B-List Holy Grail: Monorails
Part of a series: B-List Holy Grails
Monorail Haiku
What would the world be
with no Monorail? Pretty much
like it is right now.
Written by: Lori Priebe
Ryan:
‘Cept for Disneyworld! I think? I’ve never been there but I think the monorail is kind of a big deal there. But I took off points because some maglev trains run on a single rail too and those are way futuristic. They float on a cushion of MAGNETS.
Poster Child:
Monorails are a
great visual cue of the
Future we wanted
Tim:
Aside from one entry that consisted of a brand name and nothing else, Lori had the shortest entry. This is to be admired.
Monorails. If Disneyland and assorted futuristic movies created any expectations, it was that I would glide into adulthood on these silent, electric conveyances. No one really believed in flying cars, but the monorail… it always seemed just around the corner; the way we’d all inevitably get to work in the far future of 2000. And now, the monorail is reality! Thousands of people use it every day! Electronic voices remind us to stand clear of the closing doors… as we race from our flight in Terminal A to our connection in Terminal D. I had hoped for more, somehow.
Written by MsMolly
Poster Child:
A subway is lame too, with only two stations. Clearly, we need MORE monorails!!
Tim:
My favourite monorail is the one in Seattle from the World’s Fair. Today it is so dented and beat up looking, it’s a vision of a future that came and went, but never really escaped from the unreality bubble of exibition shows.
Ryan:
This was my favourite of the monorails entries, because we can all sympathize with the AWESOMENESS of hearing that there’s a robot train at the airport, and the disappointment of getting there and it being totally weak. It would at least be something if they addressed you by name, but no, no, they don’t even do that.
What’s this all about?
In the waning days of 2009, Julian Dibbell mentioned videophones as a holy grail technology that ended up being a b-teamer. I liked the concept so much that I ran a contest on Quiet Babylon, looking for more examples.
This is a thematically-linked pair of the shortlist finalists as chosen by a panel of judges consisting of myself, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics & Project Wonderful and street artist Poster Child.
