We’ve been preparing for this sci fi dystopia for a long time, trying to explain to the world that we are stumbling idiotically toward the invention of the Torment Nexus (from the classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create the Torment Nexus). And the Torment Nexus turns out to have a monthly subscription fee you can’t turn off.
In 1913, Igor Stravinsky discovered at the premiere of The Rite of Spring that the audience — and perhaps all audiences — are best reflected in the trembling blob-on-the-street: “I’m not ready for the future.”
Audiences, when confronted with the future, feel themselves force-fed. Artists, when confronted with the future, see a feast to digest.
And we’ve got whatever the fuck it is that someone does with their five minutes at Western Massachusetts Electronics one Sunday a month. We have heard the future. And it sounds weird.