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The World Inside the Crystal

from Coffee, Computers, and Song by Steve Savitzky

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about

Here is where the mild-mannered hacker takes off his disguise and stands revealed as a wizard of great power--because, you see, there _is_ a world where magic really works...

I can always tell the programmers in the audience. They've been there too.

lyrics

Beside the world we live in
Apart from day and night
Is a world ablaze with wonder
Of magic and delight

Like a magic crystal mirror,
My computer lets me know
Of the other world within it
Where my body cannot go.

You can only see the shadows
Of electrons on a screen
From the world inside the crystal
That no human eye has seen.

The computer is a gateway
To a world where magic rules
Where the only law is logic
Webs of words the only tools

Where we play with words and symbols
And creation is the game
For our symbols have the power
To become the things they name.

You can only see the shadows
Of electrons on a screen
From the world inside the crystal
That no human eye has seen.

Now you who do not know this world
Its dangers or its joys
You take the things we build there
And you use them as your toys.

You trust them with your fortunes,
Or let them guard your lives.
From the chaos of creation
Just their final form survives.

You can only see the shadows
Of electrons on a screen
From the world inside the crystal
That no human eye has seen.

Call us hackers, call us wizards,
With derision or respect,
Still our souls are marked by something
That your labels can't affect.

Though our words are touched by strangeness
There is little we can say.
You would only hear the echo
Of a music far away.

You can only see the shadows
Of electrons on a screen
From the world inside the crystal
That no human eye has seen.

credits

from Coffee, Computers, and Song, released July 1, 2007
Callie Hills - flutes

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Steve Savitzky Seattle, Washington

Notorious hacker/songwriter Steve Savitzky has been kicking around the Net since the days of bang-paths and bearskins, and writes songs of computers, spacecraft, love, friendship -- and sometimes all four at once.

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