BRAVE NEW LANGUAGE.BY JIM STALLARD- - - - Remember when a "website" could only be found in a dusty corner of your basement? When the only thing you would "bookmark" was the latest novel, and "rebooting" meant putting your galoshes back on? Remember when a "pop-up" was something you saw at a baseball game, "cookies" made you think of Mrs. Fields, and "Zip drive" made you think of a giraffe made of marzipan? When, if someone asked you to "download something," you accused them of planting tiny receivers under your skin, and when someone said "screen saver" you shrieked and looked around frantically for Filipinos trying to bite the back of your thighs? That's when I realized you were crazy. I had already kind of suspected but wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. But then you described "hacker" as someone you hire to chop up your pets and "docking station" as the spot on your bedroom floor where Roy Cohn appears every night to read sports scores. When the handlers showed up to take you away, you were crouched over the "spam filter" in the shower, stuffing cotton in the holes to keep the Iroquois from entering and planting a "motherboard" under your forehead. It's like you were speaking some wonderful new language! When you were committed, we were sad at first. But things took on a much lighter tone when we realized you were powerless to defend yourself. Once the nurses left us alone after escorting us to your room, Steve, Diego, Alan, and I would hide behind your dresser and shoot out of straws little pieces of paper that hit you on the back of the neck while you ranted about being under attack by "BlackBerries," which, as best as I could gather, came from one of Jupiter's moons. Your reaction to our "flash mob," as you called it, was priceless. Who would have thought a strobe light could produce such results? I was (as you might say) ROTFLMAO. To be honest, I don't see much progress since then. I know the pills and exercises have helped you better keep your focus, but your actions during the weekend furlough suggest your connection to reality is a "broken link." People don't appreciate being hit over the head so you can steal their "domain name"—or, as us Luddites still call it, "driver's license"—for that bizarre mosaic on your wall. You'll have to work hard if you ever want a chance at Release 2.0. I hope you've enjoyed my perspective on this—I just wanted us to step back from our hurried routine for a moment and appreciate how much has changed in so little time. You're doing things as part of a daily habit that nobody could imagine just a few years ago, like untying knots with your teeth when the orderly's back is turned. It's like a science-fiction story. By the way, you really shouldn't eat your own—well, I'll leave that alone. - - - - Jim Stallard's - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Brave New Language By Jim StallardSix Breakfast Cereals Argue Why They Should Replace Cheerios as the Preferred Finger Food for Babies By Kate Hahn The Five Most Dangerous Children's Books Ever Written, According to Sean Hannity By Brian Danilo Alternative Answers to Some of the Cornell Center for Materials Research's "Ask a Scientist!" Student E-Mails By Blake Butler Yannick Murphy's Here They Come, and the McSweeney's Reading Groups |
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