I was playing a hodgepodge of John Powell music (my favorite) when I noticed an electronic YOUR SPEED sign right around Beverly Hills. I was stuck in traffic, so I had a good many minutes to contemplate it, watching its little panels flipping madly every couple seconds to update the newest radar results. And as I stared at it, I was amazed how much work and intelligence goes into even something as small and simple as a speed sign.
Not only is it installed with proper cameras and triggers to measure out distance and rate of motion, this device can translate that to a number, THEN orchestrate an elaborate pattern of colored squares to properly indicate that number -- all in the blink of an eye. What sort of genius knows how to accomplish all that?
It was then that my attention changed back to the music I was listening to, and how powerful and nuanced it was. How is it that humans are so diverse in our talents -- that the same guy who can put together a speed-detecting, self-changing sign likely can't do a thing worth listening to with a pad of staves and some instrumentation? And why (or how) is it that John Powell, in his brilliant instincts and impeccable talent, can't design a radar sign even if you handed him a blue print? To think how equally masterful we can be of technics and art is mind-blowing, almost as mind-blowing as the fact that very few people (if any) can ever be masters of both.
Thank God that there are two kinds of smart, and what a miserable, woeful world this would be if we were not to have both.
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