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.