There’s a lot of weird going on right now.
Not that on any given day of any month in any decade or generation there isn’t, but for some reason I’m tuned in and see it.
It started with the report that snow is being shipped to Anchorage for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod. That goes against every stereotype I stand for. I hope my friends down south don’t get wind of it, or I will totally lose some of my Alaska cred. Anchorage has to outsource snow for a sled dog race. Crazy.
Speaking of losing credibility, I haven’t fished for steelhead in months. There’s a creek I’ve fished, but it’s not a bona fide steelhead creek and it was little more than casual casting. Insanity, I know. What have I been doing with my life, right?
I don’t feel like life has been unentertaining, it just simply hasn’t involved the pull of a steelie.
Speaking of entertainment. I don’t like virtual reality. I don’t even like 3-D. Why do I need to feel like a ship in Star Wars is aimed at my head? Better yet, why does someone on a roller coaster at Six Flags in California need to also be wearing virtual reality goggles so he or she can feel like they are playing quidditch with Harry Potter? I do wonder if they could offer a fish version, so I could feel like I’m a king salmon reeling off line from some jerk who put a hook through a piece of herring. I’d be down for that, but it would be super weird and pretty ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous, Donald Trump might become president. (There is no smooth transition from that.)
In no other time in human history have we been more advanced and with more resources at our disposal than in our current second. It’s weird to think that the next Einstein or business titan is applying their intellectual ability to create the most innovative face swap on SnapChat while giggling like Beavis.
By the way, face swap is horrible. Just horrible. And weird. And yeah, pretty funny.
What would people who thought that taking a picture was stealing your soul think of switching faces with someone else, in a picture?
What happens when the first generation of college students who had cell phone cameras and social media become the next wave of politicians? What will “surface” then? Will we care? Will we accept that people aren’t perfect and forgive? Or will it just lead to the further erosion of decency and accountability?
It’s weird what we spend our time discovering, and what we ask about.
When I Google “When was the last time…” the top three searches that fill in my untyped silence are “…Duke basketball was unranked,” “…the Panthers went to the Super Bowl,” and “…it snowed in Egypt.”
Apparently in 2013 it snowed in Cairo.
It makes you wonder if things are as weird as they seem, or we just have better coverage of the odd, horrifying and otherwise newsworthy.
• Jeff Lund is a teacher and freelance writer based in Ketchikan.
