Scan has a whole new meaning...

This insignia tempts me every time.

I see the small insignia that appears on advertisements most of the time and, for some inexplicable reason, I am hooked. I dig through my purse to locate my cell phone, push the button for “scan” and point my phone at the code.  My screen opens and I am taken into a futuristic world where technology and advertising act in concert. I have scanned at Starbucks’s, in magazines and catalogues, at Bloomingdale’s and at Saks.  I am a dedicated scanner. I think this is partially due to the fact that I am mesmerized by the advances that allow me to use my phone to open a world that is embedded in a little black box of code.  I marvel that the scribbles, dots and dashes therein are the key to a 3-D world of possibility.  To children born after the turn of this century, the technology of a coded symbol carrying information will hold no marvel.  I wonder what mysteries will enchant and mystify them when they grow-up.  Will they all be manmade?  Or will nature reign supreme? Perhaps they will still pause to lift their eyes and scan the sky.

A Van Gogh sky.