Podcast #18: Virginia Heffernan — Magic, Loss, and Mercy-killing Horses
Podcast #18: Virginia Heffernan — Magic, Loss, and Mercy-killing Horses
Aesthetics and digital technology: this week Paul and Rich talk to writer Virginia Heffernan about her new book, Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art. The conversation covers Buddhism, Angry Birds (my babies), The 4-Hour Workweek, nuclear war, ancient philosophy, Bay Ridge, and wild horses. Like all the best technology podcasts, it includes both numerous references to Jony Ive and a good amount of Latin.
Virginia: You got the feeling that antiseptic Apple was just, like, people are revolting. Like they just are.
Paul: Jony Ive thinks people are just horrible.
Virginia: Yeah.
Paul: Because you have to like, scrub down to go into the design lab.
Virginia: Yeah.
Paul: Like I bet there’s like a, like a pumice stone that they take to your entire body before you can touch a single headphone.
Virginia: Just get back to that time where you were just tripping out in college and wondering what else is out there, before you buttoned up. Because our late-night sessions on the internet do not look rational. Look at those autofill Google searches. It’s like, “Why am I so lonely?” “Does God hate me.” The questions are not, like, “How tall is the Empire State Building?”
Virginia: I mean, it’s amazing to see these videos of wild horses, I’ve got to say.
Paul: What do you learn about wild horses?
Virginia: Well one of them was this pack —
Paul: Do you just watch them? Do you just watch them run off into the —
Virginia: I’m going to make myself cry. No, they live in, they travel in these packs in Montana, and in one case there’s a single mom, like her…what are they, her boyfriend person has like, run out on her, and she’s got a little foal. So another guy tries to come to help her, and he, like, becomes the step-dad. But here’s the thing: the kid is, like, can’t really get to his feet. The horse is having trouble getting to his feet. So the alpha male of the whole thing comes over and, in a flash, puts him out of his misery. He kills it. How does a horse kill a foal? It picks him up and smashes him to the ground. And there’s like, the stepfather and the mother are like, in mourning very briefly, and then they recover. It is…Paul, you have tears in your eyes.
Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Coordination, research, and management by Elizabeth Minkel, who also prepared the summary of this episode. Production and editing by Tom Meyers. Podcast logo and design by Matt Quintanilla of Postlight. We record with Paul Ruest at Argot Studios. Listen to more episodes here.
