Kiss my Asimov

It was the summer of 1975 and in the small New Mexican town of Santa Fe, two very important events were on a collision course with each other. Events that would forever change the cultural make-up of our universe. One was happening somewhere in a seminal pool and the other was being written out onto paper as a work of science fiction. One would go on to become one of Isac Asimov's collection of short stories and the other would turn out to be me. OK, Maybe only one of these events would have any bearing on culture. But, Isac Asimov would end up having a pretty good run as well. As long as I can remember my mother used to tell me a story about my birth. She had said that because I was the first baby born in December, that Isac Asimov had dedicated a signed copy of one of his books to the local public library in my name. I can't say which one it was because it always seemed to change. Sometimes it was "I Robot," other times it was one of the "Foundation" series. The constant changing of the book, being the first baby born in December on the 14th and the fact that a lifelong New Yorker would dedicate a book to a child in some small town in the middle of the desert never quite reinforced the validity of her tale.
I think it was her way of getting me to take an interest in reading. I am guessing her logic was that if I felt some sort of connection with a particular author I would be more inclined to delve into their work. It was no coincidence I guess that she decided to choose an author that in his lifetime would publish more than 390 books. Maybe she just smoked a lot of Marijuana. Whatever the reason I love her for it anyway. I did grow up feeling some kind of embryonic connection with Asimov and with science fiction in general. I loved science fiction not only for its futuristic vision of the world but also enjoyed it for it capacity to explain and experiment with relatively complicated ideas. The caring for our Global environment and survival, the future of energy, the future of the human species and how we reproduce and alter ourselves, our technological devices and their effects on our culture, the clash of ancient tradition and the changing reality, these are all ideas that have created a conversation about where we are headed and what possible futures await us depending on our current action or inaction. It's a shame that it's a conversation that has been confined to the pages of a peripheral literary sub-genre.



This is a video where asimov is speaking about the future of learning and basically predicts the internet.



An exhibit I would have loved to see in London.