Twenty-three years ago. Rather harsh letter from Mum upset that I wasn't communicating/calling her more from the town that I was teaching in in Hungary. My response? To explain the process of placing a phone call:
No need for that hour and a half trip -- everyone and their mother in Budapest has a mobile phone. Hungarians can no more look up from their phones than Americans can, resulting in many bumps and bocsánats (sorrys).
The Intercontinental is even more formidable. There is now no centrally located large TV turned to CNN as the George Bush Senior Gulf War rages. There is no state operator placing calls and listening in and reporting. Now the NSA has taken on that role, thank you very much. All in the name of watching us through data and metadata. I take perverse enjoyment in the fact that by blogging the words NSA, CIA and metadata that I have wasted a blink of a nanosecond of time of some juggernaut of mad programming (these days the creators of such things are probably signing some pretty serious non-disclosure agreements).
Metadata and Me
I am a blip of little import in metadata, however, once again I will be "randomly selected" at Newark Airport for a free escorted trip downstairs to the oubliette. They will separate each of us-- the German tourists, the sad young Iraqi man who makes the mistake of not admitting that his mommy packed his luggage thus making suspect all the sauces and spices and comestibles in large jars in his suitcases.
I will stand up to stretch and be told to sit down. I will ask how much longer and will I miss my flight. I will smile and turn to the Germans and wink as I say "Willkommen in Amerika".
I will single handedly waste so many resources and so many people's time because I typed words that made a flag go up in all that metadata.
The guy who monitors the cameras as they look for micro-expressions indicating the nervous and therefore suspicious;
the guard sitting at six o'clock behind us;
the guy who pulls my luggage out of the carousel and puzzled, must read my poems placed where he cannot miss them as he opens the suitcase;
the man who calls each of us up in an unfathomable order and after an eternity of waiting to talk to an official; the superiors sitting in offices behind the one way smoky glass in that large room; the waiting watchers and their unsmiling, unflinching grimness,
I will have a smile for all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
- Dress warm and exit flat. Walk 1.1 km and get ticket for the HÉV.
- Ride HÉV about 45 minutes to Örs vezér tere
- Walk a bit to the Metro. Can't remember how far. Few minutes plus time to buy ticket.
- Change Metro 2 to the classic Metro 1. Deák tér to Vörösmarty tér. OK OK, sometimes I just walked from Deák tér but I couldn't resist that old beautiful yellow line Metro.
- Walk to the hotel that is now the Intercontinental.
- Maneuver past the gatekeepers and the concierge. Try to look like I belonged there.
- Wait in line at the international phone call operator's desk.
- Fill out a form stating the phone number.
- Operator stared hard and you wonder if she is about to go back with the Russian Army to Moscow.
- Operator places call.
- Operator tells you to go wait in a booth.
- Operator connects the call. The best damned line in BP.
- "Hello, Mom!" Mother complains about how rarely you call.
- Phone clicks constantly due either o the conflict between the urge to listen to this potential enemy of the people and the last few Soviet soldiers' urge to steal the last few copper wires for use at home.
- Call ends. Return to the phone call lady and pay her for the call.
- Walk past the concierge and gatekeepers.
- Repeat as necessary.
No need for that hour and a half trip -- everyone and their mother in Budapest has a mobile phone. Hungarians can no more look up from their phones than Americans can, resulting in many bumps and bocsánats (sorrys).
The Intercontinental is even more formidable. There is now no centrally located large TV turned to CNN as the George Bush Senior Gulf War rages. There is no state operator placing calls and listening in and reporting. Now the NSA has taken on that role, thank you very much. All in the name of watching us through data and metadata. I take perverse enjoyment in the fact that by blogging the words NSA, CIA and metadata that I have wasted a blink of a nanosecond of time of some juggernaut of mad programming (these days the creators of such things are probably signing some pretty serious non-disclosure agreements).
Metadata and Me
I am a blip of little import in metadata, however, once again I will be "randomly selected" at Newark Airport for a free escorted trip downstairs to the oubliette. They will separate each of us-- the German tourists, the sad young Iraqi man who makes the mistake of not admitting that his mommy packed his luggage thus making suspect all the sauces and spices and comestibles in large jars in his suitcases.
I will stand up to stretch and be told to sit down. I will ask how much longer and will I miss my flight. I will smile and turn to the Germans and wink as I say "Willkommen in Amerika".
I will single handedly waste so many resources and so many people's time because I typed words that made a flag go up in all that metadata.
The guy who monitors the cameras as they look for micro-expressions indicating the nervous and therefore suspicious;
the guard sitting at six o'clock behind us;
the guy who pulls my luggage out of the carousel and puzzled, must read my poems placed where he cannot miss them as he opens the suitcase;
the man who calls each of us up in an unfathomable order and after an eternity of waiting to talk to an official; the superiors sitting in offices behind the one way smoky glass in that large room; the waiting watchers and their unsmiling, unflinching grimness,
I will have a smile for all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
No comments:
Post a Comment