Neon Milkshakes
Wednesday, September 13
I had slept well the night before. Clean sheets and all. There would be no Brooklyn Bridge today.
As I waited on the subway platform, I couldn’t recall the last time I had been part of the urban current. Part of the commute. It was definitely the first time I would be surfacing from a subway station so close to the financial district. Needless to say, there was nothing Wall Street about me. I carried a flip phone.
I emerged from the Fulton Street station and instantly felt energized. Yellow taxis streaked by and steam rose from tall, orange cylindrical cones like some elementary-school science experiment. I smelled exhaust with a hint of bacon and eggs. As I was nudged on all sides, I realized this was not the time nor place to soak it all in.
The lobby of One World Trade must have been at least 100 feet high. This time I arrived on the wrong side of the building, and was directed to the security area on the north side. The last time I rode elevators on a daily basis, I was carrying packages from the mailroom. I shot up towards the sky lobby in less than five seconds like some scene from The Jetsons.
Like clockwork, my nameless escort once again chauffeured me directly to Q’s office. While I waited, I pulled out a marble composition notebook from my worn, beige Jansport. I couldn’t help feeling like some overpriced tutor. In an attempt to actually earn my paycheck, I had made some broad-stroke notes the day before. I could feel my palms sweating, hoping that I wouldn’t start talking about my mother or something like that. I wiped them on my denims as Q entered the room.
She was wearing a navy-blue-colored t-shirt tucked into light jeans. Her dark hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and her eyes were outlined in subtle black. She gave a hard-pressed smile, like George Washington on the $1 bill, and sat across from me.
“Good morning, Sam.”
“Good morning, Q.”
There was a momentary silence as my nameless escort brought in a vase of water and a fresh cup of coffee. The aroma instantly relaxed my nerves. Why was I so nervous?
“You have made some notes?” asked Q, observing the marble notebook on my lap.
“Something like that,” I replied. “Just trying to keep some order to it all.”
I glanced at the page where I had drawn an amateur timeline of technological advancements. Above it I had written in all-caps:
I cleared my throat. “So, once upon a time there was something called the modem. Which you have elegantly defined. It existed around the same time cords were connected to the end of a telephone that hung on a wall.”
Q was looking directly at me, and I had to focus on something other than her youthful, vibrant face.
“Do you mind if I stand?” I asked. “It helps me get the blood flowing.”
“Be my guest,” she replied.
I stood and paced, feeling better. “So we’re already past the times of rotary dial. In fact, you have speed-dial options. A phonebook with numbers is still important. And the virtuous White and Yellow Pages, delivered right to your doorstep on a bi-annual basis, give you all the necessary channels to maintain a household – from plumbing and fixing the boiler to ordering pizza.”
“What was delivered to your doorstep?” she asked, diligently.
“The White and Yellow Pages.”
She requested that I pause for a moment. She walked towards the wall and pressed a button, causing a flat-screen monitor to illuminate. She grabbed a wireless, black keyboard from a nearby drawer. I watched with amusement as Q typed “White and Yellow pages” into the Google search bar.
“No,” I said, as she simultaneously navigated the screen. “That link doesn’t help. Yes, try that one.” I pointed towards the monitor as if my finger would move the cursor. I felt ancient. Instantly, an article appeared with a headline reading: What are the White and Yellow pages?
I was still reading the first paragraph when she started to scroll down, rapidly. Next thing I knew, Q had already pulled up an image.
“This?” she asked, pointing to the images displayed on the monitor.
“Yup, that’s it.”
“Okay, thanks. Please continue.”
“You know we couldn’t do this,” I said, referring to her Google search activities. “During this period of time I am referring to now, Google simply didn’t exist.”
“Wow, I can’t really imagine.”
“This was the purpose of the White and Yellow pages.”
“Why white and yellow?”
“White was for people and yellow was for everything else.”
“But how do you search?”
“Alphabetically.”
She nodded and I watched her scroll through her findings. I was mesmerized by her uncanny ability to navigate through multimedia web content.
“It’s a lot heavier than it looks,” I explained, referring to the actual Yellow Pages. She stopped on a series of what appeared to be Yellow Page commercials, and glanced in my direction.
“Try that one,” I said, pointing again to the monitor like an old man in a retirement home. “The French Polishers.”
We watched this brilliant infomercial as I attempted to gather my thoughts. Surprisingly, it seemed much easier to do at these heights. I sipped on the strong coffee and imagined that this is what it might have been like to fly first-class on an Emirates aircraft. I wasn’t expecting this kind of multimedia resource, I reflected. It could go either way.
The video clip stopped and Q looked in my direction. Evidently, my cue to continue.
“Overall,” I continued, “we’re in an era of time where international dialing is a costly luxury reserved for jetsetters. Interstate calls cost per minute and innovative platforms, like 1-800-COLLECT, even permit you to forgo change at the public telephone booths – some still have rotary dials.”
I saw her typing “1-800-collect.” I was about to stop her, but before I could say “Q,” there was another series of video clips to choose from. She clicked on the first thumbnail and we watched another timeless piece of Madison Avenue work product.
“Chris Rock,” I commented, as the commercial stopped. “I almost forgot how amazing television was. Even the commercials were a heavy production.”
Q was about to watch another commercial featuring Mr. T before I stopped her.
“Whoa,” I said, raising my hand, “hold on a second, Q. I don’t want us to go down the rabbit hole here.”
“Rabbit hole?” asked Q, looking in my direction.
“Yes, as you see, it is easy to get lost in this era. Wizard of Oz magic happening everywhere you turn.”
Q glanced back at the screen where an image of Mr. T’s face was staring at us from the sand. “But it’s so different, and interesting,” she said.
“Yes, but at this pace, I’m afraid that we’ll lose our narrative thread.” I glanced at the simple annotation in my notebook, trying to keep my feet on the ground. “Why don’t you just bookmark this one. You know, watch it later, after our lessons. We have a long way to go,” I said, holding up my simple timeline. “Another two decades, really.”
Q pressed her lips together and gave me a sudden look of admiration. “Like homework,” she said.
“Exactly,” I repeated, “like homework.”
She bookmarked Mr. T and rose stiffly from her chair.
I took a breath and snapped out of it. Focus. Q popped the engraved pillbox and drank a glass of water that was already beside the plant.
“We won’t dive too deep into the cultural happenings of this bygone era,” I continued. “Let’s just say neon was being phased out and boomboxes were still a hit.”
“I love neon,” Q said with a faint smile. “It’s so…eighties.”
“Do you even know what a floppy disk is?” I asked.
“A what?”
“A floppy disk.”
She spelled it out, resting the keyboard on the credenza, and pulled up an image.
“Yes, that’s it. Now this is relevant to our evolutionary discourse. And as much as I would love to talk to you about roller skating at the disco, you’ve asked me here today to answer a question, right?”
Q nodded, and I knew she was paying attention.
“And to understand why Steve Jobs is the scapegoat for our discontent.”
Q seemed confused.
“Let me put this another way. If I understand all of this correctly, we are here to further our understanding of the human connection, right?
“Yes, that is correct,” Q replied, lowering herself into the chair.
“Great,” I said. “Well, as tempted as I am to talk about neon lights, drink milkshakes and listen to David Byrne sing ‘Once in Lifetime’ for us through a tape cassette, we’re here to take an evolutionary journey. To understand this…this human connection thing. And technology is a major part of this thread. It is our thread.”
Q nodded. “I think I understand.”
“Can you go back to the floppy disk image,” I asked Q, and she enlarged it on the monitor.
“You see, this malleable, plastic-coated, magnetic floppy disk. Its fate was rapidly being sealed into a more compact hard disk around the same time Reebok Pump shoes were starting to peak. Car phones have arrived as well – a specific phone line that ran through a system in your automobile, typically reserved for the Gatsbys and Wall Street types – but even those still had cords.”
I could hear the gentle typing as I spoke and took a brief moment to read Q’s bookmarks. Reebok Pump shoes. Floppy Disk. Corded car phones. Gatsby. David Byrne Once in a Lifetime.
“You don’t need to record everything,” I explained.
Q nodded without looking at me.
“Just let me know if I’m going too fast,” I said. Clearly I wasn’t. It seemed that Q could have been sitting there doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle while I ranted from my soapbox. She wouldn’t miss a beat, regardless.
“I just never knew that these times existed,” she said. A still frame of David Byrne in a tuxedo hung overhead on the monitor.
“As you can tell, these were exciting times all around.” I stood for what was coming next. “And in the middle of it all sat this blinking hardware ready to take humanity to the next level of interconnectivity.”
I paused for dramatic effect. “Do you know what that might be?” I asked.
“The modem,” she said, turning her head in my direction.
“Bingo! 56k,” I emphasized. “It doesn’t matter what the k means.”
“Kbit/s,” Q replied. “Kilobits per second. It is a way to measure latency.”
I tilted my head and shook it off. Who was this kid?
“Great, thanks,” I replied. “But more importantly, there is a plug that powers it and it’s connected to your home phone line. We’re anchored at home… for now. Delivered to your doorstep, home. Soon came Steve Jobs and his Macintosh desktops. A textbook example of consumer marketing – one for the ages. And don’t lose our context in time,” I added, “we’re definitely still in the era of videocassettes. We’re talking about physical home appliances for the common folk. The masses.”
In a nanosecond, she had pulled up an original recording of Apple’s commercial debut. “Let’s watch this one,” I instructed. So we did.
And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984….
“Jesus. I completely forgot about this. Ridley Scott directed it, too.”
Q cocked her head sideways at me. Clueless.
“Blade Runner?” I questioned. “Go ahead, bookmark it.”
The video ended and Q skillfully paused it on the iconic rainbow Apple logo. “I love this logo.”
“Well, that is exactly the thing!” I emphasized, clapping my hands together. “Jobs penetrated not just the consumer market in a powerful way – he literally shattered our existence…with new technology. It was colorful, too, just like that beautiful logo. You should see the colorful, dome-shaped desktops that followed.”
There was a slight pause. “I walked myself into that one, didn’t I?”
“I love the blue one,” she said, referring to the ’90s Mac desktop image that she had already pulled up on the monitor. “It’s a shame they don’t make these anymore, everything just needs to fit into your pocket.”
“Exactly!” I replied, with way too much excitement. “If you think swiping left and right is more fun than an AOL lesbian chat room, you’ve never lived!”
She started to type: “AOL lesb...”
“Wait!” I said, surprising myself with such bold authority. “Don’t type that. Just listen for a minute.”
Q obeyed, putting down the keyboard.
I took a deep breath and glanced at the time on my digital Casio watch. When I looked up, Q was sleeping. I couldn’t help but notice how peaceful she appeared. Her eyes were closed and her face held a solemn expression that I could not fully process. I remembered my instructions, packed my notebook and left the room.
