The iPhone is causing quite a stir.  I’m not talking about its impact on Apple’s stock, or even its influence on its competitors.  I’m talking mainly about the way some people relate to it.  “It just feels right,” or more frequently, “It just makes sense.”  That’s what I’ve been hearing.  I ran into a fellow who tried to explain that the technology behind the iPhone actually came from the alien spacecraft sequestered in Area 51.  “No doubt about it,” he said, “We got the idea of chips from their craft and our whole computer evolution came from what they left us.”  Being a great fan of Howard Fast’s short  story, the Martian Shop, I hesitated for a moment, giving the false impression that I was considering the validity of his claim.  I wasn’t.  I just needed a few seconds to recall that in the “Martian Shop”, the Martians were secretly, benevolent humans trying to scare us all into ending war.  My hesitation might have been merely my reflection  on the idea of Steve Jobs as a benevolent industrialist out to save us from ourselves using the high tech version of  Robert Ardry’s Amity – Enmity Equation.

Howard Fast

The Martian Shop

New York: Bantam Books, 1961

The store in Paris was, of course, on Faubourg St. Honore. There were no stores vacant at the time, and the lease of a famous couturier was purchased for forty million francs. The couturier (his name is omitted at specific request of the French government) named the price facetiously, for he had no intention of surrendering his place. When the agent for the principal wrote out a check on the spot, holding him to his word, he had no choice but to go through with the deal.

The third store was on Fifth Avenue in New York City. After thirty years on the Avenue, the last ten increasingly unprofitable, the old and stodgy firm of Delbos gave up its struggle against modern merchandising. The store it had occupied was located on the block between 52nd and 53rd Street, on the east side of the street. The property itself was managed by Clyde and Abraharrls, who were delighted to release Delbos from a twenty-five year lease that had been signed in 1937, and who promptly doubled the rent. The Slocum Company, acting as agents for the principalswho never entered into the arrangements at all, either with Clyde and Abrahams or subsequently with Trevore, the decorating firm made no protest over the increased rent, signed the lease, and then paid a year's rent in advance. Arthur Lewis, one of the younger partners in the Slocum Company, conducted the negotiations. Wally Clyde of Clyde and Abrahams remarked at the time that the Slocum Company was losing its grip. Lewis shrugged and said that they were following instructions; he said that if he had bargaining power himself, he would be damned before he ever agreed to such preposterous rent......

To read the rest of it, go to:

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/fast-martian-shop.html