Unfurled

the time traveler

wakes up

in the present

and

walks to the parlor

and

he knows

“It’s gonna be a big day.”

he says

to all the

future hims

——

© Steve Mitchell 2023 

Memory Is A Rear View Mirror

I move

through

time

yesterday

to

today

and

you’re

here

to meet me

fellow

traveler

—–

© Steve Mitchell 2020

If I Could Go Back…

Hey, teenaged Steve.  It’s me, Future Steve.

See that commercial, there?  The one you’re watching, right now, on your portable TV, in black and white, as you sit on the floor, in front of your bed?  The one with the jingle you’ll hear over and over and over again?

Well.

Not for nothing, but, about 35 years from now, you’ll be at work, in a little, corner snack kiosk, looking for gum.  You’ll still prefer winter green or peppermint or spearmint.  But, they’ll be all out of the mint varieties.

So, instead, you’ll buy a fifteen pack of Juicy Fruit gum.

Yeah, Juicy Fruit.

Gum is gum, and you’ll want some gum.

You’ll buy it and you’ll chew a piece.

Sure, at first the flavor will be nostalgic.  It’s one we liked in our younger, childhood days.

Remember?

But, here’s the thing – every time, in the future, some 34 years from now, every time you chew another piece of Juicy Fruit gum, you’re going to HEAR THAT DAMN JINGLE IN YOUR HEAD!

♫ Juicy Fruit, it’s gonna move ya!

Every. Single. Time.

It will be stuck in your head, every time, for hours.  Each stick will equal hours of … the taste the taste the taste is gonna moOOoove ya!

So thanks for nothing Wrigley’s.

Thanks for nothing TV.

Thanks for nothing Wrigley’s TV jingle writer.

It’s not too late for you, teenaged Steve!  Turn off the TV!  Turn it off now and keep it off!

Spare yourself!

Oh, and also…

in the future, everyone will carry small, sleek, wire-free phone/camera/computers, each with more computing power than the entire Apollo Space program.  And you’ll buy that gum by tapping your computer powered watch (also with more power than the space program) onto the screen and wirelessly transferring money.

Whatever.

Turn off that TV!

The Earth a Machine

*SWOOOOOSH*

Hello?  Hello?

YES!

I’ve done it!  I’ve traveled forward in time!  Yes!

I left on May 11th and arrived, just now, on May 16th!

The Future!

Time Travel!

I won’t bore you with the technical details.  I will say there was still some subjective sense of the passing of time.  It didn’t feel like an instant, or a blink.

Here, let me do the math real quick:

24 hours in a day…
carry the three…
divide by Pi…
subtract the remainder…

and…huh.

Okay.

Well.  According to my calculations, for every second of subjective time I experienced while time traveling, one second of real time elapsed.  So…that doesn’t-

It doesn’t seem all that impressive, really, when you do the math.

Hmm.

Back to drawing board.

True Future

a falling leaf
and each of us
a time traveler

—-

© Steve Mitchell 2017

Another Fine Mess

♫ TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS! ♫

Scientist:  My God!  Who would be so reckless as to give a Time Gun to a monkey?

Woman:  Watch out, Professor!!

♫ TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS!♫

Abraham Lincoln:  Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all monkeys deserve MORE BANANAS!

♫ TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS! ♫

John F. Kennedy:  My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for the monkeys.

♫ TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS! ♫

Donald J. Trump:  I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States…

***

Scientist:  See? See there, Monkey? Look what you’ve done! Oh sure, now you bring back the Time Gun. Well, it may be too late. Bad Monkey! It may be too late…

***

Narrator:  And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, here ends another harrowing episode of:

♫ TIME TRAVEL HIJINKS! ♫

fin

—-

© Steve Mitchell 2037

Into the Future

Well, it probably won’t be perfect; perfection is a tough gig.  But, I went ahead and ordered a hat for my vacation.

It’ll arrive Monday.

As much as I enjoyed online window shopping for premium, Panama hats, I didn’t really want to spend premium money for a vacation hat.

So.

After getting Lucie’s feedback on a handful of hat contenders, I purchased one of my earlier picks – the Cameron model fedora from the Wallaroo hat company.

It’s a synthetic, ivory-colored, straw hat.  It has a three inch brim, a thin leather band, a pinch crown and a UPF 50 rating.

Alas.  I don’t have a time-travel, future camera to show you a photo of how the hat will look on me.

But, wait.

I do happen to have painstakingly detailed and authentic, photo-realistic, time-travel rendering of what I’ll look like in the hat on Monday:

I seem to like it…

Sweet!

Speaking of Time Machines, I’ve Made One

Time Machine

Time Machine Instructions:

1. Approach Time Machine (or imagine you’ve approached Time Machine)
2. Press Center Red Button (or imagine you’ve pressed Center Red Button)
3. Close Your Eyes (or imagine you’ve closed your eyes)
4. Say ‘Beep Beep Boop’
5. Wait Five Seconds (DO NOT IMAGINE YOU’VE WAITED FIVE SECONDS – REALLY, REALLY WAIT FIVE SECONDS)
6. Open Your Eyes
7. Gaze Upon The Future!

 

(Time Machine is intended only for trips into the future.  The makers of Time Machine cannot guarantee any travel greater than five seconds.  Instructions must be followed precisely.  Length of time jump into future may vary.  The makers of Time Machine are not responsible for what the traveler may find in the future.  Time Machine cannot return you to the present.)

 

All Things and The Sun Under the Sun

I apologize in advance; this post is a little link-heavy.

So.

About six years ago I posted a story I’d written titled Robo Monk 

You can go read it or not.  Everything will be right here where you left it.  It’s about detachment and suffering and enlightenment and robots vs. humans.

Yeah.

I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about robots and about Zen Buddhism and the combination thereof.

I wrote this poem four years ago: Unflinching

I doodled this silliness a year ago:  For I = 1 to 10

It’s all just whimsy.  It’s all just day dreaming.

But, then, well, I saw on the news, there’s now an actual, for reals, Buddhist robot.  (link goes to youTube)

A Buddhist temple in China has built a cute, robot monk to attract people and to help educate them on Buddhism.

I don’t know how I feel about that.

My whimsy thunder is stolen.

Do I feel possessive?  Jealous?

I don’t know.

I’m surely not the first and only person to combine the concepts.  I don’t own the idea.  I can’t and don’t take any credit for the notion.

And it’s not like the robot at Longquan is sentient or self-aware.

But.

It’s a bit unsettling to see what I assumed were my own, personal, flights of fancy made nearly real.

I’ve lost control of the concept.   It’s left the imagination and entered the world.

It was personal.  It was my own.  And now I’ve lost it and I suffer, just a teeny bit.

Alas.

I’m no zen master.

I’m really going to struggle when someone invents time travel…

Arizona Renaissance Festival – Pic Heavy

Okay, so.  Yesterday, my family and I didn’t really time travel to the past.

Instead, we went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival.

We had a pretty nice time.

I don’t know quite how to describe the festival.  It’s dusty and crowded and a bit overwhelming.

And it’s not, especially, historically accurate.  The overall look is a romantic medley of medieval royalty and peasantry and faeries and pirates and Cavaliers and nomads and time travelers and ravers and barbarians and …. tourists.

There were plenty of other kilts, mostly on pirates and craftsman working the fair, but also on attendees.  Some of the kilt wearers, I could tell, used the fair as an excuse to go full Brigadoon.  Others, myself included, simply wore a kilt with tee shirts or regular street clothes.

Surprisingly, considering the captive crowd, the food was reasonably priced, as were many of the craft items for sale.  It was refreshing to see.

Less refreshing was the constant, faux British, street-performeresque, bawdy bids for attention.  From the first minute, we were bombarded with mugging, interactive performers and  ware-hawkers with loud, loud voices trying to make us laugh or pay attention or buy something.  Luckily, it tapered off as the crowds grew and the day wore on.

I enjoyed some of the shows, but others I avoided because they required too much audience participation and I have no stomach for shows which require audience participation.

Anyhow.

I took a roughly a million and a half photos, but I won’t subject you to all of them.  I’ll just subject you to a large handful.

Here’s the front entrance:

front entrance

That was the King and Queen and the Royal Court up there waving to the entering crowd.

It was a warm and very sunny day, so Lucie bought a parasol.  She got the last one with the Dia de los muertos theme.

She’s more radiant than the sun.

 

Here’s me holding the parasol for a moment.

At the Renaissance Festival, no one looks twice at a man in a kilt with a parasol …

 

Here’s Cos, my older son, with some sort of barbarian.  He wanted a picture of her headdress to show an artist friend of his.

Barbarian Showgirl

I don’t have a good photo of Alec.  He and one of his classmates ran off with their 14 year-old selves to have adventures most of the day.

Here’s more photos.

Musicians out and about:

That little harpsichord sounded pretty good.

I honestly don’t remember what they were playing … it wasn’t Greensleeves. 

 

From some of the shows:

London Broil (the name of the juggling group) They were fun.

Ded Bob is an Arizona Renaissance Festival institution.

That whip sounded like gunshots when it cracked!

Tartanic, bagpipe music with an awesome, thumping beat.

The juggler Cale, with a C.

 

And, finally, more photos out and about:

With my Sweetie.  Photobomb!

 

That dog cleaned up.

Another giant.

Medieval food court …

They do love them some tankards …

Human powered rides.

A fashion class.

Living statue.

Mythical.

Our ride back to the present?