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1---
2title: Instrumented
3subtitle: a collage
4genre: prose
5
6id: collage-instrument
7toc: "Instrumented: a collage"
8
9project:
10 title: Autocento of the breakfast table
11 class: autocento
12...
13
14[`tr`][] has been a part of the Unix toolset since the late 70s.
15Short for translate or transliterate, `tr` takes two strings as arguments, and replaces incidences of the first with the second while reading a byte stream.
16It also supports ranges of characters, in formats such as `A-Z` as well as the POSIX-compliant `[:alpha:]`.
17Although [`sed`][] has more options and features, for a quick search-and-replace, `tr` is more than sufficient.
18
19The [wind blows hard up here][]---far harder than anywhere else I've been.
20I wonder, at times, if it might [pick me up like an angel][] and carry me into the night.
21
22The secret to truly great [rolls is mayonnaise][].
23Although I have received looks of disgust at this assertion, I think the explanation is enough to expel doubt: mayonnaise includes the fat, cream and egg content rolls need to be any good, plus in mayonnaise they come premeasured and perfectly blended, which makes for incredibly easy and delicious rolls.
24After I explain myself, the looks of disgust usually remain.
25
26My mother used to make me mayonnaise rolls, and hers will always be the best.
27I had a teacher in college who explained xenophobia as "Mother's cooking is best."
28
29One of my favorite fictional theories is the [Shoe Event Horizon][], an economic truth which states that as a society progresses, shoe stores become more and more prevalent.
30The demand for shoes raises slowly, almost imperceptibly, causing shoe manufacturers to make more and cheaper shoes.
31This begins a vicious cycle during which more and more shoes are made, more and more cheaply, causing more shoes to be bought, and thus made, until finally the society reaches the Shoe Event Horizon.
32This is the point at which it becomes economically impossible for any stores but shoe stores to exist.
33After the economy collapses, the society's people invariably turn [into birds][], never to touch ground again.
34
35***
36
37[`awk`][] is often used as a command-line stream-editing tool, but it is actually an entire interpreted language.
38It supports multiple variables and logical structuring, and has been the inspiration for [Perl][], which has largely replaced it.
39It was originally written in 1977, but over the years has evolved, with multiple implementations made for different uses.
40
41The best shoes I ever owned were Franco Fortinis, a brand I have yet to find anywhere else.
42Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed the shoes, like in stories where the protagonist buys a powerful object from a mysterious store and try to return it after it backfires in some tragic way, only to find the spot where the store stood is an empty lot, or worse, a [blank brick wall][].
43
44After having moved to Arizona, I fear I will forget what rain is like.
45I don't think it's sandbags falling on the body, and I believe it is cold.
46I think _Daredevil_, that piss of a film, has endeared itself to me forever with its depiction of rain.
47
48Recent studies have proven eyewitness testimony to be utterly unreliable.
49It turns out that memory is not a record set down on the tablet of the brain, but rather a series of impressions, emotions, and physical states that changes even with access.
50One of my students is having a hard time finding arguments in favor of the use of eyewitness testimony for a paper.
51This is how obvious the workings of memory are.
52
53And yet.
54[Without our memory we are nothing][].
55Memory is the tether to the floor of the ocean of our past, the ocean is our collective subconscious, which we float on, on the inner tube of individual perception, slathering on the suntan lotion of our prejudices, wearing the sunglasses of self-deception, all underneath the sun of technology.
56The seagulls of death circle slowly, calling to each other the call of their society, secret in its machinations.
57
58My father told me that once, when swimming, a rip tide pulled him far out to sea.
59He said it was impossible to tell until it was too late.
60The shore simply receded too slowly.
61He never told me how he made it back, but I imagine him, bearded, beached, coughing up saltwater: a new shipwrecked victim.
62
63***
64
65[`grep`][] is a basic search tool for UNIX-based systems.
66It has a robust syntax, though I've had trouble remembering the regex nuances between it, `sed`'s, and `perl`'s.
67There is a POSIX standard, but no one follows standards.
68
69My mother loves Annie Dillard.
70She always talks about the praying mantis egg case scene: Dillard could never find a praying mantis egg case, until she finally saw one by accident.
71After that, she saw them everywhere.
72
73My mother showed me an egg case once.
74I haven't seen one since.
75
76My friend Steven has over three hundred pairs of shoes.
77He tells me his goal is eventually to obtain a calendar of shoes, and wear a different one each day of the year.
78He doesn't include the forty days of Lent, however.
79[He goes barefoot those forty days][].
80
81[`tr`]: http://man.cx/tr
82[`sed`]: http://man.cx/sed
83[wind blows hard up here]: cold-wind.html
84[pick me up like an angel]: lappel-du-vide.html
85[rolls is mayonnaise]: riptide_memory.html
86[Shoe Event Horizon]: http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2015/02/mailvox-marxism-and-shoe-event-horizon.html
87[into birds]: statements-frag.html
88[`awk`]: http://man.cx/awk
89[Perl]: http://www.perl.org/
90[blank brick wall]: building.html
91[Without our memory we are nothing]: early.html
92[`grep`]: http://man.cx/grep
93[He goes barefoot those forty days]: leg.html