A sample in a jar

[the scene.. a long haired, thinnish, geekish boy, who looks like he is stuck in the 80s, carrying a suitcase and a laptop case, walking slowly through the streets of a city]

Phish [Sample In a jar]: (playing in background)

It’s hidden far away
But some day I may tell
The tale of mental tangle
when into your world I fell

Without you now I wander, soaking,
secretly afraid
But in your grasp, the fears don’t last,
though some of them have stayed

I wheeled around because I didn’t hear what you had said
and saw you dancing with elihu up on limo’s bed
and I was foggy, rather groggy, you helped me to my car
the mind that melts enclosing me,
a sample in a jar

[Switch image to a black and white shot, stock footage, white caption at bottom, ‘Bell labs invents the transistor’ and the date (1954?)]

Now the market stands unfolding
with all the willies and their wares
I shuffle by, alert but numb,
to all the glances and the glares
I think of you unheeding all the times I raised my cup
it’s now I know that you knew that I’d soon end up
(end up?)

[Image shifts to stock footage of semiconductor/IC fab facility. Caption [‘Atmel corperation introduces minaturized low power nonvolitile memory (1994)’]]

[Image shifts to page of X10 ads. Caption ‘X10 begins aggressive marketing campaign for miniturized CCD cameras, at first marketing their product to voyuers’ (1999)]

[Image shifts to split screen between dog and active transponder equipment next to a penny [active transponder is much, much smaller] ‘The first active transponders are inserted into living flesh commercially, to identify pets (2000)]

[Image shifts to monolithic IC next to penny [‘Atmel dataflash replaces the hard disk drive with smaller, lower power consumption nonvolitile memory. A device capable of recording 8 hours of video will now operate off a single battery for several months. (2005)]

[Image shifts back to person walking down the street, then change depth of feild focus to small box on light post person has just passed, then change to pixellated image of walking person to imply pickup by that box]

[image shifts to person watching a video on a laptop in a car (on a realplayer screen), cell phone obviously connected to computer. Caption: ‘High speed internet, capable of video transmission, is available to consumers over the digital cell phone network. (2006)]

[image shifts to small PCB that is obviously camera [has lens] powered off a single double-A battery – ‘Corperations begin using active transponders to track their employees, combined with a distributed video camera network that records their actions, wherever they are, 24 hours a day. Evidence gathered this way is determined to be legal in court (2007)’]

[Image shifts to MiniSoft logo, then to easy drop down menus for setting up security system. Caption ‘Minisoft sells software and partners with hardware manufactorers to sell security software to perform this operation to corperations that can be set up by nontechnical employees (2008)’]

[music transitions to ‘Welcome To My Mind’ (hard, hard techno), series of flashes of factory where thousands of these boxes are produced, then to older man talking on cell phone (we hear clearly through the music ‘He knows!’, then to image of person walking down street on screen, then to police car with lights flashing, then to flashing alteration between kid at keyboard in dark room and scope screen showing data pulse]

[Return to software, mouse pointer select ‘Corrective Actions’, then ‘Minor Discomfort’ (other options include a greyed-out ‘Terminate’). Caption ‘Minisoft develops implants capable of delivering corrective stimulation to nerves, to encourage productivity of employees.’ then scrolls up and the next caption appears ‘At first, this technology is outlawed in the united states but used in fabrication plants in China’. Scrolls again ‘However, after a major economic collapse, this technique is legalized in the US (2018)’]

[Return to person walking down street. Person sees police car round the corner, tires squealing – person gets paniced look [at the same time as the lyric ‘dying in a world of new devices’], grabs something from a pocket and slaps it on the back of another individual.]

[Shot of clear glass office door, wording says human resources. Inside are HR person with white coat and person in suit. Person in suit has one arm bare, and HR person is injecting something into it with a syringe. Caption ‘A standerd requirement of employment becomes the implanting of tracking device, which also can monitor the levels of alchohol and THC in the bloodstream. (2024)’]

[Return to shot of street, but this time pixellated and focusing on person that previous individual slapped patch on the back of. Police are placing cuffs on this person and herding him, roughly, into a police cruiser]

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Anyone read this far? Anyone narritively hooked and want to hear the rest of the story? Pls comment. 😉

S.

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