The end is nigh. At the end of this month, The Passenger will finally catch his connecting flight and these little stolen moments will be archived. That makes a two-year layover, more than enough for any traveler. I've had a lot of fun slumming about your terminal, but it's time we considered our future together. No, no, it's not you ... it's me. I just need a little personal space right now. Maybe we should just get to the websites, before we get emotional.
 

When was the last time I told you to go out and buy something? Not even at Christmas, friends and neighbors. In deference to that extraordinary restraint, I now ask you to pick up a copy of "Best of Moog: Electronic Pop Hits from the 60's & 70's." It is exactly as it sounds: a collection of Moog synthesizer pop tracks compiled by the post-digital ironists at Disinfo.com, and it plays like a kitten with a vinyl halter-top and a whip. The link above features sound samples; if you've never heard Perrey/Kingsley, Richard Hayman or Gil Trythall, go listen to them right now. You are not allowed to enter the future without doing so.
 

Weren't we all supposed to have ray guns by now? This is the year 2000, isn't it? I recall having read something to that effect... Anyway, the scenario runs a little something like this: Your boss asks you to work on Saturday, the same day you're supposed to take a rocket trip to Saturn with your primary life-mate. Naturally, you refuse. He presses (damn pre-2K cyborgs; they can't take no for an order). You pull out your ray gun, press it gently against his logical and control interface, and squeeze the trigger, releasing a flow of ambiguously charged sexy electrons through what's left of his big fat metal head. Ha! Who's the master of the f---in' universe now, Chuckles? Well, needless to say, it didn't happen quite the way we wanted it to. Guns are still guns and if you point one at your boss, you'll be fired from Spacely Sprockets. Better to just work that Saturday, and while Ming the Merciless' back is turned, check out Gene Metcalf's fabulous collection of Toy Ray Guns. You can almost feel the eccentric shape comfortably nestled in your hand, its reassuring weight leading the way to freedom.

 

The computer-animated Disney film Tron was released in the summer of 1982. In all the intervening years I haven't forgotten how stiff the dialogue and performances were. Al Gore would have lit up the film like a Roman candle, if he had deigned to appear in a cameo - that's how stiff it is. Jeff Bridges is vapor-locked in hey-man mode, Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan exchange somnambulistic love vows the likes of "They haven't built a circuit that could hold you," and Barnard Hughes plays deader than dead. Yet there's no denying the film's innovate qualities - its cold, sharp production design, created by "visual futurists" Syd Mead and Jean Giraud, still envelops the viewer, and the alternate-reality plot isn't so hokey. The makers of "The Matrix" didn't feel the tiniest bit self-conscious about ripping it off. Tronmovie.com pays tribute to the film, without falling into the familiar traps endemic to sci-fi tribute sites: There's no link to anyone's resume, no fan-written "sequels." Read, enjoy and explore, without fear of a friend catching you. End of line.
 

I could find my way around the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair blindfolded. Pretty amazing, when you factor in that I wasn't born until well after the fair closed. I couldn't begin to tell you why the fair fascinates me; the reasons are manifold. It was the last gasp of "Googie" architecture; it embodied the guarded optimism of a nation in the grip of the Cold War; it was where my parents went on their first date. For whatever reason, the fair has made a substantial imprint on my life, my work. I dream about it. I really believed, as a boy, that its flying arches, saucer-shaped buildings and metallic sculptures were e-mailed from the day after tomorrow, that we would be living in those ridiculous buildings by the 21st Century. Jeffrey Stanton's World's Fair presents the fair as I've never remembered it, and though his page presents the event in purely historical terms - articles, photos, period criticism - I could swear I detect a note of sadness in its tone. Perhaps, like me, Stanton wishes he could recapture the spirit of the time - when we grew too big for the ground we walked on, and dreamed of digging our feet into the cosmos.

I don't pretend to know the future. Anything can happen. But I can promise you one thing: when this column ends, another will begin - a better one. I hope you choose to follow me on the next leg of the trip, but if you don't, I hope to see you in the future, where there's plenty of room for everybody. Until next week ...