Living in the present, a day at a time

I live in the present. If I were to think about the future, I’d be alarmed about the utter demise of journalism and the self-degradation that many U.S. senators are eager to accept and the use of cryptocurrency to enrich the Chief Executive by tech tycoons kicking back 20% of their federal contracts, but instead I spend the day in my laboratory experimenting to design AI software to let me chat with long-deceased relatives such as my great-great-grandfather William Evans Keillor who says, “I don’t know if this is heaven — it looks like Nebraska — and immortality is not my cup of tea but I’m getting used to it. No calendars, no clocks. The good news is that death dissolves your marriage so I’m free of Sarah and I’ve taken up with an angelic slip of a girl named Celeste who flutters about in water-wings and silk undies and instead of beans and bacon we have rigatoni with zucchini, cannellini, salami Bolognese, prosciutto, radicchio, parmigiano, pepperoni primavera, chorizo crostata, guacamole, guanciale Calabrese, pistachio pesto, and Sangiovese. We never had Italian food in Minnesota in 1880.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Most aphorisms are self evident, such as a bird in
the hand is worth two in the bush, and the
one about glasshouses and throwing stones and the mice playing
when the cat is away, and as you sow, so
shall you harvest, And as I get older, the ones

(00:34):
about living in the moment and seizing the day and
not crying over spilt milk feel very profound. I remember
a day fifty years ago when I had lunch with
my hero es j Proman in Minneapolis, when he was

(00:57):
to give a reading and I was to enter him.
I was stunned by admiration for Esche Peerlman's writing, such
as the paragraph I guess I'm just an old mad
scientist at bottom, give me an underground laboratory, half a

(01:18):
dozen atom smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous
veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, And I
care not who writes the nation's laws. I admired elegant
wackiness like that, Having grown up among devout Christians, who,
even in dinner table conversation, tried to sound elect the

(01:42):
King James translation, they wouldn't have written a paragraph like
his about the mad scientist, if you'd gotten them drunk,
set them on a bundle of dynamite, and set the
timer to ten minutes. I knew Pearlman's work from the
New Yorker magazine and also from the Marx Brothers movies,

(02:05):
great lines like don't wake him up, he's got insomnia,
He's trying to sleep it off. Perlman didn't know me
from Adam or an Adam smasher. I looked at him,
and I tried to compose a great compliment, but nothing

(02:26):
was good enough. And then a man told Perlman that
I had been published in the New Yorker, and Perlman
leaned across the table and he started complaining about the
magazine and its miserly payments, its confounded editing, its clueless

(02:49):
fact checkers who ripped into comic fiction as if it
were a doctoral thesis. And it was the ultimate honor
to be treated as a fellow working writer by the
great es Jay Prowman. I had been prepared to kiss
his ring, and he talked to me as a colleague

(03:14):
in his line of work, the honor of equality. His
illustrious past did not matter. The future was unknown. But
there we were two writers having a cob salad and
a chicken sandwich about to go meet an audience. Living

(03:35):
in the present, I guess I'm just an old humorist
at heart. Give me a wedding chapel, A groom who
forgot his suspenders and is trying to hold his pants up.
A beautiful girl with last minute trepidations. The man puts
the ring on her finger as his pants drop. There

(03:59):
is an expel ulsham of gas, and I care not
who wins the National Book Award. I live in the present.
If I were to think about the future, I'd be
alarmed about the demise of journalism and the self degradation

(04:19):
that many U S editors are eager to accept, and
the use of cryptocurrency to enrich the chief executive by
tech tycoons kicking back twenty percent of their federal contracts.
But instead, I spend the day in my laboratory experimenting

(04:42):
to design artificial intelligence software to let me chat with
long deceased relatives, such as my great great grandfather William
Evans Keeler, who says, I don't know if this is heaven,
it looks like Nebraska, and immortality is not my cup
of tea, but I'm getting used to him. No calendars,

(05:06):
no clocks. The good news is that death dissolves your marriage.
So I'm free of Sarah at last, and I've taken
up with an angelic slip of a girl named Celeste
who flutters about in water wings and silkndies. And instead

(05:30):
of beans and bacon, we have rigatoni with zucchini, connollini, solami, bolognesi, prosciutto, radichio, parmegiano, pepperoni,
prima vera, chorico, prestado, guacamole, guancia, le calabresi, pistachio, pesto,
and san giaves. Never had Italian food in Minnesota back

(05:56):
in eighteen eighty. He's quite the guy, opinionated but very witty.
I told him to look up Pearlman, and now the
two of them play commassed together. I'm living in the present, which,
thanks to artificial intelligence, includes the past. I guess I'm

(06:19):
just elon Musk at heart. Give me an office in
the White House. Let the old guy revise the Constitution
with the wave of sharpie. All he likes. I will
give the Nazi salute when and where I please, and
when the earth burns up. I'll be sitting on Mars

(06:40):
eating a milky way, and I care not that I'm
the only human being in the universe.