Okay, Dan, now you're starting to scare me.
Oh, no. There's nothing scary here, Jolly Roger. I mean, no animals are hurt or anything? And if you're uncomfortable or whatever, you don't have to join in. But someday?
Yeah?
Someday we plan to make little chimeras.
Chimera?
Little like fairytale creatures? One of Snow White's seven dwarfs, say. An angel. A miniature Loch Ness monster for your bathtub? Stuff like that. They won't be alive or anything? They'll sort of be like stuffed animals, only built out of real skin instead of cloth.
Won't the skin go bad?
We treat it with a polymer. It'll basically last forever.
You're an aesthetic pioneer of the flesh.
I don't know. I mean, actually, this whole thing's a pretty old idea.
From back in the days when we thought science fiction was merely a literary genre?
You ever hear of FM-2030?
A radio station?
A futurist. His real name was Fereidoun M. Esfandiary? He was the son of this Iranian diplomat. He taught at the New School in the sixties and wrote a book called Are You a Transhuman? He said he was really a twenty-first-century person who just happened to be born in 1930. He called himself temporally challenged? He always talked about how he had this tremendous nostalgia for the future. That's where he got his name. He said he wanted to live to be a hundred years old so he could see the year 2030, which he thought would represent this like huge breakthrough moment.
Things just get interestinger and interestinger.
FM argued that we're all transhumans, really. As in transitory humans? In the sense that we're all always evolving? Not figuratively. Literally. Every species is an intermediary species. Meaning humans are just these always-already mutations waiting to happen. Except most of us don't want to think about stuff like that too hard? We don't want to contemplate the consequences of being in-process organisms?
So we're back to your Greek river, only made of soft tissue.
Why settle for being who you were born as? Why settle for being the person you were ten minutes ago?
Thanks for your report from the epidermal front, Dan from Seattle.
Hey, we all love your show up here. We tell everyone we meet to listen.
Well, you've certainly given us plenty to keep us awake tonight. Keep us posted, Dan, all right? Let us know when the lights have changed. Let us know when it's time to cross the street………
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May
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Hello?
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Hello?
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Testing… one… two… three.
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Testing.
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Okay, it looks like we're ready to go here.
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This is Doctor Park Dietz. Today's date is Monday, May 22, 1995. The time is, uh, the time is 9:51 a.m. This will be a taped conversation with the last name of Tager, T-A-G-E-R, first of William, W-I–L-L–I-A-M. Date of birth: November 9, 1947.
WT. That is incorrect.
WT. Okay, Bill. We'll get to that in a sec. What I've done here is I've turned on the recorder so I can tape our conversation because, you know, I'm not the best note taker in the world. This morning I'd like to return to some things we were talking about last fall, if that's all right with you.
WT. Fine.
PD. Okay, uh… Can you speak up just a little bit? I'm…
WT. Sure.
PD. Good. That's good. Okay. So I want to go back to the conversations we were having about October 4, 1986. You were on, what was it, 86th Street, right? At a little before 11:00 p.m.?
WT. That is correct.
PD. And you were, you know, you saw somebody. A man you recognized.
WT. We already did this part.
PD. I apologize, Bill. I'm not the, you know, the sharpest tool in the shed. I just want to understand what happened. So, okay, you saw this man you recognized, right?
WT. Yes.
PD. And you said you thought he was…?
WT. I didn't think. I knew. Everybody knows.
PD. Why don't you go ahead and tell me — just for the record.
WT. Burrows. Kenneth Burrows.
PD. And what did you do when you saw the man you thought was Kenneth Burrows?
WT. I needed to get the code.
PD. And how did you go about doing that?
WT. I followed him.
PD. Where did he go?
WT. He went into this pizza parlor.
PD. And what happened?
WT. He ordered a slice of pepperoni. A slice of pepperoni and a Coke. I ordered a slice, too. Cheese. I didn't order anything to drink because I wasn't thirsty. He sat at the window.
PD. And where did you sit?
WT. I sat in the back.
PD. To watch him?
WT. To keep him under surveillance. Yes. Only I pretended not to because his brainwaves were arriving and everything.
PD. What do you mean when you say: His brainwaves were arriving and everything?
WT. They were coming in at me.
PD. What did it feel like to you?
WT. It felt like tinfoil sparkling inside my head.
PD. And how long would you, uh, how long would you estimate you remained in the pizza parlor?
WT. I don't know.
PD. You waited until he was done.
WT. Yes.
PD. Maybe ten minutes? Twenty?
WT. Something like that.
PD. What sort of thoughts were you having at the time?
WT. None.
PD. Your mind was blank?
WT. I was observing.
PD. What did this man you recognized… what did he do next?
WT. He got up. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, chucked everything into the trashcan by the door. Then he said thanks to the guys behind the counter and left. I followed.
PD. Was the pizza parlor crowded at that time of night?
WT. There was maybe another couple of people.
PD. Had you thought in any way at that point that you might want to hurt him?
WT. The Vice President?
PD. Had you pictured it?
WT. Why would anyone picture hurting the V. P.?
PD. Then tell me what was going through your head. Explain what you were thinking to me.
WT. I was thinking about asking him for the code. That was pretty much it. He was walking fast. I had to jog to catch up with him. It seemed like the faster I went, the faster he went.
PD. That's when things began changing for you?
WT. He knew I was coming. He should've stopped.