David Michael Newstead's Blog, page 10

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David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

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The Typewriter Inheritance

W.P.A. Monday

Schlansky!

Constructivism and the Typewriter

The Typewriter Inheritance

The Matrix at 25 and Beyond

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

I kept thinking about The Matrix’s 25th anniversary, how I saw it when it first came out, and how its been on constantly ever since. Yes, it’s had a huge cultural impact. Yes, I can measure my life by certain movies and sometimes I do. But what felt really compelling to me was the idea of The Matrix at 50 or 100! How will the film resonate a century from now and beyond? Every day, that technology seems closer and less hypothetical. But what form will the future take? The Matrix wasn’t a prediction so much as it’s a thought experiment. And if nothing else, the question of whose interest artificial intelligence serves may define more of our future than people are comfortable admitting. The Matrix will always occupy a part of that debate. That makes it more than an action movie and more than a time capsule. And if one day, history and fiction ever converge, this might be the dream we’re all having right before we wake up to something new.

Storefront(s)

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

The awning was for a coffeeshop. The name in the window was for a mobile phone store. And the building itself clearly used to be a bank decades ago. This describes an abandoned storefront I walk by regularly. That structure has been many things over the years, but for as long as I can remember it’s been nothing. There are a lot of places like that around town. I’m always amused by that one location that’s under never ending construction. Or when a “Coming Soon!” sign tells us all a short story about plans that didn’t work out. According to this giant poster, an organic grocery chain was supposed to open here in the spring… two years ago. But it’s still vacant and probably always will be.

There’s a barbershop near me that went out of business. Everyone forgot to turn off the spinning barber’s pole out front before they left. So now it just rotates all by itself forever. The Earth is going around the Sun, the planet is spinning on its axis, and this barber pole really completes the portrait of a universe in motion. A fast food place nearby closed down too, but they left their cheesy 1990s neon lights on inside. Months went by. A year. Maybe more now. Whenever I walk by and look at it, it feels like some bleak version of the painting Nighthawks. A restaurant without people. Stories in empty places.

Every piece of blight, everything discarded, or in disrepair started off as something new once. Then, just maybe, it gets remade like that glorious old bank that eventually became a store for cheap cellphones. If you drive around enough, you can see this in a thousand interesting ways: old buildings getting a second life. A church on the highway finds much needed space in a former Pizza Hut. While other buildings are eaten away by time or the elements, this one continues on in a new way. When I was growing up, a church by my hometown closed and somehow became a coffeeshop with a steeple. For a while at least. Everything is only ever for a while.

Things in Used Books

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

A business newsletter from 1963.A receipt.A small folded note in a book about Karl Marx with a short list of 3 bands on it for some reason including:The Jones GirlsR.E.M.Def LeopardA receipt from February 2001 in a book about diplomacy signed by the purchaser indicating her full name and university. Did “Janet” (not her real name) ever pursue a career in diplomacy, I wondered. I get on LinkedIn to investigate. She did! “Janet” eventually joined the U.S. State Department.

The Typewriter Inheritance

Viktor Frankl

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Dune 1984

David Michael Newstead | The Philosophy of Shaving

Dune 1984 is a flawed favorite of mine. It’s a not great movie, but if you grew up with it, it has a certain nostalgic charm. They were trying to make the next Star Wars and failed and instead made something else. What ensues is a Jackson Pollock of science fiction chaos that’s beautiful in its own way. A few key actors hold the movie together and give it legitimacy. On reflection though, what really redeems the whole effort is the incredible soundtrack by Toto. That music elevates the project and hints at the kind of film it could have been under different circumstances. The scale. The action. The intrigue. Prophecies and messiahs, holy wars and mind-bending visions. It took another generation for Denis Villeneuve to truly manifest Frank Herbert’s ideas on screen. But in 1984, it was right there in the music, sparking our imaginations and waiting to be realized.

The Regime