Ay, There’s The Rub

It was probably related to my current state of dehydration and hunger, but last night I dreamt I was stationed on the steps of a house on a tree-lined park street in a city, where it was incumbent on me to try to shoot black bears with an iPhone application. Real black bears (I mean, “real in the dream”). The iPhone app made a shotgun sound, although it simply emitted a dot of red light like a laser, and it didn’t seem to have any fatal consequences when I used it. Despite all that, the bears seemed generally afraid of me; they weren’t injured, however, by any of my shots. After a time of futile bear hunting, I was brought out into the street, where I was expected to shoot a unicorn. This time, though, the iPhone app only emitted the light, without the shotgun sound. And this time, too, the unicorn was unfazed by my efforts.
 
Some routine medical testing this morning, then I can begin eating again.
 
While I’m at Gartnavel Hospital, here are a couple of links to bear in mind.
 
First, Paypal has finally gotten on board Scott McCloud’s cause and made it possible to deploy micropayments. Not very micro, mind you; right now, they’re talking about a dollar per item. But it’s a lot closer to what Scott envisioned back in REinventing Comics. Now we get to see whether that provides a workable business opportunity rather than just hearing people argue that it can’t possibly.
 
And Derek Powazek, seller of real, physical, heavy, lumpy, ink-on-paper magazines, rebuts the frequent assertion that without real, physical, print-on-paper books we will never experience serendipity while browsing.
 
Will check in again after I can have something to eat.
 

3 thoughts on “Ay, There’s The Rub

  1. Did I miss something to do with your health? I know, that’s a really momish question but Hey, if you are going to blog about going to the hospital, I want to know what for!!

  2. Sorry to be so late in getting you the interpretation of your dream.

    The house in the tree-lined city park is clearly meant to depict the manicured lawns of the University, and the “house” is your home away from home; i.e., your office.

    The bears are the students whose work you must assess, and whose lives in some sort of socially constructed and hypothetical manner, you hold in your hands. However, as a professor you are well aware that you hold only imaginary power over them, and try as you might to transform their worlds and wield your power, you know that you can ultimately do nothing.

    The surprise, however, is that the students seem not to have noticed that your proverbial “red pen” is just that: a pen that can only write, not take their lives. And so they fear you.

    At times, however, you are brought out of your “ivory tower” and asked to speak to the mythical “man on the street.” Once out of the academy, all illusions of socially constructed power are gone. There is no fear. Indeed, they don’t even notice that you’re making a sound.

    ? ??????????? ??????

  3. — For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause……..

    Shooting bears with phone apps? You should have went with the bare bodkin!?

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