It’s all moving so fast.

The world’s always changing. I seem to be getting older, like, almost every day now. My daughter’s baby clothes don’t fit her any more now that she’s in high school. Zoom. Zip.

We are SO CLOSE TO THE FUTURE. Cars talk and can drive themselves, but they don’t fly quite yet, and that’s “The Future” benchmark: the second a Volvo leaves the pavement we will be knee-deep in The Future, full stop.

Well, not full stop, that’s the point; the modern world is an endlessly flowing event horizon, constantly churning like a temporal Niagra Falls, brutally battering the present with newer and newer new stuff, some of it seemingly beyond imagination.

Which is impossible, of course, since imagination is all that exists beyond what is currently known, so anything beyond it is still technically it.

And it’s the “currently” that’s exciting to me, because that means that something imagined now might actually be known in the future. That’s why Walt Disney froze his head (allegedly), although we can’t ask him that directly.

Yet.

A few days ago, the good people at Apple updated some software. They sent out a casual email announcing that now their earpieces – already impressive for mysteriously staying seated in the ear without glue, tape, or velcro – can instantly translate spoken French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. Instantly.

Like a fish.

Not a REAL fish, a BABEL FISH, the invention of a science fiction author about 45 years ago. Douglas Adams’ sprawling adventure titled “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” solved a fictional problem of direct communication between all creatures with the invention of tiny fish that, when Inserted into the ear, translates any form of language for its host. Did I want one? Yes. Did I try to stick a fish in my ear? No, I was a dreamer, not a maniac - but some other dreamers took it upon themselves to make this actually happen, and here we are in a world where I can at last enjoy the intricate torture of Vogon poetry.

Now, living in NYC I hear a great deal of languages every day, and I can’t understand them, but I don’t really need to, as those people aren’t speaking to me. I’m not planning on traveling anywhere very soon and most of the films I want to see that aren’t in English have been subtitled. It occurs to me now, on the day that this dream is a reality, that the second more important part of the dream was the traveling through space and meeting interesting creatures to talk to part.

This is like getting a fancy cup holder without a car. As a companion piece, I need a more adventurous lifestyle, or a multi-national Zoom call, or a quest that sends me deep into Queens to negotiate a mysterious treaty of some kind. Communication has never hinged on just what is possible, but is mostly rooted in what is necessary.

A few years ago someone released an app that said it could translate the speech patterns of dogs and cats… it did not sell well. It was obvious that the inventor of the app did not own a pet, as most people already understood the phrases “I’m hungry” and “I want to go outside” in both Modern Dog and Traditional Cat, and “I love you” was just as easily interpreted. We didn’t need that technology.

Now the new “babel fish” tech is going to be incredibly useful eventually, but just as its fictional counterpart it may cause as many arguments than it resolves. I’m still going to try it, just to see it work, but if I don’t sound appropriately excited, it’s because I’ve been disappointed by new communications tech once before.

The MEGO Star Trek Communicators were plastic walkie talkies in light blue with the logo of the Federation of Planets on the flip up cover. We had a one present budget for birthdays every year, and my mother found them at K-Mart and put them on lay-away. I opened the package and went bananas. I could already hold my fingers in the “live long and prosper” Spock position, so I was all set.

I stood at the very front of our little apartment while my mom made her way to the back room. 60 feet seemed miles away since we couldn’t see one another. So exciting.

“Hey Mama! Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” my mother replied. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes!” This was amazing. There was this moment of wonder, looking at the little box in my hand.

Then we both realized that we didn’t have much more information to share at the moment. My mother prompted me with a question.

“What does it look like out the front window?”

Newly inspired, I investigated. “There are a few cars parked on the street and …”

“zzkzkzzzkzkzkzkk!! uh, what’s your 20?”

It was not my mother’s voice.

“Heading South, good buddy! Hitting that stop on the I-70.”

This, also, was not my mother’s voice. For a moment I thought we had actually dialed in to a passing star cruiser.

“Checking out that new lot lizard?”

“Well, let me tell ya -“ and then came a pretty steady stream of some really high quality profanity. My mother rushed from the back of the apartment to the front to wash my mouth out with all the soap that had ever been produced in the world, but found me slack jawed looking at the toy, not saying a word, while authentic trucker lexicon boomed from both our units.

And back to K-Mart they went. She was given a full refund. She wasn’t the only one who had returned them.

Now I have a cell phone. It is, technically, cooler than the Star Trek communicator because it has pictures and plays games and all that. It’s great, really. Very very cool. I love it.

To be clear, i am absolutely not holding a 50 year torch for some basic toy with a frequency mishap. But a great lesson was learned on that birthday, incorporating what we want versus what we really want, the power of communication versus the right to privacy, language and culture, and what grown-ups really say when kids aren’t listening.

The next weekend, and this is absolutely true, my mother and I made a “tin can telephone” with taut string stretched through the apartment, which was just as fun (even though we could see each other). We told each other jokes… they worked great, were very affordable, and did not include the risk of random vulgarity from passing strangers.

I drew a Federation of Planets logo on each of the cans in permanent marker, and we honestly couldn’t tell the difference.

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