Dopamine

Bella Postcard: a new (ish) series of micro blogs. A (very) random ‘best of the web’ in under 250 words.

Yesterday someone posted ‘remember these polling booths are sometimes used as primary schools’. Certainly the speed of political activity (if not actual change) is bewildering. If you can put your phone down for long enough get along to the Traverse for Stef Smith’s The Girl in the Machine which reflects on speed, stress and ‘a world that’s falling part’ – and our need for the dopamine hit of technology, or is it network?

Speed and obedience is also a theme of ‘Future Present’ Bram E Gieben’s flash fiction:

“Your watch is singing a melancholy song. You are late for work again. The cubicle calls dully from the cortex farm, awaiting the insertion of your skull into the shimmering global network of brain-meat for rent. You are an empty lot, a hollow shell, a transistor awaiting current in a vast network of batteries. You are defined by what you consume. Your attention is currency.”

Check also Ciaran Mac’s new album ‘Rainy Daze’ with the seminal track ‘Gimme a second’ leading the way…

& while we’re in the neurotransmitter-mood tune in to Music Boy’s ‘Junky Serenade’ which includes tracks by Gil Scott Heron, Aphex Twin, Goblin, and William S Burroughs.