think about every single time I get on the Orange Line here and everyone is talking to someone on their cell phones. But maybe it's just my age, and you remember how long it took me to get a cell phone myself. Here, we have an eager technological explorer who can write. Perhaps -- perhaps -- he can explain his experience as a Google Glass Explorer (he was one of the winners of a Twitter contest that he entered because he had developed what he thought was an unhealthy attachment to his iPhone) in a way that makes it understandable.
Yes, they're a big deal in Manhattan. Everybody in the subway stares at the glasses, so he decides to take a picture:
The man with the glasses jerks his head up and down. The soft pink light is on above his right eye. “O.K., Glass,” the man says. “Take a picture.” The pink light is replaced by a shot of the subway car, the college student with the earbuds, the older man, now immortalized. If they are paying close attention, they can see a microscopic version of themselves and the world around them displayed on the screen above the man’s right eye. “I can also take a video of you,” the man says. “O.K., Glass. Record a video.”
Yes, you alert Glass that you're asking it to do something by saying "O.K., Glass." I can think of ALL kinds of places where that would be frowned upon.
Why "Super Sad" in the title? Shteyngart explains in a really nice consideration of what "phone" even means any more:
“Super Sad True Love Story” [his third novel] was mostly written between 2006 and 2008 and was published in the summer of 2010. The novel was set in an unspecified near future, because setting a novel in the present in a time of unprecedented technological and social dislocation seemed to me shortsighted. For example, the word “phone” has meant almost entirely one thing for close to a century, but by 2007 it meant a device that was also a personal stereo, a stockbroker, a weather prognosticator, and a flashlight. By 2013, my glasses serve not only as a phone but also as a video phone. To write a book set in the present, circa 2013, is to write about the distant past.
And what does this mean? He's spending so much time on his phone that he thinks he's not actually reading any more.
I've read Super Sad True Love Story, and it's wonderful. I liked his second novel, Absurdistan, even better. And it seems that, in Super Sad True Love Story he foresaw Google Glass:
I had a general idea of how Lenny and Eunice could romance each other on the screen, but I was unsure of how to televise one detail: the all-powerful device used by my denizens of the future called an äppärät. This umlaut-ridden contraption, which looks like a smooth white pebble worn around the neck, constantly beams holographic data and streaming video at eye level. The äppärät’s most useful function is RateMe Plus, an endless series of rankings its wearers undergo in categories such as Fuckability and Male Hotness. Lenny naturally had a lot of problems with his Fuckability—entering a bar in newly chic Staten Island (one prediction that has not yet come true), he is immediately and publicly ranked as the fortieth-ugliest man out of the forty men present.
The first drafts of “Super Sad” had a technology called The Eye, which was basically an äppärät inside a contact lens. My editor suggested that it was a little much, and it certainly was in 2008, at a time when even the first iterations of the iPhone seemed like they were beamed back to our world from some glorious future civilization in Cupertino. By 2013, having a miniature screen above my right eye tell me all about “Ashton Kutcher’s new job” feels about right.
Shteyngart's publisher paid the $1500 that Google charged for becoming an Explorer, because The Eye pretty much = Google Glass.
The article links, which is good because I'd really struggle with fair use otherwise, because Shteyngart writes so well. He enjoys the training, but there are issues. Video recording, which Glass OBVIOUSLY does, is controversial, and casinos in Las Vegas have banned it. Voice recognition has bugs.
The main problem with Glass in its infancy is the lack of apps for the lay user. Since I don’t know how to pair my Glass “with biofeedback sensors for self monitoring and uploading telemetry with pictures triggered by spikes in the data,” the best part of wearing my Glass has been recording the response it elicits in others.
Walking distracted by the iPhone? Bad. Walking distracted by Glass? How cool!
My friend Doug and I hit Bushwick and Williamsburg. Everyone at the bar at Roberta’s restaurant wants a piece of me. “Ah, future!” a German man cries. “We saw you have the Google,” a girl from a group of visiting Atlantans drawls. “Can we try it awn?” And then, without warning, I’m talking to young people. We’re all squealing, full of childish zeal. We are rubbing up to the future, hearing the first gramophone playing scratchily in the distance. Doug knows a movie producer who recently got Glass and said, “This is as close as I’ll ever get to being a rock star.” When the velvet-rope hostess at the of-the-moment Wythe Hotel bar in Williamsburg stops to take a photo of me with her iPhone, I know exactly what the producer meant. This is the most I will ever be loved by strangers. If poor Lenny had had a pair, he need not have worried about his Fuckability
Shteyngart has more adventures with Glass. He watches another Explorer's wedding in Albany on his Glass, he streams video to his girlfriend Christine's computer. It's all fun.
But the conclusion is much darker. Shteyngart knows this is real, but thinking about it sends him into the realm of science fiction, particularly the science fiction he read as a self-styled geeky child. It's very dark. But I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more Glasses in the near future. TIME Magazine reports that the eyewear maker Luxottica, which owns brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley, will be designing and selling new versions of Glass.
“We believe it is high time to combine the unique expertise, deep knowledge and quality of our group with the cutting-edge technology expertise of Google and give birth to a new generation of revolutionary devices,” Luxottica Group CEO Andrea Guerra said in a statement.
Just lovely. I think I can resist this technology too.
And now for the stuff that makes this Top Comments:
TOP COMMENTS, April 9, 2014: Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From Crashing Vor:
They don't come any topper than this comment from RadGal70 in Laura Clawson's diary on GOP talk vs. inaction on equal pay.
From
Regina in a Sears Kit House:
No truer words...the revolving door has consequences. kravitz's contribution to the diary bobswern wrote about a going-away indictment of the management of the SEC puts the whole thing into a nutshell.
From
Steveningen:
The Termite's response to Todd Starnes in Hunter's diary Another Fox News pundit pines for fake TV version of America pure comedic gold.
From your diarist,
Dave in Northridge:
SCFrog kicks off a terrific thread about assassination, aided by dylanfan, Constant Comment and elmo, and Oye Sancho even invokes Henry II's call for the murder of Thomas a Becket, in Keeping it Real's [incidentally, that's John Amato from crooksandliars.com] diary about the madness of Pat Robertson.
ontheleftcoast nails the doublespeak of Brian Brown and NOM in leftprogressive's diary nailing Brian Brown's hypocrisy.
TOP MOJO, April 8, 2014 (excluding Tip Jars and first comments):
1) Not only are those characters all by Its the Supreme Court Stupid — 111
2) Doofus by Dave in Northridge — 105
3) insensitivity. it permeates arguments on here. by mallyroyal — 103
4) I saw none of this, but want to say: by Jon Sitzman — 99
5) I love that cover by gchaucer2 — 99
6) good for the TBT by puzzled — 100
7) I grew up in an era... by The Termite — 97
8) The Kochs have been staging a slo-mo coup d'etat by flitedocnm — 94
9) They already destroyed college teaching. by allie4fairness — 93
10) Its funny that we have to accept by indycam — 88
11) Mary Jo White is following the fashion by Dallasdoc — 85
12) SEC guard dog has turned lap dog for the Banksters by Lefty Coaster — 84
13) Bush to Establishment: It's me or some by skillet — 83
14) Interestingly those shows he pines for ... by niemann — 79
15) Nicely done, rexy. by DrLori — 73
16) I hear they're trying to fire some Congress also.. by Karl Rover — 69
17) A doofus of the highest order by Steveningen — 69
18) Yes, Reagan, I believe was by StepLeftStepForward — 69
19) You don't really think Mr. Starnes is a grownup, by The Marti — 64
20) Defining Homophobia by FogCityJohn — 63
21) Seems like a waste of medicine by ontheleftcoast — 63
22) Reagan was the worse thing by snoopydawg — 63
23) Elizabeth Warren is a national treasure... by markthshark — 62
24) Iran Hostage Crisis very similar to Viet Nam... by bobswern — 61
25) I saw it via by AnnetteK — 59
26) Inspector Generals... by bobswern — 59
27) Oh, he'll backtrack and still get the nod. by Bob Johnson — 59
28) TBT's has greatest circulation in Florida by VL Baker — 59
29) It's a sad day when an agency head has to be by davidincleveland — 56
30) Money has corrupted everything, including the SEC by Shockwave — 55
31) Speaking of toes..... by Ekaterin — 55
32) It's your lucky day! by Ekaterin — 55
33) Appreciate the humor by fcvaguy — 55
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TOP PHOTOS, April 8, 2014: Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!