Prompt Images
Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk.
The motion inside the clear plastic cube was transfixing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Each movement was mechanical, tight, and precise. Unlike the movement of people traversing the mall around me, in illogical and random, spontaneous patterns. Whims, even. But inside the box, thousands of little spurts were coming together. Not greater than, but exactly the sum of their parts. It was mesmerizing.
Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk.
Was I more gobstruck by how much was happening or how little was happening? Reds and whites and greens growing and morphing, spreading. I couldn’t stop watching even as my parents surely wanted to move on to something more in line with their shopping lists. But it would have taken an earthquake or a promised trip to Mrs. Fields to get me to give up the two foot by two foot linoleum mall tile of real estate I owned in front of this magical cart. Or at least one of those floor buffing machines that always seemed to be headed right for your toes.
Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk.
Now there were words, too. Letters, at least. Slowly forming like Ghostwriter messages, I would have thought, if 10 year old me knew much about analogies. I also didn’t know much about how things were made because I never got to see things before they were what they were. Maybe I wasn’t curious enough, but it didn’t dawn on me that everything I used, or ate, or wore was part of a process. And now here it was, in all its robotic glory.
Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk. Brup, brup, brup, brup, peeeeoonk.
The little arms danced for the small crowd, delivering thread in cardinal, rigid directions. Life, by 1000 needle piercings. It wasn’t exactly Wheel of Fortune but we waited for the puzzle to reveal itself. After 15 minutes, the machine shut off, abruptly, like a factory at the end of a long work day, vacated. There was a work of art before of my eyes.
My brain was stormed, occupied, and conquered by a series of needles and spools, attacking and retreating, bobbing and weaving.
A baseball cap read, “Boston Custom Ballcaps” and there was a picture of a ballcap, justified to the right of the words. Honestly, the cap was pretty ugly, if not completely lackluster. Seeing the genesis of a baseball cap, and understanding that civilization had created a way to customize a cap was a watershed moment for a kid who loved baseball caps and wouldn’t leave the house without one covering up his little brown curls.
Suddenly, I lived in a world where people could just write whatever they wanted on their clothes. Their favorite store, or sports team, or their own damn name. I’m not sure if I was more transformed knowing these powers existed, or having seen them in beautiful technicolor syndication.
Today, almost two and a half decades later, I can only barely believe I didn’t understand custom apparel. Moreover I can’t believe there was ever a version of me that was entirely transfixed in watching one thing happen for so long. I won’t even click into a YouTube video that says it’s more than four minutes long.
That day, there were no screens for me to check, no posts to miss, and no likes to count up, just life moving stitches at a time for a small crowd at a suburban mall. It was glorious.
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