This reminds me, I had a dream last night or this morning that I was in the city, east village somewhere, helping put together an art exhibit...mine I think, but also a benefit of some sort, and I lost my purse and had no money to travel about except what was in my pockets. Which meant I could take a subway to a friends and beg to borrow money until I got a new bankcard, or go to the bank and try to withdraw money from my account without proof of self. I was also aware that I'd probably left my purse in a taxi....and could use my pocket change to call the taxi people to find my purse and the identity it contained. What a set of choices? I only had enough money to do one of these things. In the back of mind was the memory that this had happed three times in the recent past.
Odd dream, oddly true- isn't it? Yesterday my world got a little jolt when I received confirmation that I will receive a HEAP grant from New York State to help pay for my fuel oil. It's a great thing. And saving $650 in fuel oil means I can readjust expenses or more likely pay bills as yet unpaid...but like the woman with the lost purse of my dream....I think I have an opportunity to buy only one thing with the change in my pocket. I must make a smart choice — what is best for my future financial security and my peace of mind (which often can not be measured in dollasr).
I want desperately to buy an iPad....I want to buy one even more now that Steve Jobs is ill again or more ill than he has been in months past. I want to show support for Apple and for the group who has, in a great part, given me the prosperity that I enjoy today ( even in my lesser and older reality) and have enjoyed since stumbling into their path or visa verso.
If I had to choose between the factors that had the biggest and more significant and best influences on my life....I've thought about this....who would I choose if I had to choose one individual.
I'm afraid my choice of most significant mentor is not either parent, not my husband with whom I travelled the globe and began my adult(ish) life, any of my art professors who set me on a course of study and life, any of my other professors or teachers who opened my eyes and mind or allowed me to decide.."geez - this is crap" and move in another direction, or any of my few bosses who paid me to do the things I loved to do.....or any of my animals who I dearly loved and considered always the members of my multi-species family, or my many colleagues and friends who shared vision, silliness, laughs, stress and ideas with me over the years when knowledge was power......nope...it has got to be Steve Jobs who shared a future with me. His vision was my future, my entire professional and overlapping life which spread into every crevice of my being. And like someone once said — a future is not a gift — it's an accomplishment.
I met Steve Jobs once at Siggraph — the computer graphic conference...the conference I went to on behalf of the little ad agency (KNVB) I worked for who used Macintosh's before anyone else — to find a subtle partner with whom we could create a meshing bit of software to link the Apple platform to the black box platforms of the computers that could already create 3-D and real graphic work (much before Macintosh could do it.) Why didn't Gordon and Carl - my bosses make the plunge? It was a measly $20k investment and they would have reaped an even larger piece of a NYC advertising and publishing pie they already had a nice sized wedge of while creating a spicey piece of computer design history. Who knows.
Anyhow I met Steve Jobs in a small group of men standing at the display in some 3-D modeling booth...maybe it was Pixar...I think Steve Jobs was still absorbed in his NEXT platform (after being tossed by Apple in 1987 in their single most stupid coup of the decade). In hindsight I imagine Steve Jobs was being courted by Pixar or maybe he'd already signed on. For me this Steve Jobs encounter was like standing next to Zeus.....or Cary Grant. (in my mind). I just looked up and there he was. I admit I was slightly thunderstruck to be on the same planet with the guy and awestruck to be in the same space with the guy and frozen in place to think I was sharing oxygen with the guy . That event and a 3-D animation done by the "Late night crew" at Disney (predecessor to Pixar) were the highlights of my conference....well that and going to Disneyland via monorail ...being photographed with Mickey Mouse (maybe that was another conference...) wasn't bad either.
Anyhow I am being to mourn the loss in fear of the loss of Steve Jobs.....of a visionary that has deeply influenced all of our lives (even years and years before I was smart enough to buy Apple stock)...even all you non-Apple platform folks. Your PC platform was always simply a catch-up reproduction of what Steve had already created.
Is there any other single person living who has influenced so positively as many multi-generations of people in as many markets (as in continents) as Steve Jobs? Maybe FDR did the same sort of thing in the USA, maybe Ghandi in India, Mao in China? Steve Jobs with a little help from his friends.... has influenced the greater part of planet Earth's human population.
He's reassured us that we live in a visual world... have you seen the design of the new China Apple Store? It's a sculpture in arhitectural curved glass with a giant platinum apple logo suspended in a 3 story cylinder of space.
Or the design of the new Nano and it's great logo?
Or the iPad? And it's literally snappy tv commercials? With an open screen dripping in droplets on a machine which would seize if actually wet. Odd but very interesting and a "thou shall covet" thing. Boy do I covet...Doth thou covet too?
Or even the logo of the iPod Touch...with the five colored fingerprints. Beautifully designed bits...the things and their graphics....yum yum. perfect.
For years I have used my Macintosh computers to earn my keep. But for the past couple of years...my iPod Touch has become a dream machine...an article of pure bliss. I love my iPod. Stick it in my jeans and it goes with me whereever I go. I log on when ever, where ever....I see hardly any reason to open a laptop anymore. I draw with my finger on the iPod touch screen.....Of course I can't design on an iPod touch but I am sure I will not need to hold my breath very long until I can use an iPad for just about any design thing I'd need to do. Soon, very soon this will be true.
I think I should buy an iPad now and not wait; use my HEAP grant savings to make the plunge. Ergo, weird dream. I am at the vortex of a Tipping Point.
Good vibes to Steve Jobs. Thank you Steve...thank you, thank you, thank you. Stay tuned Steve.*
* really subtle itunes pun.
SOGO 2 DESIGN
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