8 » OpenRoad Driver
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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With the election of Donald Trump as
president of the United States, American
writer Kurt Vonnegut has never seemed so
prescient. It would be tempting to look at the
millionaires from Vonnegut’s novels to find
fresh relevance to today. A billionaire president
even appeared in the 1976 satire, Slapstick. But
I want to look back at Vonnegut’s very first
novel from exactly 65 years ago.
His debut novel Player Piano launched forty years of storytelling
in 1952, a first step towards exploring fractured worlds that move
between pessimism and optimism, and madness and order. Rather
than millionaires and presidents, though, this initial work allows
us to focus on everyday characters like engineer Paul Proteus and
his old friend Ed Finnerty who face an eerily futuristic society. The
world is completely overrun by machines, and technology dominates
all aspects of life. Sound familiar?
Today, we can draw parallels. Technology has eliminated manual
jobs in multiple sectors. We rely on computers and mobile devices
sometimes to an extreme. And fears of the robot apocalypse are
understandable watching Handle, the jumping super robot unveiled
by Google X’s Boston Dynamics. It might be awe inspiring, but it’s
also unsettling.
In Vonnegut’s anti-Utopian fiction, a mechanized world is disruptive
where humanity can lose its way. But rather than satirize the
effects of automation, today in the real world we can clearly benefit
from the positive side of technology, too. It creates new industries,
improves productivity, and delivers great personal convenience.
My favourite passage from Player Piano comes from Vonnegut’s
rebel Ed Finnerty, “I want to stay as close on the edge as I can
without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things
you can’t see from the center.... Big, undreamed-of things – the
people on the edge see them first.” Vonnegut’s passage gives us great
inspiration for this edition of OpenRoad Driver magazine: Edge.
Here at OpenRoad we hope we can see big things, and in turn,
bring those advantages to you.
BMX rider Tory Nyhaug races onto our cover fresh from a top-five
finish at the Rio Olympics and the start of another racing season.
He’s been a good OpenRoad customer of ours driving his Mazda3
of choice. Here, we partner Tory with Audi at our new OpenRoad
Audi Boundary location. Read our fascinating feature and learn the
speedy nickname he’s given his Ssquared CEO race bike. Hint: he’s
not horsing around.
Larger-than-life Umberto Menghi figures prominently wherever
he goes. Everyone knows him simply as Umberto, a culinary legend
who has delivered greatness again through his Tuscan renaissance
in downtown Vancouver, Giardino Restaurant. I got a chance to
cook pasta with Umberto while discussing his life and loves. We also
hopped over to The BMW Store to play with the BMW i8. Bello!
From Tuscany to the Okanagan, our food feature lands us in
Penticton where a trio of eateries are at the cutting edge of “trash
cooking” by turning scraps into delicious and unique creations.
Remnant wild yeast from local vineyards is rescued from landfills
to help make gluten-reduced sourdough bread, for example. It’s
mouthwatering and eco-friendly, too.
Recycling and sustainability aren’t just for food. Explore the artistic