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Overloading the Machine

With a Wink While I Dream

Two stamps, three bills
my story doesn't fit
like a glove left behind
              on the bus
wary of the last guy
at the last stop, still
angry fist with bell

thumb at Brighton ski shop
filled with bikes on sale
much weather, fewer words
              "We need to get serious
              about measurement."
dripping...
              "You are not fat."
still I don't care
what we get from there
just how we order
              for me—
I finger the heart
splat in the dust
separately wonder
about the soft wine sweater—
              "What if it spills?"

Today, an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process generates countless hours of creative product (another antique term?). To say that this poses a threat to the record industry is simply comic. The record industry, though it may not know it yet, has gone the way of the record. Instead, the recombinant (the bootleg, the remix, the mash-up) has become the characteristic pivot at the turn of our two centuries.

-- William Gibson

This page was last modified on 2011 December 20. "With a Wink While I Dream" by John Sullivan is Copyright ©2003 - 2011, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.