The Google Doodle team has outdone themselves. Here I am tonight, 30 years younger than Robert Moog, noodling around on exactly the kind of device that the guy Iwas 30 years ago would have been thrilled with.
And that’s actually worth more than a passing thought. Because I wouldn’t have just been thrilled – I would have locked myself in my bedroom for days, tinkering and experimenting and, most of all, playing with it. It was the thing that 18-year-old Rob dreamed of owning. (I know this because 24-year-old Rob ended up buying a Yamaha DX-100, and I damn near failed my year because of it.)
Today? I’m having fun with it, sure… but it’s just one more thing this computer in my hands is capable of doing, of being. I launch Photoshop or GIMP, and I have the darkroom of the gods at my command. Final Cut Express, and I’m cutting and pasting and transforming moving light. Chrome or Firefox, and I have a library at my disposal that encompasses a vast array of knowledge and human creativity.
We have so little time on this planet, and so much we can create and share, that the idea that I could ever think of myself as bored feels like a cosmic affront – to life, to the universe, and most of all to that 18-year-old who is squirming inside me right now, demanding that I stop the goddamn pontificating and start playing with that keyboard.
Thanks, Google Doodle team. And happy birthday to Robert Moog. It’s your birthday, sir, and yet we’re the ones getting such lovely presents – this purely virtual device, and its delightfully tangible predecessor decades ago. Thank you for that gift.
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By the way, did you notice? It’s not a Flash animation. That synth is created from HTML, CSS and a liberal dose of Javascript. Really. Nicely. Done.
