Meet the Author: TommorrowLand

Meet the Author: TomorrowLand By: Grant Bailie

“Hello. This is the future. See our spaceships. See our moving sidewalks and silent cars. See our tallest, shiniest building and the bright blue sky that teeters upon its point. Walk in our quiet parks and observe the pretty, handsome people, the brightly colored birds living happily in cages built or evolved right into the trees. So much seems to have changed over the years, and yet at certain angles, under certain lights, this world might look the same as it did a decade or a century ago. We seldom tear down and build up from scratch completely. There is always the refurbished, the recreated, the renewed. And away from the city, in other neighborhoods, on other planets, it will forever be the style to live in old-fashioned homes, with wrought iron fences, lampposts and all the trappings of what we imagine to be a more innocent time. Our vehicles (Metal or plastic? Three wheels or four?) might give us away, but we tuck them neatly behind the antiqued wooden doors of garages made to look like carriage houses. And really, our cars and clothes are not so different as you might imagine. Styles change and change back again. Technology advances but then hides itself. People themselves do not evolve (no larger foreheads or telepathic powers, I am sorry to tell you) and if it were to all fall apart tomorrow it would not be long before witches would be burned at the stake again and some randomly selected race or class run out of town on a rail. But it will not all fall apart tomorrow. We will go bravely forward, making new discoveries, inventing new things, then hiding them all behind the wood paneling, the fake bookcase, a plastic shrub.”

This free event will be held in the Lakewood Public Library Main Auditorium at 15425 Detroit Avenue. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event. Visit lakewoodpubliclibrary.com/literary for more events. No registration is needed.  Call (216) 226-8275 ext. 127 for more information.