SPIN Special Issue on the Future
(November '95)
My touristic adventure in paper publishing is now complete. But I was already
spoiled by the web, where it is never too late to revise, and space allocation
doesn't feel like such a straight jacket.
Here, then is what paper kept me from doing:
Topspin (The Editorial)
Check it out here. I decided to attempt an
ambitious editorial in a very small space. Here's
a further elaboration of the ideas expressed in the piece, as well as
links for further exploration.
Saving Squirrels from the Vatican's attempt to convert Extraterrestrials
I was so amazed that this story was true! It's the sort of thing that a
satiric novelist couldn't come up with.
I proposed an illustration based on this sketch of what an alien might make
of the Vatican's efforts.
How on Earth (NOT) are aliens supposed to understand Jesus? I thought they
might get confused and think a suirrelish version of themselves had been
crucified. We didn't run this art because it turned out there already was
ANOTHER crucifix image in the essays section.
Yes, it's true (as stated
at the end of the squirrel essay) that I've developed an obsession with
giant squid. Here are some squidlinks to follow.
As if the tattoo image was not controversial enough as it is, I almost
included another challenging image in SPIN. Here is the caption that might
have been:
Computer-assisted surgical tools are being developed that will make it easier
to plan imaginative body changes. It will also be safer and easier someday
to perform surgery using computerized instruments. Is it possible that plastic
surgery will become a folk art? First would come a period of severe extremity.
A new generation might reject the male and female genders and the genitals
that come with them. They would invent new genitals that fit together in
startling ways, perhaps in threes.
After this shocking period, self-surgery might become subtle. The body's
form will be a vision of the spirit of the soul. Some people will start
looking more like animals or aliens. Some will shock or disturb, but many
will seek an honest form of who they most truly are.
And here's my sketch: 
And here are the instructions that I sent to the Photoshop artist who was
alienating a model:
It is important that when the reader sees the image that it looks like a
real person who started out normal and then had surgery. The eyeballs should
stay the same size, for instance, because that cannot be changed surgically.
Along the same lines, it would be great to do something subtle with the
hands and feet, but the bone lengths shouldn't change. The hands and feet
should still appear to be functional.
A tail might be nice with this pose. It turns out that people are sometimes,
though very rarely, born with tails naturally, and there is a nerve bundle
waiting to be activated to control a tail- so a real, working tail could
be built surgically out of some of the spare muscles and tendons in the
leg and connected to this nerve bundle.
Go back to Jaron's
home page.