“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
— The Amazing Criswell, in Plan Nine From Outer Space
Ed Wood’s most famous film is one of my guiltiest pleasures, and the opening monologue by The Amazing Criswell is one of my favorite moments, and the first line of the movie is best of all.
It sounds so profound, and maybe it is, but it’s so flaming obvious that it’s hysterically funny. And it’s hysterically funny because it’s absolutely true.
You and I are going to spend the rest of our lives in the future. Look out, now: Here it comes! Aren’t you interested? Of course you are!
Sometimes I think about my dad, who was a teenager in the 1930s, working with a homebuilt radio, listening to the world in a way unimaginable to his own father — and I wonder at the astounding changes that happened during his 96-plus years of living in the future.
Computers the size of auditoriums were refined and reduced until they fit in the palm of our hand. We have access to not just sounds a world away but live television images so clear we could be looking through a window at them.
Heck, a lot of the astonishing stuff happened after he had his middle son just shy of 30: heart transplants, moon landings, a worldwide communications web.
We are all interested in the future, because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
Let’s do what we can to ensure the miracles keep on coming and aren’t foiled by grave robbers from outer space.
