A lot of old people on Facebook wax nostalgic about drinking out of garden hoses, riding in the beds of pickup trucks without seat belts and the freedom of no cellphones.
Count me out. I was there and recall a lot of boredom. Much thumb-twiddling, whistling and staring out of windows. As for seat belts — I was riding with Phil Flanigan in his mother’s 1966 Ford Falcon when she hit the brakes and I went over the front seat and knocked out my front teeth on the dashboard — baby teeth, thank goodness. Still, I’m a big fan of seat belts. They save lives.
As for iPhones, one question: Have you gotten lost lately? Me neither. Getting lost sucked.
Not to be confused with wandering. Wandering is great, I went Downtown twice this week, researching columns. Marching up the wide, sunny arc of Wacker Drive, marveling at the passersby, but also thinking how soon the striding pedestrians and zipping electric scooters (c’mon guys, pretend you have brains to protect and wear a helmet) will be forever joined by squads of little rolling robots, like the pair that took out a couple bus shelters in West Town and Old Town last month. These are the last days we can pad around without flocks of drones buzzing over our heads.
Yes, some complain about these robots. I’m glad I’m not so touchy as to feel violated by somebody’s order of beef and broccoli trying to squeeze past on the sidewalk.
Sorry, I know, lots of delivery workers out of jobs. And cabdrivers, by self-driving cars. And journalists.
But not yet. Feeling lousy about it doesn’t help. Every technological advance in history was greeted with howls of ambivalence. When Gutenberg created movable type, some worried that the personal connection of reading an author’s own handwriting would be lost. The first programmable machine was not a computer, but a Jacquard loom, whose designs could be changed by switching punched cards. Outraged English textile workers attacked the looms. Got them nowhere. Robert Louis Stevenson complained in vain when gaslight was replaced by electric light, “a lamp for a nightmare,” producing “ugly blinding glare.” No matter. Technology always wins.
I say this, despite AI coming for my job. But not yet. It can form words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs. But can AI do the footwork? How is AI at rambling? At wandering in a random fashion across an urban environment and stumbling upon interesting stuff?
Not very good, yet — those bus shelter accidents are proof of that. Still a few flaws in the system.
Now me, I’m an expert stroller. I got Downtown 2½ hours early Tuesday, just to give myself perambulation time. I was trucking up Rush Street when I noticed, on East Ontario, a curious banner hanging from the old Lawry’s The Prime Rib. “The Hand & The Eye” the main banner read, with a second showing a hand holding an eyeball between thumb and forefinger. My first thought was that some odd occult group had come into money, perhaps rivals of the I Am Temple, a cult believing the great figures of history — Jesus, George Washington, etc. — are reincarnated space aliens. They have their own building on Washington Street. Maybe here was another.
Intrigued, I stood before the door and took my phone out to Google “Hand & The Eye” when I noticed the motto, “FOR THE CURIOUS” painted in gold leaf on the front door.
Hey, I thought, that’s me. I’m curious. The door was open. So I went in, and found myself in a luxurious lobby — oriental rug, rich floral wallpaper, bronze sconces. Nobody was around. I waited. A staircase swept to the right. So up I went.
A bar of sort — with artwork alluding to magic, a top hat rakishly posed on bottles. Seven performance spaces. Eventually I ran into a cleaner, who said this is a magic parlor/restaurant/bar/general high-end fun palace.
“The New York Times was just here,” he said.
Oh, gee, the New York Times. We’ll just have to steal their thunder then, won’t we? The place reportedly cost $50 million to renovate, and wandering through, I believe it. “The Hand & The Eye” opens this weekend, and tickets to the “three-hour journey” of “seated encounters, shared spaces and unexpected interactions” cost $239, which includes a $75 dining credit toward dinner, which I imagine will also set you back.
To be honest, just exploring the place, without a show, was a rich experience, and put me in a better frame of mind than when I entered. Technology is bearing down on us no matter what we do; might as well enjoy ourselves and be as fully human as we can be in what time remains to us.