Author's Anxiety

The manuscript was finally sent off and 12 days later the boxes of books arrived. What a relief! Seeing the proof of your book online at the printer's website, after years of preparation, is not a comfort. They tell you, make sure it's right, because no matter how wrong it is, no matter how stupid it looks, we are not going to fix it. We are going to print it just the way it is and you are going to take responsibility for it and pay for it whether you like or not. OK?

Actually, they're not that bad. If you do get a margin wrong or you scale an image too big or too small, they will take a look at it and find it and let you know. That still doesn't make it any easier when it comes to pressing the modest little OK button that drops you off the edge of the earth into a burning black hole of a vortex lined with razor blades and molten lava.

Once you click on it your biological chemistry goes berserk. It's like you just drank a cup of high octane anxiety. That's when the sleepless nights of waiting begin. What if my page numbers are too close to the edge? What if my margins are too loose or too tight? What if 1.5 line leading is too much? What if my point size is too large or too small? Then you see the charges. How did it get there? Instead of each copy costing three or four dollars, it's more like $60 each.

Alright, I'm exaggerating, but when it climbs up above 10 or 12 or 14 you wonder if people will pay $20 or $30 because don't forget, you still have all those other expenses like shipping and travel and all the setup fees and extra materials you're going to drag around with you to help promote the book. They all have to get covered too somehow. Otherwise, it's costing you to write a book and sell it at a loss!

It's like the first time your daughter borrows the car on a Friday night and then she's late coming home. I don't actually have a daughter, but that's what it feels like. It dredges up apprehension, fright, terror, hysteria, dismay and distress. You stop thinking logically. You stop thinking. It just turns into raw emotion. Heaven help anyone who asks you for information or advice. You'll probably rip their heads off and scream, "What on Earth is wrong with you?! Can't you see I'm stressed?!"

It affects your work. It affects your every waking hour. You are constantly on edge. You are chained unheard and unadored, confined to an unhappy prospect most wide and various. Such prospects curse me and tell me I am doomed. This, I will never do again.

Then the books arrive. They're OK. They could be improved, but they don't suck. Maybe no one will notice they're not precisely what you had in mind. Maybe they'll think they're OK. Hey! They haven't even read them yet. Oh oh. What if they don't like the stories? We'll get to that.

See you at Fan Expo next week (Sept 3-6, 2015) @cxshakespeare

Robotic Precision

When it comes to robotics, it is ALL about precision. In my illustrated childrens book The Perfect Round, Kele is a "black ops synth" (synthetic biped robot) who possesses incredibly precise instrumentation and capabilities. This enables him to play the truly perfect round of golf - 18 strokes for 18 holes - as only a robot can.

Due to his extremely delicate sensors, it's absolutely forbidden for Kele to make contact with any organic surface, any living person or any unknown external electronic device. His advanced technology must never to be exposed, corrupted, contaminated or revealed to anyone outside the lab. In terms of monetary value, Kele is truly priceless. Worth billions of dollars in research and unique micro-ware, he possesses an unparalleled array of custom integrated, electronic chips, circuits and processors.  Kele's suit is a combination of carbon fibre, diamond particles and titanium thread to form a single, seamless surface for detecting micro-measurements in air pressure, air temperature, wind velocity, water vapour and molecular suspension density. Around his head is an array of microdish antennae to scan and record data in 360 degrees. Combined with his suit and goggles, he represents the most accurate measuring technology ever created by human science. The goggles are capable of displaying thousands of data representations while also performing a visual point of view to give Kele a sense of sight. 

There is almost no limit to his processing power. His potential, however, is still unproven, virtually untested and mostly theoretical. That's because Kele is a character in a story. For an awe-inspiring,  actual look inside at how robotics works, here is an absolutely amazing video featuring extreme rapid packaging, material handling (including hazardous), precise assembly, heavy load capacity and my favourite - precise robotic welding. You can also visit material-robotics.com if you are interested in talking to an engineer or investigating the world of robotic material handling.

It is so incredible to witness this vision of the future of manufacturing. Robots can do it ALL better and faster. Here is also a link to a story in Wired about the Tesla Robotic Factory. Watching the seats get placed inside the car is really impressive. The same robot can also turn around and switch tools and place the windshield into the car as well. Material-Robotics has a great catchphrase, "a lot changes when you take the 'man' out of manufacturing." They bring perfection to precision. 

. . . and that is precisely what Kele does on the golf course.

Organic Creativity

There are distinct and contrasting stages of development within the process of creating a story. Whether you have a lesson or an argument you want to illustrate, the initial plot should be summarized or described in a single sentence. You can call it an elevator pitch or a plotline, but it helps all the other details fall into place. It's kind of like the trunk of a tree. All the roots and branches and the bark and leaves are attached to one central core where the sap flows up and down and in and out.

Characters and events become ornaments you can add to your tree. You can attach them with a glue gun if they don't fit easily or weld them or bolt them to make sure they are permanent or you can just let them hang from a threat until they fall off. It's all up to you. Of course, sometimes it gets really difficult to prune your tree in order to keep it healthy. You have to be really ruthless and tough on your tree for it to survive. Otherwise, it might mutate into a distorted, unloved monster made up of parts that don't belong together and hunted by angry townsfolk carrying torches and pitchforks tracking it down and demanding it be destroyed.

As it's creator, you start off with a great idea you love, but as soon as it starts to get real, sometimes it goes off track or gets lost. Then that great feeling of accomplishment turns sour and you get depressed. The story cracks and splits and begins to look broken and can't be fixed. Suddenly, a rabbit jumps out of a hat and you chase it and it turns into a genie who grants your wishes and it all comes back together like magic. You start to think it's the best story you've ever come up with and you want to tell someone, but they're all watching football or listening to music. So you just keep re-writing until it reaches the point where it's going to be abandoned like your old living room furniture and ends up sitting on the back porch forlorn and forgotten. 

That's a great time to plant a new tree!

Dishwasher Syndrome

There are several distinct schools of thought involved in the proper operation of dishwashers. In fact, there ought to be a degree program for the whole automatic dishwashing syndrome (ADS) and half the course would be dedicated to negotiating with those who share or have access to your particular device. People tend to take their dishwashers very personally.

Individual members of western culture can be divided into two categories - those who don't mind emptying (but don't like loading) and those who don't mind loading (but don't like emptying). Hopefully, there is at least one of each in your household. Otherwise, you'll have a lopsided burden of unwanted responsibility contributing to inevitable resentment and frustration.

That doesn't even begin to compare to the enormous and unresolved controversy of cutlery up or down. Do you put handles down first? If so, you will have to grab forks, knives and spoons by the "business" end of the cutlery - the part that delivers food into your assimilation port. Or do you put handles up? If so, it makes them easy and more hygenic to grab, but some people argue the cleaning process is hindered by the cutlery tray itself as well as the logjam of utensils making contact together. There is absolutely nothing worse than spoons on top of spoons. Who can contradict what contentious domestic disputes have not been initiated with accusations about cutlery placement? 

Then there are the "sweet spots" and favoured locations for specific vessels, plates and assorted items. Would anyone disagree orientation is one of the most extreme priorities? Angles must be correct in order to avoid unforgivable lingering residual moisture. Then, of course, any points of contact must be circumvented in order to escape permanent damage. Not only does it chip and crack your favourite dishes, broken pieces of crockery or tableware can contribute to a bottleneck in the kitchen drain.

Normally, I would include a survey form here for readers to reply or post comments, but the matter is not open to discussion.

Alien Anniversary

It is truly remarkable how much the industry of cinema has changed not only since the 1890s but even as recently as the past 10 to 15 years. Today, every movie has CGI in it somewhere and they even have to have credits for programming now. Not only that, but every aspect of the business side is radically different from what it used to be. For example, the international box office often exceeds the domestic these days. The latest Tom Cruise film (Edge of Tomorrow) picked up $82 million outside of the USA including $25 million in China and $16 million in South Korea. It only grossed $28 million at home, but worldwide it is sitting at almost $140 million for its opening weekend. The worldwide gross for Godzilla, so far, is double the domestic and Captain America: The Winter Soldier has almost tripled the domestic. Frozen did triple the domestic as well ($400 vs $1200 million).

What is also remarkable is that up until the 1990s, the studios did not allow us to actually purchase copies of their films. We could only rent them. Until then, there was no way they would let us possess personal copies of their product. They wanted us to pay just to look at their stuff. It was like going to the museum. You could look, but you were not allowed to purchase a copy of the Rosetta Stone or a dinosaur skeleton or a Sumerian vase. None of it was for sale . . . and neither was Terminator 2. You could rent it, but you couldn't own it.

The attitude did eventually change, but at first we could only get VHS video versions and we all know now how crappy that was. It was like selling us cheap imitation plastic replicas Ming Dynasty china or vinyl Chanel fashion accessories. It was OK at first, but it wasn't great. By the time we got to DVDs, however, the studios we're really in being torn apart. There was so much money available for digital product, but it meant throwing away all the bars and walls of their secure vaults. If they let us buy a disc, it was almost like owning the original. In fact, the idea of "original" kind of goes away once it gets remastered into digital form. It wasn't until June 1999 that Twentieth Century Fox finally opened it's doors and let us buy Alien on DVD. That was 15 years ago this month. Happy Anniversary!

It's so funny, because it seems like we've been able to own our favourite films forever. That's simply not true. Maybe it's because we used to watch old films on late night TV and then cable, but now we have Netflix and TiVo and Blu-ray discs. Although, when you think about it, the idea of "film" itself is actually going away. Film projectors may soon be extinct too. We still have the theatres, but they are all going digital and those enormous, grand old film cameras are being replaced by ultra high definition digital devices. The 3-film camera they used to shoot The Wizard of Oz was the size of a refrigerator and weighed as much. No one will miss that monster.

If you made a relative temporal transition timeline comparison of cinema to the evolution of species on the Galápagos Islands and Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), what took amphibians and reptiles millions of years to adapt through natural selection, the current state of cinema went from silent black and white Charlie Chaplin shorts to computer genereated Disney animated 3D full length features . . .  in the blink of an eye. 

Free Will and Food Courts

You have to love how discerning the public is when it comes to advertising.  Agencies spend millions on campaigns and air time to get the perfect message on TV, on the radio and in print. The audience takes half a second to decide if they will pay attention or not. You have to love the power of the low common denominator, because there is nothing low about it at all. The common denominator is a monster!

Look at everyone's favourite painting - Edvard Munch's The Scream. For some reason this is the work of art the most number of people find infatuating. You can buy the art represented on drapes, lamps, towels, lighters, stained glass windows, hand puppets, mugs, T-shirts, keychains, and even glue-on fingernails. Then there are the imitations featuring famous cartoon characters, game characters or famous people. Have you ever noticed the poster for Home Alone shows Macaulay Culkin doing the exact same pose as Munch's painting?

The list is infinite, but what it says is truly remarkable. The infatuation illustrates an incredible unanimous consensus among much of humanity. No one was told to like the painting. No one was taught how to interpret it or what it means or how they should react to it. Everyone seems to understand exactly what it is and identifies with it without being prompted.

So that means the public does indeed have a voice. They decide when a piece of music will be popular or a film (like Avatar or The Avengers) or when an electronic device like the iPhone or the iPad will dominate the market. Everyone selects clothing and cars and types of food and turns those choices into iconic emblems of mutual agreement. Am I wrong, or isn't that what elections are for? Advertising, marketing and publicity can present the choices, but the popular vote cannot be compromised. That's what I love about free will and food courts.

Adding Value to Your Home

A long, long time ago we all started with no possessions. As a powerless child in the realm of the Middle Class, each of us possessed no means of income and no political power over anyone. The austerity of lifestyle in those early days approached desolation. Obtaining food, clothing and shelter was simply a matter of patience. It all arrived without permission, consent or authorization. That is why today, it is a matter of perceived amusement when someone asks, "Who dressed you?" because this is a reference to those early days when influence was absent.

As we age and acquire possessions, we add value to our home and improve our lifestyle. Such items include rare and valuable collectibles such as Dinky Toys, comic books (Silver Surfer), antique radios (Sparton Nocturne), artwork by nieces, nephews and grandchildren and component stereos. In the kitchen we acquire vessels to hold favourite liquids and fluids in addition to equipment for processing edible materials. The sum of all these valuable assets and properties can be perceived as truly priceless, because they represent a compilation unique to each individual.

The fact that visitors or outsiders have no appreciation for your valuables only reinforces the exclusive nature of your possessions. They may have their own ridiculous collections of absurd objects including furniture, cars, swimming pools, high ceilings, golf clubs and jewellery, but they have obviously missed the point. 

How can you put a price on a favourite book? Why would you want to convince anyone that your favourite movie is better than someone else's? What is the point of arguing about a favourite beverage. Establishing a preference takes time and effort. It is no simple matter to arrive at a choice and then maintain it through loyalty, fidelity, conscientousness and faith. Such high principles are acquired through experience and maturity. Early explorers of the world understood this concept. When one of them found a "new world" it was like finding the most delicious new dish in a restaurant. I had this extraordinary experience recently and will never forget it (the restaruant - not the new world). 

Preferences & Principles

As I visit people and places, I’m asked sometimes where I got my boots. I’ve had dental surgeons and physicists tell me they used to wear them, but I can't imagine a reason why they would have stopped. Once you wear cowboy boots regularly, it's really hard to go back to "normal" shoes. I've always loved horses and riding (western style). That's how pointed toe boots came about in the first place - on account of the stirrups. Meanwhile, good boots can get really expensive - costing as much as a car - but any good pair that fit properly will spoil your feet. In the past, I also got into the fancy dress stuff with yoked shirts, domed pearl snaps, carved leather belts and big shiny buckles, but I'm more conservative today. I don't want to look like Roy Rogers although I still really admire him. He and Dale were truly wonderful people. He came to town many years ago to open one of his restaurants. It was on the north side of Dundas just west of Dixie. He was called “King of the Cowboys” and he was the best rider in the movies on his golden palomino "Trigger." I got to shake Roy's hand and he gave me an autographed picture. I'll never forget it. There aren't very many saddle shops around anymore, but by ooincidence, there is a particularly good one right here in Cooksville, Ontario: Trdak’s Western Wilderness & Workwear Outfitters. You can find great shirts and boots there. They’re on the north side of Dundas - just down a spell, west of Hurontario (right next to the bus stop at 5 & 10). All kinds of people from miles around go to Trdak’s, because it’s the only place that stocks the specialized apparel. It’s like stepping through a time portal when you walk through that front door. I also really like visiting Joe (the owner). He has the best stories! I never owned any Charlie Pride records or Patsy Cline, although I did like The Flying Burrito Brothers. Those guys (including Chirs Hillman and Gram Parsons) were a mixed up bunch of talented guys trying to play a rebellious kind of country, but they sure didn’t live up to Roy Rogers’ extraordinary wholesomeness. My interest was about the down home honesty, integrity and traditional, hard-working characters associated with the western lifestyle. There are hints of it in films like The Electric Horseman (with Robert Redford) and even No Country For Old Men (with Josh Brolin). The celebration of ethics and virtue are incorporated in those films even if there are negaive aspects within the context. Well, Roy Rogers himself always said you need the valleys of sadness to appreciate the sunshine on the mountain top. While at University, I may have looked a little out of place like Llewelyn Moss at a boat show, but what are you supposed to look like when you are studying Restoration Poetry or 18th Century novels? I certainly didn't want to dress like Dr. Samuel Johnson. That would have been crazy. My favourite music ranges from Stravinsky to Miles Davis. My favourite artists range from Jan Van Eyck to William Holman Hunt (and a bunch of modern digital illustrators). My favourite authors include William Gaddis and Malcolm Lowry. My favourite footwear is cowboy boots. That's all.  Do your preferences indicate what sort of person you are? Perhaps. Do they influence your actions and their consequences - not so much. Such philosophy is more about what you stand for - not what you stand on.

Comparative Accelerated Chronology

In our immediate present we have an extraordinary sense of history, particularly in this age of accelerated temporal chronology. The term “ancient” used to refer to really old stuff like prehistoric civilizations such as Mesopotamia or Sumeria where they bartered in order to procure commodities, but in these days of encrypted e-commerce, the classical period might now be considered the previous few decades of the last century.

The great watershed of computing saw the introduction of DOS in the early 1980s. Originally authored by Seattle Computer Products, it was called QDOS which stood for quick and dirty operating system. The chief architect and author was a young guy named Tim Paterson. We could call this period the Neo-Aechulean (as in "stone") age of personal computing. Computers were soldered together by nerdy high school students, programmed by college geeks who didn't attend class and bought by independently wealthy enthusiasts who could afford to pay for hardware that cost more than a car.

Back then, the "Two Steves" started Apple Computers in a garage, Atari released Asteroids, and in 1982, Disney released TRON. That film is the one John Lasseter says got him interested in computer animation. John, of course, went on to run Pixar and is now at the helm of Disney.

That year was also the time Adobe Systems was founded by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. They introduced PostScript, which basically put a printer in every home. Adobe, of course, went on to acquire and distribute popular application programs such as Photoshop. The application program that has become a verb in everyday language was created by Thomas Knoll, while he was at college along with his brother John, who worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic). Years later, John was nominated for Academy Awards for his special effects work on movies such as Star Wars and Star Trek. He won an Oscar for his work on Pirates of the Caribbean.

This brings us to the “temporal” equivalent of the Neo-Industrial Revolution by which we compress approximately 4,000 years into 20. That’s what I mean when I say “accelerated” chronology. In this, our fourth decade of the  electronic interface, the ‘80s have become truly ancient. Contemporary generations have no idea what a rotary phone is or vector display. They have never heard of Silicon Graphics or Netscape or Mag Tape Data Storage. A lot of people don’t buy CD-ROM games anymore either. They are just a quaint storage system that has dropped out of mainstream usage.

During the CD revolution, I was at the roll-out of Spaceship Warlock in San Francisco in 1991. Two years later, MYST came out. Both games were originally authored for Apple computers only and were “ported” to the Windows platform. This produced radical compatibility problems, because the PC environment was far more open to developers and authors, which is also the reason why it is far more open to hackers, crackers and thieves who send out viruses, steal credit card information and identities. The recent "Heartbleed" security flaw for service providers is just another example.

This brings us to our contemporary age where cash is no longer preferred in commerce. Virtually untraceable, cash contributes to the underground economy. It is considered “underground,” because it is possible for transactions to go institutionally unreported. 

If you try to buy a product at a high tech outlet, do not attempt to use cash. You will be relegated to the ignominious fringe of shame and humiliation. Perhaps the concept of cash should go away so we can return to bartering for commodities instead of using electronic equivalents of accumulated wealth. I would gladly pay you a 12 inch sub for a unique internet domain. 

Attainable Perfection

I suppose it all began at my grandmother's house when I was a small boy and asked for a pencil and a piece of paper. I guess it just wasn't that high a priority at that particular location. Relatives started going through drawers in the kitchen and branched out into the living room and down to the bedrooms. They eventually came up with a blunt stub of a pencil that required some sharpening and a crumpled piece of paper torn out of a notebook. It served my requirements, but it was the shock that my request was not as fundamental as a spoon or a slice of bread or a torque wrench. Those were easy. The paper and pencil was almost an epic challenge.

I still love pencils and graphite and erasers and quality paper. I still sketch and draw all the time, but the idea of writing and drawing over the years has expanded to include rare and exotic pens. No, I'm not a collector of Montblanc pens, although I wouldn't turn one down. I wouldn't turn down a Cartier either, but expensive or valuable is not the point. It is more about how it performs and feels than how it looks. Of course, appearance is important, but so is weight and colour and texture. There's nothing like a sleek, slim silver shaft of a pen made of cool, smooth metal with a slick "roller ball" contact point so the ink can flow like a river through a generating station. That is all about power and control.

Then there's the quill (tiny metal nib) and the technical pens with pigment ink and let's not forget sable brushes dipped into Speedball Super Black India Ink or Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star waterproof India Ink. There's nothing more beautiful than brushing that black magic onto artboard or good paper and combining it with perfect lines with great design. There's also the added thrill of anxiety and pressure from knowing how truly permanent that ink is and what it can do to an article of clothing or wall to wall carpet. Spills just add to the excitement.

Every pen has it's own unique purpose, and I'm not including the prosaic and mundane. I don't retain common stick pens or fine points that skip or globby devices that leak or ones that gush unexpectedly. I've learned how to avoid those. This is a serious passion requiring years of experience and expertise. It's kind of like being a connoisseur, but it really develops out of necessity. The pleasure of perfect control is just another part of writing along with perfect word selection and turn of phrase. It's all part of the creative process. Can you imagine a carpenter building a house with only a pen knife? Can you imagine an auto mechanic tuning a car with just a hammer? Can you imagine a plumber trying to work with just cellulose-based adhesive tape? Of course not. The pen has become an object of extreme desire, but not for mere value, but because perfection has finally become attainable. We're talking about the pen here. The trouble is, I seem to have an unquenchable thirst for the attainable. 

Reading States Defined

Readers know there's different kinds of reading. There's a hierarchy of cognitive function established by location, time and task priority (LTT). It's kind of a formula that underlies all of our activity and it results in emotional states such as guilt, happiness and procrastination.  If you have the luxury of complete freedom and you are either sitting by a pool on a warm, sunny day or on vacation on a beach near the Equator, you can relax and read each page slowly and deliberately. It doesn't even have to be a good book or good prose. It doesn't matter. The pleasure of the location plus the availability of time and the absence of task priority make this the preferred state known as "Alpha" reading.  Sometimes, when the book is really, really good and you lose the sense of LTT (location, time and task), you might consider wearing a portable alarm device so you know when to get off the bus or the train. Otherwise, you might end up arriving at an unintentional destination. This also occurs on a regular basis on the last trains of the day leaving Grand Central Station after the bars have closed. I'm not saying passengers are reading. I'm just saying they are not paying attention to LTT. The "Beta" state of reading is also a pleasure state. This often takes place when reading while anticipating the transitional mode preceding dream state. It may occur in bed, but what defines it is the variable of task priority has been taken out of the equation (Location and Time are still significant and essential). The "Beta" state does not take place in medical waiting rooms. This is a much lower state known as "Epsilon" reading - otherwise known as "killing time." "Gamma" reading is the highly focused state when information is being recorded into mnemonic memory registers. It is information you require or really, really want to remember. It is useful for storing critical data regarding your job or for when you are contributing to conversation in restaruants or institutions of refreshment. If you don't get your facts right, you will be contradicted. Even so, you may be required to either furnish physical proof or become more concvincing in your delivery than the person who is challenging you. This should not be confused with "Delta" reading which is known as studying. In this state, the equation has a very heavy value in the Task variable while the location and time elements only add pressure and anxiety. There is also "Kappa" reading, which is known as "speed reading," but that is only useful for getting through periodicals or books you have no intention of actually absorbing or retaining for whatever reasons. Some of the other kinds of reading have names such as Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota and Lambda, but the LTT equation tends to grow more and more irrelevant in those progressive states. Some of them have to do with if you have your glasses with you or if you are trying to read while you are driving or if you are trying to multi-task (such as walking or eating). One of those succeeding states known as "Theta" refers to reading "sequential art" (otherwise known as graphic novels and comic books), although one can argue, depending on the location and time and task priority equation, you might be able to enter the "Alpha" state from there - depending on your VPI (Visual Propensity Index).

Vintage TV Excellence

After a brief conversation about how the old Saturday morning cartoons concept is just a fond memory, we switched over to a sub-topic: Quality. While there really was a vast reservoir of SatCrap back in the '60s and '70s, there were some early diamonds hidden down inside. The great masters of high speed fluid timing, Hanna-Barbera, turned their genius to producing perfectly economic, but unwatchable tales of bongo-drum-spinning-feet and minimal animation. It's so ironic, because back in the 1950s their Academy Award-winning Tom and Gerry cartoons are superb. Their Friday night TV series, The Flintstones, was full of brilliant gags and excellent character development. For me, however, the TV series that pulled it all together and delivered the most was Jonny Quest. It was made at Hanna-Barbera Productions for Screen Gems and they only made one 26-episode season (September 1964 to March 1965). 

Joseph and William did not actually come up with the concept and never really gave the proper credit to Doug Wildey. They said the show was "based on an idea created by" him. He brought the comic book excellence of influences like Milton Caniff and Alex Toth (he actually worked for both of them) and included futuristic technology like lasers and jet packs and hydrofoils. The stories were full of science fiction action and adventure. Even though they had to cut corners and use what they called "limited animation," it looked fantastic!

Wildey had worked previously on an even more limited show a couple of years before called "Space Angel." Believe it or not, I actually lucked out and found a couple of episodes on a DVD in a Dollar Store once and spent several weekends looking for more. I would have paid $20 or $30 anywhere else. Space Angel was actually made by a little studio called Cambria Productions and they came up with the whacky concept of "Synchro-Vox lip technique." In using it, the whole drawing didn't move except for a blurry little video spot on the character's face where the actor's mouth could be seen speaking the lines. Yeah, it's definitely on the weird side, but the rest of the Space Angel art is great. That's the job where Wildey worked for Toth and you can definitely see the progression from there to Jonny Quest.

Unfortunately, those original Quest episodes always went over budget, which probably contributed to its single season cancellation, although the show ended up making a fortune in syndicated reruns. One other superb aspect of this classy little gem has to be the musical direction of Hoyt Curtin. He and his 20 piece band recorded a jazz theme that is still absolutely marvelous to hear (there's also a remake by Reverend Horton Heat worth listening to). While I would never buy a collection of Mr. Curtin's TV themes for shows such as The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, and on and on and on, I have enormous respect for the sheer volume and originality of a wonderful composer like him. He also said he had a crazy group of ace musicians who could read really fast and nail all their sound queues in one-take. Wow! They don't make 'em like than anymore.

Dimensional Transitions

The presence of music as an ambient texture is truly a magical inspiration. By underlying scenes in a film, the musical fabric sometimes may go unnoticed to the conscious mind, but it's influence is inescapable. I try to accomplish a similar phenomenon through the control of digital media manipulation. Sometimes, while trying to concentrate on a particiularly difficult bit of creative construction or complicated programming, I'll put on a track and let it repeat for hours on end, over and over, however, such appropriate music selections are rare and hard to find.

For example, they could be as short as the two and a half minutes of Robyn Miller's "Wahrk Room" from Riven (1997 CD-ROM game) or as long as the 30 minute, three movement Clarinet Concerto in A (Mozart's K 622). Some people might call it "zoning out," but I think, instead, I would call it zoning in. It's almost like a form of meditation.

I think film composers really get it too. There are also these brief moments in favourite movies that I wish I could make last for hours. I don't think I'm alone when I praise James Cameron and James Horner for the glow in the dark scenes in Avatar. There are magical ambient scenes in Alien and Prometheus thanks to Ridley Scott, Gerry Goldsmith and Marc Streitenfeld. I should mention Paul Leonard Morgan for Dredd and Mychael Danna for Life of Pi, but there is also one special moment in Ghostbusters where Dan, Bill and Harold are walking around upstairs in the Sedgewick Hotel looking for the little Slimer (Spud) with music by Elmer Bernstein. I could watch and listen to that scene all night. It captures a moment like no other in the entire film.

Instead of being diverted by the constant flow of commotion and activity in action films and video games, sometimes I would just like to slow it all down and try to make time stop, if only for an illusionistic loop. I think it works. It really does. I have succeeded in making it happen. The only trouble is, at the end of the day, it is hard to climb back out of it. It's kind of like jumping between dimensions - not that I have any practical experience with that.

Illustration Relevance

A student remarked she could tell my book was drawn with Adobe Illustrator.  Apart from recognizing one of the programs I have used for almost 25 years, she seemed to be making a generalization about the quality of artwork. At first, I wasn't sure if I should feel offended or appreciated. Yes, it had been an extremely difficult decision to make when it came to the final look of the book. It may have been the most difficult one of all in the process. I started with pencils and technical pens. I have nibs and quills and brushes and bottles of ink and I've used them all over the years for many different jobs and assignments. When it came to The Perfect Round, however, I decided it absolutely must have an electronic, digital look.

The main protagonist is an extraordinarily capable and highly technical robotic "synth." So the style could not be a primitive or naïve one like Sir Quentin Blake or Henri Rousseau for that matter. It also would never do to look like it was drawn by Edward Sorel, Edward Gorey or Ralph Steadman (although that could have been interesting!). Any formal sort of oil or watercolour painting would be as inappropriate for my tall tale as using a CAD program like Studio Max for Les très riches heures du Duc de Barry (currently in the Chantilly museum).

I was not re-creating a 15th Century Flemish annunciation painting, although the effect of technology on modern living has certainly had a profound, if not almost divine enhancement, due to the fact that computers turn humans into superbeings. On the other hand, the exquisite little illustrated books by John S. Goodall do capture the simple kind of story I was trying to tell. My story would be completely wrong in the hands of Jack Kirby, Wally Wood or Steve Ditko. Instead, I would have loved to emulate the work of the incredinly talented Edwin Huang, Joëlle Jones or Amy Reeder (her Rocket Girl is amazing). That would have been phenomenal! Oh rapture!

In the end, I accepted the decision and along with both left and right hemispheres connected via the corpus collosum, I began designing my own aircraft, electromagnetic reactor and a robot wearing a suit combining carbon fibre, diamond particles and titanium thread to form a seamless grid of sensors. Along with his cranium array of microdish antennae and his Ultra-Perception goggles, Kele is the ultimate synthetic being. I hope the result shows why it took years of sketching, drawing, designing, coloring, and a dozen computer application programs to create my little book (along with writing the story in the first place). Along with all the artists I've mentioned, however, their tools and techniques still remain irrelevant so long as they are, indeed, appropriate for the world they are attempting to create. To paraphrase the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz, "Remember, it is not how much you judge, but how much you are judged by others."

Electronic Games

Ever since PONG, I considered myself a gamer at heart. From being an early fan of Nolan Bushnell's Atari (who produced PONG) and the actual game designer Allan Alcom, to the arcades of the '80s, my life was forever altered to subscribe to the digital vector of electronic entertainment. It used to take real committment to search out games you wanted to play. They were few and far between back then. Some arcades required membership. Others were very crowded and you had to wait your turn. Then when you finally dropped in your quarter you could relax and play for a while if you were good. Not everyone will remember there was a war going on back then between "vector display" and "raster display" (one of the main differences between games like Asteroids and Defender and bitmap sprite games like Galaxian and Donkey Kong).

Back then, the business and marketing people said there was no future in home game systems. Maybe those are the guys who brought our world economy to its knees. What a bunch of knuckleheads. They obviously had no clue. Mind you, the early systems like Commodore, Intellivision as well as early Nintendo and Sega were not good indicators of what was coming. Today, games have surpassed music and movie sales for home entertainment. They are the number one home entertainment medium.

In the late '80s and early '909s the computer totally shifted electronic entertainment away from arcades and consoles with great CD-ROM titles like Journeyman Project, Seventh Guest and MYST, but once we got into the mid '90s, the consoles came back with a vengeance. It has remained there ever since. This year's PS4 and Xbox One are actually considered 8th Generation consoles. One of the great TV shows to keep you informed of what is going on is called Reviews on the Run on G4. I still watch them faithfully even though I don't keep up and buy all the latest games anymore.

Perhaps that also has to do with the kind of games I like to play. I'm not into the violent war and crime stuff. I've always been more of a fan of quiet, thinking puzzle games. That's what the Jewels games were. The latest out this year is Quell Memento from Fallen Tree Games. with over 150 brilliant puzzles, you can take your time and re-play or retry as often as you like until you get it perfect. The game is easy to find and is available for mobile devices as an app and even on the Sony VITA.

Character Augmentation

TV shows and movie series (like Star Trek) add characters and locations as stories and plots evolve. In some rare cases they also take characters away (they killed Brian on Family Guy). I was so sorry to hear it, because Brian was my favourite character on the show. Whatever the reason(s), I have to presume they were good ones, but the whole notion of augmentation is a really complicated and dangerous one. That's because there are so many pitfalls and ways to diminish a show's audience.

Not only can you get into dangerous territory by bringing in unanticipated celebrity actors to play supporting roles, you can also derail historical consistency. I still can't forgive Paramount for inventing the concept of a queen for the Borg (Star Trek: First Contact, 1996). How can a cybernetic collective of drones have a leader? They had been brilliant for years without one. It makes no sense to me, but I can see why they did it. They fell into the romantic trap of companionship to which all anthropomorphised, non-sentient characters are vulnerable. Look at Wall-E and EVE. What chances do those two little robots have for a longlasting relationship? Animated characters like Fred and Wilma Flintstone would have a better chance. Superhero comic book characters like Benjamin Grimm (AKA The Thing - Fantastic Four) need a love interest too. Although he was a victim of cosmic ray bombardment and turned into a grotesque superstrong lumpy, rocky freak, he still remains faithful to his  blind girlfriend (Alicia Masters) - girlfriend? How romantic can that be?

On a more traditional dramatic stage, Captain Kirk has a relationship with a molecular biologist (Dr. Carol Marcus) with whom he has a son, as revealed in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982). We get to meet with her again with an all new cast in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). At least Carol is human and not an alien like Mr. Spock (although he IS half human). Would Superman and Lois Lane have generated a brilliant hybrid offspring with a compromised mental faculty? What if a Metron got romantically involved with a Gorn? I dread to think what sort of childhood that poor kid would have. The marriage would probably break up and their offspring would get adopted by two gay male wookies and turn out to be an intergalactic tribble dealer with a taste for Romulan Ale and green Orion dancing slave girls.

Come to think of it, in terms of Vulcans, would they have been OK with Spock's father marrying an Earth woman? Which one is the alien? Ambassador Sarek or Amanda Grayson? How could their relationship possibly be condoned on planet Vulcan? What about the seven year blood fever of Pon Farr (as depicted in the original series episode Amok Time). How do we rationalize that concept for Sarek and Amanda or was he having more Pon Farr than the other Vulcans? Can you imagine if he cheated on Spock's mother and hooked up with one of those girls from Orion? Then Mr. Spock would have a green half sister with pointed ears. If I was an executive at Paramount I would give her a spinoff series of her own.

Starship Lunches

Lunch is no longer just a necessary meal. Sure, we all have nutritional requirements, but lunch isn't really about food. Not at all. It is far more significant than corporeal endurance. It's the only regularly scheduled meeting to which most of us truly look forward with delight. From the early days at school when you needed a security guard to protect your french fries (you may still), to college or university when you could take a break from studying, lunch was often an opportunity to relax and spend a little quality time with friends. You could discuss important topics or news or complain about situations or annoying people or you could just get silly and make people squirt milk out of their noses.

These days, just about everyone from the mailroom to the boardroom gets together with a friend or two for a bowl of soup or a gourmet sandwich or a burger or a salad at noon. There are, however, those who "brown bag it" and eat a meal at their desk and maybe catch a few games of solitaire. It might be a simple sandwich or a stinky frozen entree, but they eat it alone and miss the social aspect of the occasion. Others run out to fast food, takeout shops and grab a bite and eat it in their car (hopefully not when they are driving). Some people arrange to meet friends from other companies so they can meet up at a restaurant - but they may not be able to do that every day. There are those who watch the clock, because they only get 30 minutes and then there are those who get an hour. Some are punctual - some not so much.

Regardless of typological category, it is interesting how we are establishing a predisposition for people with similar tastes to gather in groups or cliques. For example, they may all be techy, talky, bubbly, chatty or friendly or they might be creative or brilliant or maybe just mad and introverted, but members of lunch groups tend to be individuals who share common values or opinions. Maybe they dislike monkeys or canaries or like Sci Fi movies and cartoons, but that gives them a springboard to launch into mutual tolerances or metaphysical evaluations. My core group all drive standard transmission automobiles, but we don't all enjoy the same food. The best place for us to go is the food court at the mall, because each person can get an individual serving of their favourite dish. It's almost like having one of those food synthesizers onboard Constitution-Class Starships (Star Trek), except the molecules are not replicated and the proteins are not resequenced.

Once all the diverse nourishing substances and fluids are procured, the discourse can begin, that is, unless we run out of time. The lineups at the food court can be so long we may have spent all our time just trying to get our orders in. Then we're eating in our cars or taking it back to eat at our desks. Maybe we should have made a simple sandwich or brought a stinky frozen entree. I guess we'll just have to be patient and wait for Starships for a proper lunch.

Commodity of Power

One of the most significant turning points in the democratization of knowledge has to be the Initial Public Offering of Netscape. The date of August 9, 1995 established the "Netscape Moment" where an unprofitable company jumped to a market value of almost $3 billion in a single day. As the first proprietary web browser, Netscape Navigator didn't just drop out of the sky. Former computer scientist, Jim Clark, founder of several behemoth Silicon Valley technology companies (including Silicon Graphics Computers) recruited a development team for online programming and production. If they hadn't created a browser, they were going to start an online gaming environment. It probably would have been great too (for a while).

Filing for bankruptcy protection several years ago, SGI is now all but forgotten today and so is Netscape, but the technological advancement of those days had the effect of an atomic bomb going off in terms of world communication and information. I don't think we can say the same for Facebook or Twitter or any social networking platform that might go public in the near future.

For those of us who lived through the "dot gone" bubble, even that inflated bogus balloon at least still contained some breath. There was always value there and it's had a dozen years to recover a lot of it. In the world of advertising, however, we keep seeing businesses large and small dropping traditional formulae for print and media buying in favour of free social networking marketing and awareness. Isn't that kind of like being nominated for The Darwin Awards (almost)?

Knowledge and information is a commodity of power. With the tools and weapons currently available, such power can now be controlled by anyone, regardless of cognitive capacity or level of potential. Imagine Galactus with a sparkler versus a nuclear capable Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz). How do you measure the outcome? Personally, I'm on the side of Galactus. I don't care what he's using. Dorothy is a sweetheart, but I wouldn't put her in charge of my company's future.

Adenosine Receptors and Xanthine Alkaloids

The average morning anxiety is often precipitated by an habitual visit to the coffee shop where the lineup is anywhere from 10 to 12 deep unless you’re running late. Then the lineup is out the door. If those conditions occur, you are forced to implement a formula for calculating the level of necessity divided by the validity of an alternative source multiplied by additional time:

N = l over v times T
The result is invariably the same: N = L (late).

If only customers ahead of you were just procuring a plain old cup of joe, paying for it with some loose change and jumping back in the car to get to work by nine, but oh no. Instead, each one of those very kind, generous and thoughtful people is performing the huge favour of getting a box of custom-selected donuts for co-workers plus an array of coffees with infinite variables including cream, milk, sugar or sweetener in mulltiple combinations and degrees and checking it twice, plus a steeped tea and an iced cap for the new kid in the mail room and a frozen hot chocolate for the receptionist. Payment is made with plastic identification requiring transatlantic handshaking with an anonymous, numbered bank account in Switzerland.

The alternative, of course, is to join the office coffee club. One of the advantages is you get to sleep in for an extra hour every day. One of the disadvantages is the tendency for the club to run out of supplies. The coffee shop almost never runs out of anything and no one ever leaves the empty pot on the heating element all night. The coffee shop also has an unlimited supply of clean cups.

If it's such a hassle, why drink coffee at all? One reason is coffee contains caffeine, which is a legal psychoactive stimulant affecting the central nervous system. Other psychoactive substances include cocaine, mescaline, psilocybin, meth, cannabis, hash and LSD. These are usually not available at your local coffee shop. For the most part, they are “regulated” and considered illegal here in North America (except for coffee).

Caffeine is a xanthine alkaloid and is an inhibitor of adenosine receptors in the brain which suppress neural activity and blood flow. In other words, without coffee your brain slows down. Not only that, once your central nervous system gets used to the presence of this psychoactive stimulant, your system increases the number of adenosine receptors to counteract the drug. This reduces the effect of caffeine so you become more tolerant, but also, if you don’t get coffee, you will experience withdrawal symptoms including irritability and headaches. So you can see why many off-the-shelf pain relievers incorporate caffeine.

Coincidentally, all coffee is grown within 1,000 miles of the equator, but the biggest consumers live in northern countries such as Finland, Denmark and The Netherlands who consume almost three times the amount of Canada and the USA (per capita). Latest market statistics indicate a healthy business worldwide, notwithstanding individual companies with billions of dollars in sales annually.

If you don’t want to interrupt your drive to work and you don’t want to join the office coffee club, but you still have to have your java, you could always do what past generations have done in the past...get a thermos.

The Business of Possession

It wasn't that long ago that no one actually owned their own copy of a movie. Back in the 1980s, I managed to get the name of someone who worked at a film distributor in the hopes of obtaining a personal copy of a 16mm version of an Alain Resnais film (Providence from 1977). At the time, there was no other way to own it.

Although VHS video came out in the 1970s (and many people still own a player today), they stopped releasing pre-recorded tapes years ago. In the early days VHS was considered a luxury. Mind you, the Ampex VRX-1000 from a few decades earlier cost $50,000 and could only record 16 minutes at a time (per tape). You needed a forklift if you wanted to take that hardware to a party.

When affordable home video technology finally arrived, movie studios went to Congress to fight it, because they considered recording a violation of copyright. Jack Valenti (head of the Motion Picture Association of America at that time) compared the video recorder to the "Boston Strangler" for the “savagery and ravages of this machine” on the film industry.

When superior, digital versions of movies (DVDs) appeared in the ‘90s, studios still resisted releasing content from their vaults for fear of piracy. While stealing has always been a crime (even prior to the invention of money), it is just part of the human landscape - like dishonesty. There is no limit on the creativity individuals will go to in order to gain objects of value without paying. It's practically a film genre.

Ownership of intellectual property is at the centre of patent law and copyright. We need ways to protect the creators of popular entertainment. Restricting or limiting viewing is an archaic concept today. A single viewing of any great performance or achievement is a crime in itself. but it is impossible to present a work to everyone simultaneously, although television has made fairly successful attempts at it. Greatness needs to be shared to be appreciated.

Hundreds of years later, we are still listening to Mozart Chopin and Stravinsky. We go to galleries and libraries to view the work of great painters. We still buy editions of books from centuries past (paper or e-version). It's because we have a hunger to possess and devour the work of our favourite innovative and creative individuals and enoy it over and over. The ultimate is to own an original piece of work or an object once owned by your favourite creative person.

One of the worst examples is what tourists have done in The Valley of the Kings. The Egyptian government is currently trying to protect its ancient tombs from people who want to chip off pieces to take home. Then there are the collectors who buy million dollar comic books or movie props or rare items at auction. This ancient appetite for possession is part of the movie business just like any other and should be recognized as that. Since the rampant and pervasive arrival of DVDs and Blu-rays, the home movie library business has exploded. We can now own almost any movie we want (although I still can’t get that Resnais film).

The point is, the studios need to recognize the potential earnings possible by making the latest films available for sale as soon as possible. They could sell disc copies right in the movie theatre where the films are playing. They should understand we decide whether we want to own a movie as soon as we see it. By making us wait several months, they take the risk of our enthusiasm declining. Besides, a lot of the people who buy disc copies of movies don't even go to the big screen theatres. Then there's the audience who don't buy copies and just do the VOD (video on demand) version. As long as they pay, any method of viewing is OK.

It's like ice cream, alcohol and car repair. If you don't pay, you can't have it, but if you do, you can have as much of it as you want.