Gothic Computers

My apologies! I usually try to write a blog post every workday (and answer comments the day…or at least the week…that you all leave them), however, unfortunately my poor computer became overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of the modern world and died unexpectedly.  It was one of those classic heartbreaking electronic death scenes: I was watching the emotional climax of a movie on Netflix when suddenly there was a loud diminishing power-down noise (poink! BZZzzzzfffft) and the image collapsed into a jagged phosphorescent line and suddenly my only computer was as dead as bipartisan compromise in America.

It is shocking how much is on a computer.  I don’t just use it to write and communicate with friends around the world.  It is also my graphic resource, my stereo, my document archive, my financial records, and my cookbook.  Let this tale serve as a cautionary reminder to back things up on those cheap little portable hard drives!

Anyway, thanks to a heroic intercession by my friend the IT manager (who swooped in like Apollo on a cloud in French Neoclassical theatre) I am back in business with no lasting harm done.  The whole scary episode has led me to reflect on the central place of computers in our lives…and yet they are all utilitarian gray and black boxes.   If I designed a computer, it would look like a glowing ball of energy in a bell jar suspended on cabriolet legs—not like a flat screen connected to a miniature metal utility shed. I wondered if somebody had spent some time to jazz up computers with gothic stylings (a favorite aesthetic of mine) and I found these images which I have used to illustrate this post.  These are so cool!  Why can’t we have prettier computers?  People of the future are going to look at our metal rectangles and conclude that we were primitives….although I guess if one’s fancy computer that looks like a Gothic cathedral just suddenly died it would be even more crushing than otherwise.

Anyway, i am sorry for the blog interruption.  I will try to answer everyone’s excellent comments tomorrow!  In the mean time, it’s good to be back on the internet!