In the meantime please join me on Twitter. I won’t link directly to my feed since I still try to keep my personal and professional web presences separate, but if you know my full name, I’m pretty easy to find.

Also, if you remember Ultima or Wizardry or any of those old 80s / 90s tile-based RPGs fondly, go see Basilisk Games and get a copy of Eschalon, Book 1, available for Mac, Linux and Windows. Lots of fun. Nice work, Thomas, thank you; looking foward to Book 2.

Here’s one I made:

Never mind the War On Terror – apparently the hot new thing is the War On Kids.

In other news, Obama spent Father’s Day speaking to an African-American group in Chicago about how far too many fathers have failed their children and abandoned their responsibilities. No kidding, Barack. Let’s take that message on the road.

Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides—pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.

“No one sees the barn,” he said finally.

A long silence followed.

“Once you’ve seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.”

He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.

We’re not here to capture an image, we’re here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies.”

There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.

“Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We’ve agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism.”

Another silence ensued.

“They are taking pictures of taking pictures,” he said.

He did not speak for a while. We listened to the incessant clicking of shutter release buttons, the rustling crank of levers that advanced the film.