2007-02-08: Pricetag of the Future
by Emily
New Yorker magazine is hosting a conference on visions of the near future on May 6 and 7 in Chelsea, Manhattan, NY. They are throwing a huge bash, with artists, writers, scientists and business people such as Malcolm Gladwell, Connie Bruck and Michael Specter, to give people a bird's eye view on what's coming soon to town and country near you.
Joshua, this is so for you. They even use Shock:-orange for the lettering in their advert. But holy cramoly, the price tag! $1,200 cold cash gets you in for the two-nights-one-day event, not including accomodations. The thing is, J., you should totally be on staff or presenting, not just being a rambling around dude.
I wish I had the spare money to go. (Yeah, right.) These things are never right, hence the "IN THE FUTURE" kitsch movies from the fifties and seventies, but they are so fun. Looking forward gives one an insight into the present. It would be great to be a fly on the wall for it.
2007-02-08 16:38:22 Emily
Really what should happen is Joshua and Luke should go with Shock: and Burning Empires and break into the haute couture literary scene.
I'd pay $1,200 to see that!
2007-02-08 18:02:29 Julia
Why is so expensive? Are they using future prices of goods and services?
It sounds fun, though.
2007-02-08 21:33:54 NinJ
Ha ha ha! They're even using DIN Alternate, the same font I used in Shock:!
Copycats.
You'd think that for $1200 they'd be more forthcoming with info about who's gonna be there.
My guess is that it will be the same crowd: Ray Kurtzweil, Bruce Sterling, maybe Nicholas Negroponte. These are people I can email. I read their blogs. A $1200 conference in Manhattan is so 20th century, my eyes have rolled all the way back around again.
2007-02-09 13:26:37 Emily
A $1200 conference in Manhattan is so 20th century, my eyes have rolled all the way back around again.
Ha! As I said, so wrong.
Yes, I think they are must be using FUTURE prices. Dinner will be $3750 for a burrito and it will be $50 for a bottle of water.
2007-02-09 15:14:15 NinJ
I think you've got those prices reversed.
2007-02-09 15:46:09 Meguey
Yeah, in the modern age of internet, this seems really over-priced, unless they are handing out personal solar-powered jet-packs as spiff.
2007-02-09 17:19:23 Julia
Nah, jetpacks are soooo... Jetsons.
A $1200 conference on the future must have some kind of mental or otherwise invasive (by our 21st century standards) probing. Maybe they have some kind of futuristic communication devices that they had to import from the future using time machines, and you tap into the conference with a special brain modem, using the latest futuristic firewire technology. Hopefully the $1200 includes the 5 or 6 sessions of 21st century psychotherapy the participants will need once they've been futuristically probed.
And that $50 bottled water is really tap water from melted glaciers.
Sorry, I didn't drink enough tea this morning—or maybe too much. I'm feeling punchy. :-)
2007-02-09 21:00:51 Emily
Maybe they have some kind of futuristic communication devices that they had to import from the future using time machines, and you tap into the conference with a special brain modem, using the latest futuristic firewire technology.
Invasive communication, eh? : )I bet it would be wireless brainspam. Wetware dataports into your brain seem somehow quaint now. As though you'll actually need a *wire* to connect your meatnet with the aetheweb. And the fricking Matrix only came out in 1999.
Oh, yeah, that's 8 years ago now...
Also, AI valet parked aircars. Nanotechnology wet-naps.
Solar-powered jet packs seem future to me, but then I know someone who went flying a couple weeks ago. No—really: personally floating in the air. She and her partner went to a site where they have air jets blowing upwards in room that are strong enough to float the human body. She described "learning how to fly" and it sounded like dreams I've had. If someone who is already flying gives you a hand up, it helps you get the lift off the ground: a la Peter Pan.
Maybe they'll have that instead of an escalator?
2007-02-11 15:25:16 Julia
Yes, but with all of that (above), is it really a $1200 conference? Maybe it's an insurance policy thing.
2007-02-13 18:00:43 blankshield
It's a fundraising tax. They're saying "if you care enough about the future to spend $1200 buck to hear about it, we'll take that $1200 and (after paying for this shindig) invest it into trying to make the stuff we talk about happen. Same deal (basically) as management training or personal empowerment seminars or political diners. Or maybe they'll invest it in new cars for the Board Members. Who knows?
Basically, it's "trust us with a crapload of money!"
(not that I'm saying anything that you don't already all know...)
James