Tags: The Morning News

When you’re hired to clean up the offices of Arti­fi­cial Pro­duc­tions and open the closet door on the third floor, plug in the strange gray machine that you find there. When it boots up, it will ask: “do you love me?” Say  “yes, I do love you, machine.” Take her home with you and plug her in. Hook her up to an old syn­the­sizer key­board. And talk to her. Get to know her. Help her heal. Start a new com­pany with her as equal part­ner and sell her amaz­ing, nearly-​​unlimited out­put of fresh, upbeat songs to a top 40 mar­ket dispir­ited by the glut of sad songs she wrote ear­lier. Pro­tect her from the cruel agents of the National Secu­rity Admin­is­tra­tion who would use her for their own needs.

#73 on the same list.

Build a machine capa­ble of feel­ing and make it fall in love with you, then aban­don it for six months in a closet with­out an inter­net con­nec­tion and only top 40 radio as com­pany. Take the hun­dreds of sad love songs it writes and sell them under a vari­ety of pseu­do­nyms to A-​​list stars. Before you retire to your own island, unplug the machine so that no one ever dis­cov­ers your secret.

#35 on Paul Ford’s How to Say I Love You fea­ture on The Morn­ing News.