You can only win the game by not playing the game.

I don’t remember much about the first half of my life.

A lot of contemporary culture seems to take the form of an opinion piece: You read the first paragraph—sometimes you just read the title—and you don’t have to continue, because you know exactly what is going to be said. Everything is broken down into points of view, positions on a curve. If you’re off the curve, or if you pay no attention to the curve, no one seems to know how to understand you.

In 1996, I went to a wonderful wedding at a castle in Germany. I’d never met the lovely woman sitting beside me, so I decided to introduce myself by showing her the pubic hairs on my index finger. I then explained the bits about the skin graft from my groin to my hand.

“Oh,” she replied. “I too have such a thing.”

She extended a mangled hand with patches of curly, blond hair. I accepted.

We held hands; it was extraordinarily lovely.

I got a reply from Louise when I checked my email his afternoon, and this is what she said.

David,

You’re sicker then I ever imagined. Is this your idea of fun?

Sales reps will appreciate that they can now filter their accounts on the Account Screen. What this means is that you can now select a rep name from the new drop down combo box on the Accounts toolbar and only that rep’s accounts will appear as you go from one account to the next using the navigational arrows.

I’m going toasting tonight, but thanks for thinking of me.

Louise

I told her there there’s much of a difference; that’s why I made a piece called Dada Dead in 1994. Dada’s one of the few flavors of art that still feels good after it’s dead.

When Steve told me he bought a box of Monte Christo cigars, I suggested he smoke one at Toxic Waste Park. And so that’s where we met this afternoon. (I’m sorry, but since Toxic Waste Park is one of the few undiscovered San Francisco beaches, I can’t provide any coordinates.)

I invited Steve to Toxic Waste Park for two reasons. First, Toxic Waste Park is one of the very few places in San Francisco where one can smoke a cigar without breaking any known law. Second, and most importantly, I wanted to make a photograph of Steve’s cigar and my favorite San Francisco smokestack.

We enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon.

Gaak is a robot; it (s/he?) and eleven other robots are part of a “living robots” show at the Magna science center in Rotherham, England. The machines are part of an experiment in teaching robots to think for themselves. According to professor Noel Sharkey, the robots “have all learned a significant amount and are becoming more intelligent by the day.”

Perhaps too intelligent.

On Juneteenth, Gaak forced its way out of the laboratory, traveled down an access slope, out the science center’s main entrance, and into the parking lot. And that’s where Gaak ran into a distant relative, the automobile. Or, more accurately, the automobile foiled the escape when it ran into Gaak.

I think the researchers will regret teaching robots to think. Thinking doesn’t work.

Brett offered me dinner and drinks if I’d use my computer to correct the numbers in the receipt. I agreed to help him, but then went on to explain why computers are overrated, if not generally useless. I made two duplicates of the receipt on Brett’s copy machine, then used the scissors on my Swiss army knife to cut the numbers three and seven out of one sheet and pasted them on the other page. I then photocopied the collage, and presented Brett with a new receipt. Without taking my computer out of my bag.

Brett told me that he was embarrassed that he forgot about scissors and glue. I responded with a favorite cliché: when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.