e-friends

by Bob on April 25, 2007

E-friends are a very strange phenomenon indeed. At the fast click of a mouse button, one becomes an e-friend, or gets forever expunged as an e-friend on a whim. That's very different than real life. Even with hanging up on someone by telephone. There's still a link. Usually mutual friends, a phone number, a city, town, a village or neighborhood where one physically meets others, even spurned neighbors.

But in the e-village, that accountability doesn't exist. Reality as we know it there becomes unto a remote control channel clicker on a TV or similar device. Just expunge the programme from one's immediate consciousness. That makes it hard for TV scriptwriters, producers, and others. If one only gives, whilst surfing channels, a programme -- about ten seconds of attention to decide to watch more or click away -- well that's a hard bargain.

And in the e-village, it's even more strained than that. And no one is really quite sure who is on the other side of the computer screen. So a kind of interpersonal delirium comes into play without the real physical contact or more regular communication. One of my friends wrote that one of here e-friends wrote her a real paper letter in the mail. It might have stunned most people in the e-village to have reality hit. Of course, in my friend's case, she had to give out her home address to her e-friend. That's a very hard decision to make because it might be very tricky and also because it would seem to violate the rules of e-delerium and facelessness. And faces and photos on a page may not really reflect the real person either. So we are left in an emotional and irrational quagmire.

But we're human, after all. So we saunter around the e-village, meeting people, and wondering if they are to be real or kept as aethereal.

It's a philosophical Solipsist's dream come true.

Touchy-feely reality may be on the way out. Way way out. I should hope not, but only seemingly neo-Luddites are fighting to keep it. McLuhan did say that the medium would become the message. One opines that facelessness is a real problem in the e-village and it looks like it is here to stay. For now. The day the music died -- from the brilliant 1971 protractedly long song by Don McLean called "American Pie".

Facelessness and true-emotion-less.

One is reminded of the brilliant surrealistic 1928 painting by Rene Magritte, "The Lovers". And one thinks of the concept of non-reality based and foundationless e-friends. Still one is tempted by the illusion. That's the human condition.

* * *

Postscript:

Then, memory being tripped by all this, one is reminded of Magritte's stern warning in his 1928 painting, "The Treachery of Images", with its famous ostensibly perplexing caption "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe"). Everything in the e-village is thusly explained. It's not a pipe. It's a picture of a pipe. You can't smoke it. You can't hold it. It is ethereal. A profoundly embarrassing distinction which Magritte knew well and with which he presaged our modern times. Almost like someone's being famous for being famous.

And yet again, one is reminded of the 1984 song by Murray Head, entitled "One Night in Bangkok" which was used in the musical "Chess". The lyrics tell us something. At least they hint at something important. The "ultimate test of cerebral fitness". And it re-cants that there's not much difference between despair and ecstasy. Although it's all about the game of chess. Or is it ? Chess was modeled on life itself -- or so it was frequently written. In fact most games are the quintessence of the human experience. Many began in temples as a spiritual device for holy men. The game Snakes and Ladders has a fascinating history in this context. But let us get back to Murray Head and his brilliant song. One listens attentively. It's a bit of a morality play. And relevant to the e-village.

* * * *

One Night in Bangkok

Bangkok, Oriental setting

And the city don't know that the city is getting

The creme de la creme of the chess world in a

Show with everything but Yul Brynner

Time flies -- doesn't seem a minute

Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it

All change -- don't you know that when you

Play at this level there's no ordinary venue

It's Iceland -- or the Philippines -- or Hastings -- or -- or this place!

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster

The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free

You'll find a god in every golden cloister

And if you're lucky then the god's a she

I can feel an angel sliding up to me

One town's very like another

When your head's down over your pieces, brother

It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity

To be looking at the board, not looking at the city

Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town --

Tea, girls, warm and sweet

Some are set up in the Somerset Maugham suite

Get Thai'd! You're talking to a tourist

Whose every move's among the purest

I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble

Not much between despair and ecstasy

One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble

Can't be too careful with your company

I can feel the devil walking next to me

Siam's gonna be the witness

To the ultimate test of cerebral fitness

This grips me more than would a

Muddy old river or reclining Buddha

And thank God I'm only watching the game -- controlling it --

I don't see you guys rating

The kind of mate I'm contemplating

I'd let you watch, I would invite you

But the queens we use would not excite you

So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage parlours --