Good Old Grinnell

Here are a couple of shots from my visit back to Grinnell College to attend graduation and hang out with friends from school. I intend on linking to a gallery of images from this weekend-full-of-friends-and-fun, so keep on the lookout.

Stretching Our Cyborg Limbs

I think its interesting how wireless internet has changed the coffee shop experience. Look around inside just about any coffee shop, and you'll most likely see at least one laptop for every two patrons. Cafe's have become one part caffeinated social venues, one part hubs to the great (read as vast) beyond. In this way, even specific coffee shops, with there own specific physical addresses, can hardly be considered geographic locations any more. I don't really have a moral opinion on this either way, like I said, I think its interesting (read as "neat"). I have this vision of the warm and dim interior of a popular coffee shop, some folks gesticulating with their human limbs about their rich and complex inner lives looking for signs of intersubjectivity (read as shared human experience) from their tablemates, other folks stretching their cyber (read as cyborg) limbs, grasping for information, distraction or meaningful long distance communication. I can actually see these limbs, in my vision of the contemporary coffee shop, they aren't just figurative. They are colored classic crayola blue, yellow, red and green and they extend indefinitely, like endless go-go gadget arms with clamps destined for little bits of cyber satisfaction and links galore for everyone (even your parents and grandparents). If I could have, I would have photographed this scene, rather than the one above, or at least photoshopped these elements into the image above. I am sorry, but my manipulation skills are just not up to par, and it would be just pure sickness if they had the technology to probe into our neural networks and snap candid street photos of our little imaginings (read as ironic/uncanny/just plain silly). Sorry.
Oh, and this will be the first and the last time that I embed little instructions into my blog on how to read my blog.