You get to the restaurant, go back inside and suffer the embarrassment
of having to ask for the forgotten credit card. Then you have to stand there
uncomfortably as the manager explains loudly to the cashier how you have
forgotten your credit card, knowing that everyone in the place is looking
at you, making note of your face just in case they should ever run into
you again. Watching as the cashier, with an evil giggle, opens that secret
drawer all cashiers have where they keep all those lost Visa, Diners Club
and American Express cards.

The crushing humiliation of it. Two thousand-plus years of civilisation
down the drain. For the rest of your life you must endure the constant reminders
from people you once thought of as friends who will never let us forget,
that once . . . just once . . .you forgot your credit card at the Four Seasons.

But fear not, for from around the world comes a new invention to end
this blight on human progress. From Japan . . . the same people who brought
us the portable radio and headphones (which we didn’t even realise we needed
until they invented it, bringing new meaning into the lives of the world’s
joggers) and the inventors of insect-repellent treated pantihose . . . comes
the light-activated credit card.

The way it works: let’s say the next time you’re in Gucci’s and you
decide to get those three pairs of hand-sewn cowhide riding moccasins, and
you are short about $3000, simply take out your wallet and fearlessly remove
your credit card. As soon as the card is exposed to the light of day, or
even the soft indirect lighting they use in shops like this, your card will
begin to play music, alerting you that it is on the loose. After the transaction
has been completed just return it to your wallet and the recital stops.

The makers of this high-tech wonder claim that because of the music
you will not fail to remember to retrieve your card. What could be easier?
However, independent studies have shown that this is not quite the case.
What really happens is that the music is so annoying the cashier will return
it to you saying:

‘Please take your card. Don’t you dare leave it here!’ This is the hidden
breakthrough. It does not mean that this card will make it easier for the
owner to remember, but it will in fact allow the owner never ever to need
to remember. You may now forget with safety. You may be mindless without
embarrassment.

This is the latest in a new wave of mind-saving devices designed to
relieve us of all those niggling little things we have had to clutter our
minds with which have prevented us from addressing more important matters,
thus preventing us from achieving our fullest human potential.

I, for one, find mind-saving devices a godsend. I have a light-activated
credit card which plays ‘We’re in the Money’ each time I use it. I have
yet to forget it anywhere. I cannot remember the last time I forgot my keys
in the car, for an alarm goes off when I fail to remove them.

Many times while driving, I have been much too absorbed in thought to
notice that the sun had gone down. No problem, my car just turns the headlights
on for me. Then, when I arrive home and go in for the evening, the car shuts
them off for me. (Of course, this is a problem when I go out-of-town for
conventions and conferences and have to rent a car.) Who knows what I might
have been thinking about on the way home? Perhaps the solution to quantum
gravity. And to think the world might lose this great breakthrough because
I am fiddling around searching for the headlight switch.

I have a video machine that remembers to watch all those BBC science
documentaries on public television for me. I have a machine that remembers
to answer the telephone for me and then plays back the messages at a preassigned
time so I never have to remember that either. My mind is now free for more
important things . . . like cold fusion. I have a device attached to my
front door, so as I am going off to work in the morning and I open the door
to leave, a recording asks: ‘Did you take your umbrella?’ And when I return
home in the evening it asks: ‘Did you wipe your feet?’

One day, my sister asked if I would watch her four-year-old son for
the day. She gave me a little plastic chain which attached to my belt and
to his wrist. We spent the day at the Museum of Science and Industry and
I never once had to think about where the little terror was at any time.
This left my mind free for more important things.

I have a sprinkler system that remembers to water my lawn for me and
an electron notebook that remembers all my appointments and the addresses
of all my friends and associates. It also remembers my address, so I need
never bother about where I live. My mind is becoming more liberated every
day, freer to pursue more important things.

The Industrial Revolution saw the introduction of labour-saving devices
which freed us physically. Now that the liberation of the body has been
achieved, our new AI-driven era can now pursue the liberation of the brain,
freeing our minds for all those more important things . . . like . . . well,
I’m not sure. I’ll give it some thought tonight while I am in my sensory
deprivation tank.

Jim Buess is a technical bookseller in Los Angeles.

As artefacts go, I suppose calling this ‘historic’ does push credibility
a bit. But we don’t have a whole lot of historic sites in America. (Face
it, most of our forefathers came to this country to get away from their
history and start from scratch.) So if you are an archaeologist in America,
you take what you can get.

I find a great enjoyment in history myself . . . making me a bit of
a renegade. Living in Hollywood as I do, I pursue Hollywood History. On
weekends, I like to travel about the city and find those places where ‘things
happened’. I might spend a day standing on the site of D. W. Griffith’s
studio where he filmed Birth of a Nation and Intolerance (though today it
is the parking lot of an autoparts store). Or I might go into Beverly Hills
and see the house once owned by Clara Bow where, on the front lawn, she
used to ‘scrimmage’ with a local college football team. The people who live
there today have called the police upon seeing me scrutinising their house.

What history there was in Hollywood is rapidly fading, and what few
historic locations or buildings there may have been are quickly vanishing.
What little does remain is old and tired and crowded with tourists. A visit,
for example, to Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre becomes a trial of patience
as one has to fight throngs of tourists from all over the country and most
of the Pacific Rim, all wanting to see the famous bumpy pavement of footprints
in the cement of long-dead movie stars whose fame has long since been forgotten
along with their names. Having to dodge the rush of Japanese tour groups
being hustled through before they are shuttled off by bus to some other
‘historic’ place. And having to listen to teenagers ask ‘Who’s Sid?’ This
is not historic appreciation, but commercial tourism run amok.

I could no longer enjoy history in Hollywood. I had to get away. I decided
to take a trip to the ‘Old World’ and satisfy my hunger for the past with
more ancient and truly historic places. I called my travel agent and asked
him to pick out for me a number of points of historical interest outside
Los Angeles. The brochures arrived, I picked seven at random and was off.

First stop was France to visit the cave at Lascaux to see the famous
prehistoric cave paintings. I was familiar with these from all those public
television science documentaries I had seen. The bus brought my group to
the site and a guide explained how the caves had been constructed in 1985
for the public to view.

I was not sure what to make of this. I did not know 1985 was considered
prehistoric. It was not even pre-Beatles. The guide explained that the cave
we were entering was a replica and that the actual cave was closed to the
public because the paintings were very old and the curators were not sure
how much longer they would last. All the more reason, I said, to show them
to us now. He did assure us that the replica was absolutely authentic. I
asked how long they expected the replica to last. He said forever, and quickly
ushered us inside. I came thousands of miles to see a replica? I could have
stayed home and watched public television.

Next stop was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. With much reassurance
and little explanation my tour landed in Greece, where we were all taken
to a flower shop called Le Nouveau Babylon. I bought a fern.

Next stop was Italy. First to Rome and the Sistine Chapel: the cleaning
of the frescoes was just about completed, a point they were all very proud
to mention. Of course, they were no longer allowed to let anyone in to see
the frescoes, but we were all encouraged to visit the gift shop and buy
as many postcards as we could carry. I bought a book called The Sistine:
Before and After, and a bumper sticker for my car which read ‘I (almost)
saw the Sistine’.

We then moved on to Pisa where we were allowed to view the Leaning Tower
from the roof of an office building three streets’ walking away. . .through
a telescope. Seems all that walking about around the base of the tower was
unsettling the old thing. This was the closest they would let anybody get,
they explained, and then asked for donations to the Society for the Preservation
of the Tower so they might buy more powerful telescopes.

Another long plane flight and I was taken to Arizona in the American
Southwest to see the Grand Canyon. I went to the canyon at dawn on the hotel
tour bus. Through the bus window I could see the whole rim of the canyon
encircled with a fence. The bus stopped and we were all taken to a building
and shown a slide presentation of the canyon. I asked afterwards if we might
go outside and take a look for ourselves. I was told that this was not allowed.
Seems you let tourists get too close and the first thing they want to do
is throw a stone over the edge just to see how deep it really is. If enough
people did that, they explained, why the canyon would fill up in no time.

I next flew to Japan to see the ancient Imperial City of Kyoto which
I found out was in a warehouse in Tokyo . . . miniaturised.

The last stop was Orlando, in the state of Florida, to see the Disney/MGM
film studios. I had thought these were in Hollywood, but with corporate
takeovers what they are, I was not surprised to find them there. I was told
that this was a brand new studio/theme park where visitors can tour back
lots and see special stage shows and pretend they are in Hollywood. Oh yes,
they even occasionally make a movie there.

But what impressed me the most was to find, there in the centre of this
park inFlorida, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre . . . bumpy pavement, forgotten
footprints and all. It was much nicer than the one in Hollywood and certainly
newer. Yet I still found it crowded with site-seers, and tour groups and
teenagers asking ‘Who’s Sid?’.

There is something to be said for preserving our historical/archaeological
environment, but I wonder just what we are saving it for. For future generations
of tourists or the current generation of archaeologists? All I know is,
in Hollywood I did not have to pay admission to see the Chinese Theatre.
I am sure that will soon change.

Jim Buess is a technical bookseller from Los Angeles.