Posthuman Blues

I've got this weird ability to mentally project my surroundings into an unspecified near-future perspective. It's most pronounced while viewing scenery from a moving car, when I'm taking in lots of landscape. I have a cinematic imagination that's constantly panning and zooming behind my forehead, rendering the "present" into something more like a premonition. Nothing is exempt; landmarks, vehicles and buildings can abruptly seem brooding and post-apocalyptic. Apparently my brain has a deep, secret need to occasionally see the world in a desolate, depopulated context -- something like the ruinous city explored by Bruce Willis' character in "12 Monkeys."

On a more overt, conscious level, I dig entropy. I tend to gawk at abandoned movie theaters, neglected, fissured parting lots, seedy roadside motels, derelict buildings with shattered windows. I'm strangely attuned to the colors and hues that signify decay. I marvel at crumbling industrial sites and blighted factories with the zeal of an archaeologist. There's a perverse magic to these places, a palpable sense of the otherworldly.

CDs in my stereo:

"Outside" David Bowie
"Under the Pink" Tori Amos
"Paris" The Cure
"Remain in Light" Talking Heads
"The House Carpenter's Daughter" Natalie Merchant