Steve Jobs joins Adolf Eichmann in a glass booth
10/12/2005Apple is opening a store at the General Motors building in New York City. News reports indicate that it will have a huge 32 foot glass cube entrance. One of the sticking points in negotiating the lease was that Steve Jobs wants to take the glass entrance with him at the expiration of the lease. He got his wish. This led me to wonder, "Why does Steve Jobs want a glass booth?"
I think we can be fairly sure the need for a glass booth is not to preserve a corporate asset. The decision to build it and to "take it home" is probably driven by the CEO. Perhaps, like the Walton family of Wal-Mart, he wants to build a billion dollar compound to protect himself from terrorist attacks. A glass booth could come in handy when hiding in an undisclosed location. Who knows what the world political situation will be at the end of the lease in twenty years? Did Dick Cheney give Steve some tips on the design of hidden bunkers? This strikes me as unlikely. Steve is not driven by the same paranoia as our elected leaders.
Maybe Apple will bring back the failed Cube design, and the glass entrance will serve as the podium to launch its resurrection? I always liked The Cube, and if I had one I wouldn't have been so anal as to complain about the appearance of a crack in the acrylic. But you know how some people are; everyone is a perfectionist, like Steve himself. This seems equally unlikely, the Mini is already the Cube reborn.
Perhaps Apple wants to build a supercomputer within the glass cube, launching a new epoch in computer technology transparency. Will the MacOS go open source? Since tanks were necessary to guard the original G4 when it was released, I am guessing that reason is unlikely, too. A company that recently harassed a blogger for revealing its marketing plans will not be an advocate for transparency anytime soon.
The Times said "The transparent structure, made entirely of glass, will usher visitors to what is rumored to become Apple Computer's most elegant flagship retail store to date. Additionally, the plaza at the base of the GM building will be completely re-landscaped. Two pools will flank the cube, surrounded by movable chairs, tables, planters and a half-dozen honey locust trees."
Hmmm. Running water is a sign of opulence. What do two pools signify? The honey locust tree reminds me of John the Baptist. Is that what the pools are for? Will we all be baptized into the cult of MacIntosh before entering the lower level? Ironically, the honey locust tree also grows long flat pods, so there will be pods both inside and outside of the store. The honey locust is also susceptible to webworms (I kid you not.) Let's hope a webworm virus doesn't spread to the computers inside.
Maybe Steve has the idea of turning the glass cube into a permanent memorial to himself. Will it be a future mausoleum? Like Star Trek's Spock being launched in a pod, maybe Steve plans to upload a nano-pod coffin surrounded by the glass to The Mothership. I guess black or white coloring is the big question for this genesis project.
The Russians are finally debating about what to do with Lenin's bones. It seems there is a growing revisionist movement that sees Lenin as a megalomaniac and not as their savior. I think they should leave Lenin lying in state where he is, but they should cut the power to the building and leave him to rot like a Pharaoh. He sits in a glass box, too. It reminds me a lot of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (see photo)
It was Adolf Eichmann, however, that is burned into my consciousness as "the man in the glass booth." Eichmann was a mechanical engineering student and dropped out of college. He seems to have the same resume as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, doesn't he? What is it about these efficiency experts?
Eichmann's trial was televised from Israel live in 1961. He kept saying that he was "following orders." That defense was unacceptable. Six months after being found guilty, he was hung. The hangman said he was just "following orders."
My original Mac, a IIsi, has in it a battery made in Israel. Evidently this caused some problems for Apple at one point. Many Arab countries have banned all products coming from Israel. Apple got an earful of complaints from Arab resellers and clients. To accommodate their bigotry, Apple changed to a new battery supplier. I am sure Apple employees followed their orders to make the machines free of contact from dirty stinky Jews without complaint. Who gave the order? Jim Crow is still the American way, so we are sympathetic to public attempts to purify and improve computing platforms. Every mercenary has his price, and we know how impure viruses dilute the circuit pipeline.
Simon Wiesenthal died recently. He was the man responsible for putting Eichmann in the glass booth. After finally being freed from the experience of twelve camps, Wiesenthal became a one-man crusade for revenge. He methodically hunted Nazis down like prey. Eichmann was his prize, but Eichmann wasn't turned into a lampshade. Instead he was was incinerated. That is the cost of losing in war, evidently.
Rosa Parks died recently, too. Apple had a tribute to her on their website. In a great display of doublethink, the Congress "let" her lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. It seems that breaking the law is noteworthy, if you can get away with it. They recognized her with full honors, and inspire others to do the same. Why does Congress honor people for breaking the laws that they made? What does that say about any democracy holding trials on persons of other nations? I wonder what Jim Crow and Saddam and Eichmann think about that issue.
Hannah Arendt covered the Eichmann trial for New Yorker magazine, and described fascism as the banality of evil. I read her book when I was in college, but I think I have a better appreciation for what she meant now. Elie Wiesel, another Nazi hunter, used to say that "to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all." I think Social Justice is the banality of evil; revenge re-branded is still revenge. There is no mercy in Justice. There is even less in power.
Digital Rights Management advocate Jobs has said that stealing is bad for one's soul. "Guilty" children were used in an ad campaign to the music of "I fought the law and the law won." Wiesel was sixteen when he was deported from his home in Romania. How do we know which laws we should follow, and which laws we should break? Does it have anything to do with what is personally profitable, Steve? What is the difference between a Nazi and Napster and Rosa?
The honey locust tree also has hazardous thorns. Who is worthy to be crowned with those? I give up. I cannot understand why Steve wants a 32 foot glass cube. It is a bizarre request; and we should all know by now what happens when people unquestioningly follow bizarre requests. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, if what he has planned for it is so important, then why not just build a second one? Why wait?
Of course, Apple won't divulge their secret plans. Big organizations and governments are run by men who like to keep secrets. They have secrets to hide. They see solutions that reach a thousand years into the future, but they can never see themselves in the present.
Maybe Steve wants to make the cube into a swimming pool and practice walking across it. Will we have to wait twenty years to find out? My guess is that the stores won't sustain themselves for that long. The opposite of banal is innovative in dictionary terms, but they are one and the same historically. As GM knows, every empire eventually succumbs to its own ambitions. The overhead gets too big to maintain. That is what the other leaders of empire in their glass booths eventually discovered, too. Even The Crazy Ones need to be careful of what they ask for.