I like to put the rolling webcams on YouTube on the TV. These are worldwide live webcams that roll through while classical music or jazz plays. Each scene stays on the screen for 15-30 seconds. You can see tourists walking on the beach in Curacao, and a cityscape from a camera atop a hotel in Zurich. The next scene – also live – is a view of Sydney Harbor in Australia. You can see the famous bridge and the opera house. As I look up from writing this, there is a beautiful live video shot of the Chester Railway Station in Chester, Massachusetts.
What a strange thing it is to be able to look in on the world, live. Right. This. Second. There… is Main Street in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. And now the Santa Claus Village in Finland up near the arctic circle.
I remember back in the 1990s… a lot of years ago… the first time I even heard of a live webcam. I remember there was camera up on top of a Printing Company when I lived in Lubbock. This was back in the days of AOL and Compuserve. If you knew the web address of the camera, you could type it in and eavesdrop through the live camera. It wasn’t a very clear or beautiful view. But it was weird. I remember thinking that we must be in the age of 1984 and/or Brave New World. I remember thinking, “What if you were trying to hide from the bad guys, or the government? What if a woman was trying to hide from an abusive husband? Could they log into a camera somewhere and find out where you are?” I remember talking a friend into driving over to the street that this camera watched over, and to stop and wave. It wasn’t a pure stream. It was herky-jerky. This was the 1990s.
There are a lot of bad things being done with this kind of technology. Government spying on laptop cameras, these abuses were exposed over a decade ago. But (I look up at the TV,) there is the view from Park Hotel in Sottomarina, Italy. And here is a guy jogging by on Hermosa Beach in California. And there is a view of Lake Como in Italy. Right now. Lake Como plays an important role in some famous literature, so it is thrilling to be able to look up and see it live. RIGHT NOW. There it is.
One day, probably long after I’m gone, if there isn’t a great war and the whole world isn’t reset back to pre-industrial times, or if some common sense doesn’t settle down on the world… all of these images, videos, real-time access to every camera on every device everywhere all at once, A.I., whatever… all of it will be seamlessly joined into a live, real-time whole-universal-view of the constant NOW. Maybe you can watch it all through your brain/computer interface. You, maybe. NOT ME. Never. I’m content with looking up and seeing… (Here it is) Norway… but I’m not getting the Internet in my head. I wrote a book about it – it’s fiction, but not really. Just written a little in advance. Go to the Intermission Bookshop this week and ask them for a copy of my book PENNSYLVANIA. Maybe you’ll like it.
As for me, I see the canals in Venice. RIGHT NOW. Isn’t it something?
***
Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.
