A FUNCTIONAL ARTIST'S LAMENT

I have been in the business of developing computer applications since the beginning of my career.  (And yes, since the beginning of computers since I actually worked at one time on the IBM 705's which were the first generation tube computers.)   When PC's were first coming with database capabilities (DB2), I worked exceedingly hard on a specific program to process many types of budget data and provide management with many data analytic reports.  Then, after a long holiday weekend, I came in and found out that my manager had come in over the weekend and made some tweaks to it mangling it beyond all recognition.  I resisted the urge to get physically violent with him, and instead sulked in my shell for a period of time not to have exceeded 40 days and 40 nights.  After returning to this alien civilization, I consoled myself by writing this poem.

I probably should backtrack just a little here.  People usually think that when I develop an application, it is very left brain oriented and not a creative process.  But it is.  I start with nothing, Then I expose myself to all the angles of the system being modeled.  Then I start to have an idea.  Then I build on that idea until it is something I can actually see (or at least see its output).  Then I tweak it and fine tune it, and mold it, and sculpt it.  Until finally I have something of which I can be proud of.  Because it is something which is designed to be used, like a clock, and not just observed, like a painting, I consider it Functional Art.  

A Functional Artist’s Lament

O pure virgin idea.

Straight from the womb of my mind

Where there was nothing, there was suddenly something.

Springing from the mother of necessity,

In union with beauty and form,

              I conceived you.

Gestated after much labor of love,

You were delivered with all pride and joy,

I, the ultimate Pygmalion, then built you,

I molded you, I sculptured you, I fine-tuned you.

I observed you critically and, performing revisions tediously,

              I fashioned you.

Like a debutante, I presented you to the world.

In setting you up on a pedestal for all to behold your graces,

              I adored you.

Alas, my virtuous creation has been prostituted.

Others, with ignoble needs,

Have used it for their own short-sighted means.

They have perverted its original intentions.

One transfigures the appearance so its character is obliterated.

Another mutilates the function so its original intent becomes unknowable.

Another transmorgrifies its cleverness so its efficiency is hopelessly lost.

Another alters the grace so its style has become pedestrian.

Another suppresses the versatility making its flexibility an irremediable mess.

And yet another degenerates its flair rendering it mediocre at best.

And on and on it goes.

After multiple perverted encounters of this worst kind,

Others look at this pitiable creature,

Wag their unknowing heads,

And shun this post-beauteous creation

              As if it were a homeless derelict

              With open festering sores.

And so I take my once beloved

And place it mournfully on a darkened shelf,

Where it will be used – nevermore.

David Kimball