My Approach

By scamper · Posted in play

To help stem the tide of vitriol between Management and us, the creative troublemakers, we were asked to submit a “design approach.” This would be the document that detailed the rhyme to our reason. Anyway, I’ve always liked the sound of it–the phrase itself seems so thoughtful, so courteous. Kind of like, “design suspicion,” or “design flirtation.” And certainly nothing so hard as a “design edict.”

So we came up with our take on the official design approach, and presented it to management, who then grabbed the sheaf from our palsied hands and scuttled off into their meeting room for study as they searched for weak spots in our armor. They’re so cute when they do that!

Meanwhile, I got to thinking about this design approach. Back to the actual phrase, I mean. The more I thought about it the more I became certain that it was all this approaching that caused the trouble to begin with. Namely, Management endlessly approaching Design with requests. So, on the side I decided to come up with a “negative reinforcement work request discouragement approach.”

I haven’t actually tested this for efficacy, but it seems like it may finally be our ticket to peace. The idea is for Design to be positioned with its back to the wall so that we can see them coming. As they enter our invisible activation sphere I will begin to emit an even tone that will rise in volume in direct relation to their distance from my desk. I’ll do this until they’re standing right in front of us, holding the paper out with one hand, while trying to cover both ears against the now deafening screech with the other. The way I figure it, they will soon learn.

“Now, you don’t want to get too close to him,” they’ll tell the new employee. Everyone will nod soberly, their pupils dilated in fear as past experiences replay in their heads. Someone else will lean in to the new recruit and whisper, “He will make a sound that will harm you.” The boss will clear her throat then–no point getting wrapped up in something that can’t be changed. She’ll say, “We keep his inbox downstairs in car park, far far away, where it is safe. Someone will show you how to find it.” And order will be restored.

The excitement is almost more than I can bear. I think maybe I try my new technique tomorrow.

Animation

By scamper · Posted in play, thought

In one old Twilight Zone episode, the protagonist, a soldier, realized to his horror that he could sense which of his comrades were doomed to die by the eerie halos that enveloped them. Call it an overdeveloped case of synesthesia, this would best describe how I see the world.

It hasn’t always been like this. For me it began when, as a child, I noticed certain subtleties in the rendering of cartoons. These were visual elements that were plain enough for anyone to see, given they were a slightly autistic child with a penchant for obsessive attention to detail. In any given scene it was possible to divine which objects were destined for interaction by looking for telltale black outlines. Elements that lacked these outlines belonged to the background, and would remain static throughout the scene. (This was before computers made it possible to animate everything cheaply.)

Around the time I hit my teens I started noticing a similar weight around household objects, with those of imminent animation marked more prominently in a kind of thin spectral penumbra. As I gained experience reading these signs, the effect actually seemed to diminish. But this was only because it became just another type of information, like color, temperature, or roughness, woven into my perception of the things in my world.

Naturally you’d assume that I would exploit these powers by getting into the shell game scene, popular in metropolitan centers. But my ability actually loses cohesion in dynamic environments. Beside which, I do not wish to profit from the less gifted gentry. It would make me feel less than virtuous.

No, what I do gain is a cool appreciation for static spaces. I am a voyeur of inertia, and that gives me a sense of subtle satisfaction. Plus I know what you’re going to pick up a few moments before you do.

Coincidence

By scamper · Posted in thought

Lately I’ve found myself tempted to take part in other peoples’ coincidences, and it’s all I can do to restrain myself. I’d just gotten home yesterday evening, and had left the front door open on account of the air being so cool. I’d received a package in the mail, and was using a steak knife to slice through the four hundred yards of super-reinforced tape they wrapped around it when I overheard a conversation outside. I went to the living room, knife still in hand, to get a better view. Two women strolled abreast down the sidewalk, one of them speaking with great enthusiasm about how events in her life had recently come to a head. “Then,” she said, “with him holding me at knifepoint, I’m like, I just can’t take this anymore…”

I looked down at the knife in my hand and felt guilty for no apparent reason. Or perhaps there was a reason. For just a second, I thought wouldn’t be fun to run out my door and leap from the bushes brandishing the knife over my head? Oh, the stories the woman could tell her friends then! A coincidence like no other, that’s what it would be. At least, that’s how it would seem to her.

But then I went back to the kitchen to finish unpackaging my new book on relationships.

Where I Am

By scamper · Posted in thought

What if I’m not really here?

That is, what if I’m somewhere, but not precisely where I think I am? The thought has plagued me for as long as I can remember: what if, as I’m going about my daily routine, everything around me is merely a convincing full-sensory hallucination?

I imagine it somewhat like this: I’m standing in my shower, shampoo bubbles trickling down into my eyes… except the whole thing is an illusion, and I’m really standing in the middle of my office, hands in my hair, eyes closed, going about the motions of washing my hair. Some of my coworkers notice, giggle, shake their heads. Weird graphics guy’s goofing off! Look! Except I don’t stop, even when a manager passes by and questions me about it–at first lightly, and then again, in a more brusque tone. He puts a hand on my shoulder, “Don’t you have some work you could be doing?” Perhaps, but for all intents and purposes I’m in my shower. I don’t budge, and a crowd gathers around me.

Or! Or what if I think I’m walking home, and I really am walking home. At least right up until I trip over the curb. At that point reality and perception diverge once more, and while I see myself continuing to walk up toward the car park, I’ve actually landed on my face, and am now rolling back and forth on the pavement, legs obliviously beating in a useless walking cycle, like a broken windup robot.

Poor me! What went wrong? And does it really matter? For the last tree has fallen, and the woods were never really there to begin with.

Whirr Click

By scamper · Posted in thought

I like to make click sounds with my tongue each time I lapse into one of my obsessive Undo, Redo sequences: Before. After. Before. After. Before. After. Before. After. Sessions typically last for upwards of 3 minutes, and the patience of coworkers erodes proportionately.

Sneezing Conventions

By scamper · Posted in thought

Even in meetings, where there is a supposed order of business, no one has ever taken anyone to task for a loud sneeze. It’s a pretty outrageous thing to go without admonishment, when you think about it: the convulsive exhale of air from the nose and mouth, usually with some sort of primal vocal accompaniment. If you were to bark as loudly during that same meeting everyone–even that one quiet guy who never looks at anyone directly–would turn to see what the hell you were doing. Not a sneeze though. Somehow that is acceptable.

Unless the sneeze is just completely ridiculous, that is. I knew a guy once who enunciated his sneezes. “Ah-choo!” he would say, almost conversationally. But the way he clung rigidly to the pronunciation quickly became annoying . “Ah? Choo.” Was he actually attempting a British accent? You half imagined his sneeze included a reference in the pronunciation legend footnote, complete with a schwa and an accent behind the last syllable. Mr. Proper Pants just can’t unleash, not even for a sneeze.

But then there are people who let go a little too much, and that’s hardly any better. One of my best friends has a sneeze that sounds like the exclamation of one of Vlad the Impaler’s victims. “YEEEHHHHAAAACH!” she says in your ear. Never once. At least twice–once for each eardrum. When she sneezes bits of plaster fall from the ceiling, and nearby banshees are like, “Fuck was that?”

Now, if this friend of mine were in a meeting and sneezed then I think people might finally be moved to halt the proceedings to issue corporal punishment, social allowances be damned. Except for me. The catatonia brought on by meetings would be just enough to cancel out one of her sneezes, so I’d be rendered alert and oblivious.

Getting the Nod

By scamper · Posted in work

Meetings, for me, have a devastating effect on alertness. Without fail, a meeting will slowly lull me into a state of helpless catatonia just as the points of the agenda are read off in that familiar monotone. This may be due in part to the fact that meetings are, on the whole, as stimulating as a potato, and not actually productive. For some people, I understand, meetings are the measure of work. For me however, meetings serve as little more than an opportunity for struggle. Namely: is it possible to hide the symptoms of narcolepsy from my superiors?

Fortunately I’m not the only one thus afflicted. I say this not because misery loves company, but because the plight of others is the only solution to my own struggle for wakefulness. Strange as it may seem, when I see someone across the table give in to the irresistible pull of chin to chest, I feel a renewed sense of alertness. Like a cannibal who receives the wit and wisdom of those whose brains he’s eaten, it’s as if I were receiving the unused energy, parasitically, from the hapless coworker on whom my gaze has fallen.

Sometimes it’s enough to keep me going for another few minutes–just long enough to find another host. They can doodle until their pens cut through the paper, but there is no resisting the siren song of sleep that sets in soon after the meeting commences. Not unless they catch me nodding first.

Whatever

By scamper · Posted in story

On the way to work, giant black Mercedes. Woman with nails, arm hanging from the window, limp wrist, cigarette wedged between two fingers. So blase about it all that it’s all she can do to muster up the energy to tap the ash from the tip. When the cigarette has burned to the root she flicks the butt to the pavement and rolls her window up. See, and things like that stick in my craw. Fortunately, as she tries to skip ahead into the fast lane–it’s the same type of person who does that, the person of unquestioning privilege–a working-man’s row of flatbed testoster-trux reFUSes to let her in, fairly pushing her back into her own lane. She doesn’t complain however. Because deep down she knows what she did wrong, and she hates herself for it, and tonight she’ll experience diarrhea.

We Own You

By scamper · Posted in story

These mega-churches, it strikes me that they’re like web advertising. No different. First they tried banner ads–single small churches. And while some people paid attention to them, there was a significant apathy and fatigue that developed toward them as they proliferated and diluted the day’s other experiences. So then they tried Flash ads–they’re hip! They’re interactive! It’s gospel rock n roll! Just like real rock, except we’re singing about jesus! And people thought that was kind of cool for a while too. But then the novelty wore off, and people realized that these big blocky ads weren’t going away anytime soon. In fact they were hard to ignore without certain cultural filters. Pesky bastards. Now, finally, we’ve entered the age of the mega-church. At this point the content has become the ad. You can participate in the same social activities you used to, except now it’s all “sponsored.” You might not even realize the soft-sell that you’re being subjected to, but it’s all about product placement, and the merchandise must be moved if the bottom line is to be met by Q3.

Playing

By scamper · Posted in play

All I see before me is mine to do with as I please. Of a human’s affections, I will toy with them as I would a grasshopper leg. I will pretend not to see the grasshopper leg, but then I will twist around and leap upon the grasshopper leg! I’ve got you, grasshopper leg! I am wily. The grasshopper leg is no match, and I look nonchalant and aloof with the grasshopper leg in my mouth. Later, humans cannot resist my pink tongue.