Mona Lisa North Shore Drive

As we headed up the North Shore's Scenic Highway I couldn't help but think of William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive, my introduction to cyberpunk back in the late 80's. (Hence the title of this blog post.) The main character is Mona, a girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is on a collision course with internationally famous Sense/Net star Angie Mitchell. In Gibson's world you go places you don't expect, with threads that unwind, sprawl and eventually return you to your own main storyline. And so it goes...

Sunday afternoon I took part in a Mona Lisa photo shoot featuring Ramona M in front of the lens, under shooter Dan Pugleasa's adept direction. As in Gibson's thrill-ride there's an international character in the story, and ours was Umm-e-Kulsoom, a young woman here in the States as part of a July exchange program involving journalists from Pakistan.

Umme from Pakistan played a role in the saga.

There are some people who will rush off and do an adventure with less thought then they would give to crossing the street. I used to be that way. Because I’ve become less inclined to impulsiveness over the years, perhaps making me a little stale, I accepted this invitation to tag along and write about this Mona Lisa photo shoot, Ramona Marozas modeling the iconic subject who appears in DaVinci's painting. Dan Pugleasa -- Less Traveled Photography -- believed he'd found the perfect location. As in brick-and-mortar retail selling, photographers also have a "location, location, location" mantra running through their heads.

The scene he envisioned turned out to be a secluded point where the Sucker River spills languidly into Lake Superior just North of the New Scenic Cafe. The privately owned waterfront property welcomed us warmly, as did its owner who was giving his dog a workout by flinging a toy out into the lake at regular intervals. As it turns out, he himself had been to Pakistan in recent years on international business.

Warm, but not yet mysterious.

After a short exchange, Dan, Umme and our Mona Lisa scoped out setting, selected a backdrop and proceeded to get down to business. It was something of a play in three acts. In the first act, Dan focused on capturing the Mona Lisa reproduction. Mona had come dressed for the part, wearing a crown of flowers. She had clearly been practicing "the look" and getting the hands lined up right, fingers laced over the wrist just so. The DaVinci Mona Lisa did not have one of her hands decorated with Henna, but no matter. It was not a detraction.

It was apparent Ramona had been working on how to capture the mystery in her expression. It was as if she were disengaging herself from herself on the inside, becoming removed from herself as it were, the grey-blue eyes becoming distant, perhaps lost in time while Pugleasa's camera clicked and snapped.

The second act took place in the lake itself, as both cameraman and model became immersed out by an outcropping of rock thirty yards from the shore. Act three involved our Pakistani guest who with great enthusiasm took control of the camera, directing her subject into various postures and positions.

Lining up the money shot.

After a timeless interlude, the four of us hiked back through the forest and up the trail to the car, soon heading back into town. As in William Gibson's story, the Mona Lisa will be jacked into cyberspace... to be enjoyed by fans in her new iteration.

Here are a few of the shots that were captured... each a story.

As long as we're being capricious, whimsical and wry, we might as well close out with a poem about that chimerical smile and the look mirrored in her eye. 

Mona Lisa Smile

She has a mysterious smile

Folks wonder what it means
It’s been written in the text books
And envisioned in some dreams

Nat King Cole crooned a song
About Mona Lisa’s smile
Folks have wondered curiously
And studied her awhile

Did she smile because of love?
That wistful little grin
A thought perhaps in her mind
As she remembered him?

Did her face appear in a dream
Her talented artist had one night?
Or was it, in fact, the face of the man
Who sketched his own mirrored sight?

Of course no one will ever know
The true story of the smile
But it’s great fun, don’t you think?
For she truly could beguile!
Marilyn Lott

EdNote: For the record, only the three high caliber photos at the end are Dan's. I can only take credit for the inferior work that precedes it.

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Picture of the Day

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Mixed Media

Check out more of my paintings, drawings and inventions here at
The Many Faces of Ennyman  

CyberLink • Version 4.0

SHORT STORY MONDAY

"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other." ~C.P. Snow

Today's story is another incomplete nub of an idea from my files. The original was developed in the mid-1990's, long before the Matrix series of films, but after the emergence of the World Wide Web. I was influenced, in part, by William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive. Like the story Golem Terrorists of two weeks ago, it is but a beginning, a setup. Based on the reference to the slumping economy, I must have updated a few details in a re-write possibly around 2002 or so.

CyberLink • Version 4.0

From its inception, the WEB Interlock Corp. sparked headlines. A front page story in the Wall Street Journal announced the departure of West, Ellison and Bierce from Microsoft in August ’98. Cover stories in the computer mags filled in the details. Cutting edge software was the name of the game. The charismatic William West masterminded the coup, knowing fully the attention WEB Interlock would gain by combining Rath Ellison’s visionary technosis with the hyper-psychic creativity of Mason Bierce.

WEB Interlock became the first to develop a primitive form of the Hyperlock Central Series. Hyperlock Central gave users a direct eyegate capability via the patch refractory system, allowing Game Players direct graphics capabilities without the use of a terminal. Photos of the introverted Bierce and a cosmic looking Ellison appeared on the covers of Newsweek, TIME, and a half dozen other consumer magazines. William West had likewise become a fixture in the news.
Then the troubles began. It was the usual conflict between marketing and R&D. A slumping economy after the turn of the century and overly aggressive marketing goals brought internal strife to the company, with discordant accusations focusing chiefly on the reluctance, or inability, of Ellison and Bierce to bring new products to the marketplace in a timely manner.

Ellison’s concerns for safety and proper testing of the dynamic new technologies were perpetually dismissed by West.

“We’re missing opportunities! We’re losing ground!” the red-faced West shouted at his twin development heads. He ignored the rising popularity of such games as DaggerBlade and FlexoSpike, knowing that for WEB, innovative pioneer technologies were all that mattered. His fame required this single narcotic.

Ellison felt betrayed by the accusations. No one could say for certain what Bierce was thinking.

Then the unthinkable happened. A Korean company released its NerveLink program, a patchcord device that enabled a direct spinal linkup with the Net. The total package included a variety of games as well as business and military applications. While the programs and games were uniquely Korean, every other NerveLink capability was identical to research designs Bierce had been developing for more than a decade. Two weeks later, Mason Bierce packed his brain with enough chemicals to eliminate all of pre-history and died of a cerebral implosion.

The effect on Rath Ellison was this: while he remained an active and visionary force in the direction of WEB Interlock’s R & D efforts, he adopted a passive aggressive posture in regards to interdepartmental politicking. If the company wished to damage its long-term credibility by rushing products to the market and taking absurd, unnecessary risks, Ellison after stating his position but once would retreat to permanent silence. “The spirit of Bierce is in control here,” he observed in one of his more lucid moments. “W.E.B Interlock has determined to self-destruct.”

Ready or not, by the end of the year Ellison gave West what he wanted. The ultimate, as far as technology was concerned. "It's called BioShell Dropout," Ellison said.
It promised even more than NerveLink. It enabled user's to drop themselves into the Matrix. There were certain problems in the initial phase of development. Users who dropped out of their bodies often never came back, lost in Cyberspace. As luck should have it, the key to success proved to be found in the mythological story of Theseus, who entered the labyrinth to kill the Minotaur, and returned, saved by Ariadne's thread. The missing ingredient, for which W.E.B. Interlock immediately purchased universal Patent and Trademark Rights, was a product called "Ariadne's Thread."

All would have been well, but for the ten to fifteen guinea pigs who had been dropped into the Matrix and left for dead. Disembodied entities, conscious minds in Cyberspace, eager to return to the flesh and bloodness of the living, but locked out -- or locked in, depending on your point of view. Nine of these banded together to form a dark constellation of terror within the Net, wreaking havoc and performing all kinds of villainy until it be possible to gain their release. [The others who disappeared in the Net were never heard from again, and for this reason it is unknown exactly how many there originally were. The Nine we know because they identified themselves as The Desperadoes of Orion and released their names via obituaries which were repeatedly dropped into e-mail slots in all the major newspapers, with entirely fake life histories, addresses, etc, but the same names... Over and over again they kept up this charade of dying.]

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

A small collection of original stories which I have penned can be found here at my personal website.