What a bizarre and terrifying world we live in. Last Friday I got e-mails from the principals of my kids’ schools to tell me that everything was proceeding normally and that we were not to believe the Internet rumors suggesting that violence was going to break out at schools all across the country. I hadn’t heard the rumors. I’m glad of that, and it’s times like these when I think that social media is overall more harmful than it is good.
Speaking of terrifying, Omicron. I’m so focused on being safe while I’m out of the house that it is shocking to me to see people behaving in unsafe ways. While I was out shopping yesterday, I was so surprised by the first maskless person that I saw that I opened my mouth to say something. But I restrained myself, and only spoke to him in my mind, where I said to him, “What the @^#% is wrong with you?” I know that he couldn’t have read my thoughts, but I hope that somehow my eyes conveyed the message loudly and with special emphasis on the swear. There is no excuse for being maskless right now. I understand that this whole Omicron thing might turn out to be just hype, but when the future rolls around, I’d rather be laughing over how we overreacted than crying over how we didn’t do enough. Anyone not wearing a mask is an idiot.
It’s so weird when the present day finally catches up with the fictional future. This year we moved ahead of Johnny Mnemonic (released in 1995, set at the beginning of 2021). Next year, we’ll go beyond the time of Soylent Green (released in 1973, set in 2022). In both movies, the corporations are in control. It’s a common theme in science fiction, but we never seem to do anything in real life to reduce the power of corporations or keep them from abusing their power. So I guess we’ll just keep cranking out “futuristic” movies that are really about what’s happening today. Later we’ll watch them with mixed feelings of humor and horror–humor over the things they got wrong or that are sorely dated, horror over the things they got right and that still ring true.