e-mastication

The band Cathedral’s last album came as a scratch-and-sniff package, where by rubbing the disc, it emits the smell of apples. This fascinated me to no end. I know scratch-and-sniff is a fairly primitive technology that enthralls none but the slowest kindergartner, but what floored me was the fact that music generally involves the auditory sense, but in this instance, the olfactory sense joined the party. We need more of these twofer deals. I know there’s 3G and web-cams and whatnot, but I’m looking for more interesting sense combinations. Just the other night, for instance, I was really hungry, and I cursed the dearth of edibles that could be sent digitally, or through the medium of teleportation. I remembered Nikola Tesla/David Bowie’s voodoo in The Prestige, where electricity was applied to various objects and they were “teleported” somewhere else. What actually happened was a duplication of the object, which might potentially end world hunger. Not only could one zap a burger and duplicate it, but that burger could be instantly sent where it’s needed most. Like my room. When it’s late. And I‘m hungry. Seriously. All I had there was water and stale jerky. So please, eggheads, work on it.