I remember this from 325 recitation last semester, but could never remember exactly what it was. I remember it being a little weird but overall interesting. I think my favorite gene would have to be the Felton Color Gene where Milly is hyper-sensitive to colors. I think the story and not the little gadgets where you can change the colors and make windows of images appear is what is most intriguing for me about it. There is terrific irony in that in order for the student/teacher who is dealing with Milly ultimately destroys Milly’s eyes, which are the things that actually make the gene affective. The woman goes on to be successful and does contribute monetarily to Milly’s life, but nothing can really bring back Milly’s true essence which existed when she could still see and be so sensitive to colors.
I think that watching Jason Nelson’s explanation for his creation of the Bomar Gene was kind of hillarious. Though, I think that he is a little strange as re-referenced in the Weather Visualizer. I think his explaination was excellent about the ways and reasons that people do create different kinds of art or any kind of emotional expressions. I am also not quite sure if he was positively reliable in all of his explanations of the different genes. I do like the thought that he brought up, however, about incorporating very personal relations and character traits of people who you may know or once knew into any type of self-expression. I think that his grandmother’s belief in the paranormal and psychic is a very interesting driving force behind his project. I do have a slight facination with certain traits, but not even necessarily physical traits being genetic, and I think that is maybe why I feel some weird connection to this work.
Maybe someday in the distant future genes will manifest in certain people almost akin to “The Bomar Gene” or maybe even “Heros” (super-duper powers). But for now, the idea of super-human traits or super-sensitive traits, almost synesthesic will have to exist in these kinds of works of fiction.