Sunday, July 31, 2011

Lady Talk

Luke & Dad's Fifth Year


The Internet puts infinite information at your fingertips. Research is no longer a journey through the library but a keystroke and an electronic pulse. With delivery frictionless, data is delivered in a deluge.

To compensate, we consume it in ever-smaller, sugary pieces. The press laments that long form media is drowning in millions of buzz clips, tweets and blogs -- a data tsunami washing away depth of knowledge! We are M&Media junkies.

We can’t even stay true to our questions -- inquiring via Google search delivers paid info nuggets, Google's paid search, designed specifically to hijack our intent!

And the Wellers love it.

A smattering of random information has a fascinating effect on an imaginative mind like yours. The disparate pieces of information we feed you, whether it’s a YouTube video, five minutes of a movie or part of a story before bed, are fragments you weave into a wonderful tapestry.

Like the artist Girl Talk who mixes different riffs into a musical mosaic, or like inadvertently inventing new lyrics to undecipherable song and finding it more meaningful, your inventions are often better than their original parts.

My favorite Lukey mashup originated from tidbits of Star Wars, Harry Potter and YouTubes of your favorite fish: the Angler Fish.

One afternoon you smacked Darth Vader (me) down with a toy lightsaber and screamed in victory, “I control the light!” Curious, I asked what you meant. You explained The Force and Magic were the same thing and they could control things like light: the beam from a light saber or the flash of a wand.

When I pointed out that The Force and Magic don’t exist, you said, “I know, but Angler fish can do it!” Then I realized, what else is technology, biology, and magic but making energy do what you want!

These moments of brilliance are tempered. I woke up a few days ago to, “Daddy, I made Yucky Jello!” As I removed the bowl from the refridgerator, you gave me the rundown of ingredients: soap, water, and … Peeps! The last word ignited a spasm that sent unset "jello" sloshing into my face.

Love,

Dad