All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Yesterday it was too windy to fly a drone and the wind switched offshore so fast even Surfline’s live cams and two reports a day couldn’t keep up. Despite the automation, new learners, 24-hour surf surveillance and students ditching Zoom class, I found the rare window to surf perfectly groomed waves alone for some time. I have a wettie rash and tanline to prove it. The cold Santa Ana wind smeared cirrus clouds with cumulus clouds and made great plumes of thick mist off the back of still solid NW swell creating California beachbreak bliss, also known as: “closeouts with hope.” The perfect afternoon aperitif following four straight weeks of surf it’d be unnecessary to describe with any word more creative than pumping.
Oh, and hi, how are you? Happy new year, new administration, new strain, etc. 2021.
We busied ourselves the last few months producing content with others in this gig/pandemic economy and some of it turned out pretty cool. Did you watch the 50 Heaviest Moments in Pipe Masters History? That was us. What about “Following” over on Red Bull TV? That was us too. Got a few more to come before we shift gears and begin preparation for a future with less stay at home orders, less unemployment, less food to-go and more margaritas in naugahyde booths, more sweaty rock shows and more travel to foreign lands. We’re ready, you’re ready, time to get dressed for that ball.
You see, our aim with Inherent Bummer has always been delivering the unexpected — friends telling friends as opposed to settling for Zuckerberg’s recommendations. And that is still our aim moving forward. But while we accept that we can’t change the modern condition — the mechanization of everything, compounded by the pandemic — we refuse to submit entirely to Oculus experiences and the Amazon reign forest. In other words: we’re reemerging to blast your customized algorithm with some acid jazz from nowhere because nobody else will do it. Life needs beautiful mistakes and who better to make them than us.
It’s not the end of the world and we’re still here: Inherent Bummer 2021 starts now. —Travis Ferré
[Above photo: Taken from Adam Curtis’ 2011 Documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, inspired by the Richard Brautigan poem of the same name (below)]
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
By Richard Brautigan
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
