Being there

In his 1969 essay “My Intention,” an introduction to a larger collection of work titled “Visions from San Francisco Bay,” Czeslaw Milosz writes: “I am here. … Here means on this earth, on this continent and no other, in this city and no other, and in this epoch called mine, this century, this year. I was given no other place, no other time, and I touch my desk to defend myself against the feeling that my own body is transient.”

His assertions about home and objects intrigue me — home, for Milosz, representing an intersection of personal time and place, and objects offering us something to hold onto in the midst of that intersection. Like life rafts in the murky waters of experience.

There are so many objects to hang onto, incidentally, way more than just desks and chairs. I’ve been surveying a plethora of far-out innovations for the home this week, and I’ve discovered some noteworthy examples of the kind of stuff that defends us against anxieties over transience.

For example, did you know you can buy a “shocking pen” that gives users a jolt when they press the top-button to reveal the tip? For only $5.99 you can play tricks on friends, kids and colleagues, or keep yourself awake during long meetings and work sessions, with just the push of a button. I found this gadget on — where else? — the Cool Gadgets and Think Geek Web sites.

For a few bucks more (about $1,800 more, actually) you can install in your home an interactive coffee table called The Wave, which uses light emitting diode (LED) lights that react to whatever lands on or near the surface of the table — from coffee cups to cats to candle wax. The table’s circuitry senses pressure and triggers the lighting system in response.

At www.ThinkGeek.com you can also find  thousands of items, including: flying alarm clocks, floating recliners, night-vision goggles, high-tech teapots, timers and a squishy set of kitchen bowls that you can shove into your pockets.

Kids not getting enough chocolate? With a little online sleuthing you can locate a patented, all-edges brownie pan that puts delicious, crusty, crumbly edges on every brownie you bake. And in case somebody chokes on a hunk of your dessert, you might want to purchase an interactive, talking first-aid guide that’s small enough to fit in your hand, purse or backpack. Medical advice is provided in eight categories, with 30 recorded messages, and it’s available for $40.

The robotic housekeeping innovations are priceless. Numerous international companies have developed automatic cleaning devices, mostly for floors. Electrolux, in Sweden, introduced the Trilobite in 2001 and has recently unveiled the Trilobite 2.0. “Robust enough to provide superb dust pick-up, yet agile enough to get under most low sofas and beds,” the Trilobite is referred to as “the cleanest pet you’ll ever have.”

America’s GeckoSystems sells a vacuum especially designed for children and the elderly that features a Web cam and voice activation. This particular robot is also used for military surveillance.
Finally, if you really want to be here, and you plan to stay here for awhile, you might as well look and feel great along the way. You can achieve a full, calorie-burning, metabolism-boosting, muscle-building workout in only four minutes on the ROM exercise machine. Honestly, look it up at www.fastexercise.com. Apparently the machine enhances oxygen consumption at a cellular level, so calories burn like crazy even after the workout.

According to the Web site, “The total percentage of muscle cells involved in the ROM exercise are 12 times as many as the 3.75 percent used on a treadmill, because 80 percent of 55 percent of your muscle is 44 percent of all your muscle cells that are stimulated to an increased metabolism.”

Sound confusing? Don’t worry, the Fast Exercise manufacturers reassure us that, like life itself, the ROM machine is simply “too amazing to understand right away.”

Contact Joanna Dehn Beresford at truewrite@yahoo.com.