The Brand Gap

Products made these days

In a Newsweek article commemorating the 20th anniversary of the original Mac, Steven Levy wrote:

Even now for its 25 million users, the Macintosh is a source of passion. (Journalists know that a disparaging word about an iMac or a PowerBook will unleash a hundred flames from rabid Apple-heads.) Steve Jobs thinks he knows why. "In the modern world there aren’t a lot of products where the people who make them love them. How many products are made that way these days?"

If that’s so, then why is the Mac market share, even after Apple’s recent revival, sputtering at a measly 5 percent? Jobs has a theory about that, too. Once a company devises a great product, he says, it has a monopoly in that realm, and concentrates less on innovation than protecting its turf. “The Mac User-Interface was a 10-year monopoly,” says Jobs. “Who ended up running the company? Sales guys. At the critical juncture in the late ’80s, when they should have gone for market share, they went for profits. They made obscene profits for several years. And their products became mediocre. And then their monopoly ended with Windows 95. They behaved like a monopoly, and it came back to bite them, which always happens.”

Laboratory of the Universal Particular

philosophy + spacetime. quality + tea. push + boundaries. containers + emotions. meticulous + neon. introduction + sleep. hindsight + semiotics. foreground + needs. scratch + thermocol. needs + windshield. 73 + alien. spine + instead. etc.

I am Naught

I am not this.
I am not not-this.
I am not any of what remains.
I am not what i am.

If you ask me

Am i being lived ? This is a playground.
Do we really create ? Objects. Images. or Thoughts.
Do i choose to think what i think ? They have a life of their own.
What is really important ? Everything is because nothing is.
Is there a pattern out there ? Purpose is meaning.
Can there be a theory of everything ? What has no opposites doesn't exist.
Lonely planet ? Third rock. In circles.
What is peripheral vision ? Similarly directionless and mundane.
Where is my mind ? Pixies. Fight Club.
Is language enough ? Try otherwise.
Detour ? Welcome.

I cannot do everything

I am only one
but still I am one.
I cannot do everything
but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything
i will not refuse to do
the something that I can do.

~ Edward Everett Hale

Breathe

its my attention span, i think.
the reason i cant seem to get by things in peace.
and i never arrive at some tranquil palace with rock gardens.
but i need that baroque room with heavy oak doors,
that wont let in, or let out, even a whisper.
i need curtains, thick as tar.
at least for the next few hours. i need space to breathe.
or time maybe.

slam the door. be the lotus. white elephant.
close both the eyes. open the third.
the lake in Lumbini.
red-brown bricks. a site of excavation.
freeze. try not to let things associate with memories.
quick, try and find an object to focus on.
MDR-P180 Stereo Headphones.
Oh no. not wired for sound again.
the the the the the, the spoon! will do.
focus on the spoon.

the passage of time.

after a while its darkness. the spoon. it alighted.
first blue. then orange. then a semi ochre yellow and then green.
a pulsating shape. pulsating without strain.
then a monochromatic black. but blurred.

the passage of time.

flashes. of thought without movement. and a lot of speed.
sudden landing. opening. light. day.
fade in. a paved brick road.
noise. fish market in thailand. its drizzling.
and at the end of the road, an ice cream shop.
ice cream cones carved in elaborate persian motifs.

fade out. evening. almost amsterdam. by the sea.
i am reflected in a tall tilted structure of steel and glass.
reflecting the setting sun. tilting towards me. a building thats a bridge.
crossing over to some island town.
car wheels screaching above my head.

the passage of time.

this road goes nowhere. never been on a road that goes nowhere.
but this is how it would probably seem.
its the trees that give it away. those tall shiny swaying trees.
those trees by the road with green leather leaves.
i keep walking but nothing changes. nothing moves.
not in any direction. i keep on till i can see no more.

the passage of time.
i feel raw power. to move earth wind and water into charted territories.
the kind of power that is a real boiling potential of destruction.
the feeling doesn't last. it goes as soon as it comes.
all orifices duct-taped, leaving no room to converse.

cannot feel the passage of time. i look up.
blocks of lead falling from up? above? sky?
they just come to being whenever i look at them.
movable type. letterpress blocks.
they might be saying something.
they are definitely alpha-numeric roman alphabets.
but i cant relate to them in sequence.
even though they make perfect sense, each on its own.
dissolve.

senseless. a large auditorium. a large aquarium.
no fishes. everbody is waiting for the play to begin.
eventually it does. doesnt seem like much drama.
neither much costume. but its intense.
fishes swimming in the aquarium.
in a packed auditorium. curtains.

passage of time.
passage of an unknown amount of time.

my attention span is shrinking.
or maybe the scarcity of it coming back into being.

it doesnt seem too unreal. all of this.
i could spend a lifetime, not knowing where i am.
only if i didnt try to find out where i am.
but the thought itself, ripples up the darkness,
shattering the silence. pause.
where am i? i ask. i think. whichever.

eyes jerk open.
silence shuts down.
i look around.
i look at my self.
my bio-chemical casing.
my teeth are clenched.
my vertebra stiff.
all my limbs are numb.
i realise i should be breathing, properly.