Techno Ray Bradbury. . .

I think "The Veldt" by Deadmau5, a progressive-house music producer whose real name is Thomas Zimmerman, is very pretty. It's also rather upbeat, as far as DeadMau5 songs go. 

It has this hypnotic keyboard riff and beat that really transports you. 

But did you know the song is actually an homage to a pretty dark short story by Ray Bradbury, "The Veldt," which was originally published as "The World That the Children Made." Have you read it? 

It's about this family that lives in a completely automated house, created by The HappylifeHome company. As the Wikipedia description says, the house is "filled with machines that do everything for them from cooking meals, to clothing them to rocking them to sleep."

But you know, there's an ironic truth: Life's tough when it's too easy. 

The parents become complacent, allowing their children to be entertained in a self-contained nursery, one equipped with some remarkable technology. Whatever the children can imagine, they can conjure up in the room. It is, I guess, an early description of virtual reality. But the line between virtual and reality is, unbeknownst to the parents, frighteningly thin. 

The children, who have gone a bit Lord of the Flies on their own, have used their wild young minds to turn their nursery into an African veldt. 

No doubt about it, it has an untamed beauty. Ray Bradbury, who is known for his consummate imagery, describes the place thusly: 

"Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the two people in the middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. And now the sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of vultures." 

The veldt is complete with wild animals—including lions who can be seen dining on some kind of carcass. Surely it's just their normal prey they're munching. But then what was that scream a while back? 

How are mom and dad going to get out of this one? Or will they get out at all? You can read "The Veldt" here.  

Anyhow, between the title and the lyrics, it is obvious that DeadMau5 is something of a Ray Bradbury fan. 

The Veldt
Happy life with the machines scattered around the room.
Look what they made; they made it for me. . .happy technology!
Outside the Lions roam feeding on remains. . .
We'll never leave, look at us now;
So in love with the way we are here!

Chorus:
The world that the children made. . .
The world that the children made, here!
The word that the children made, here!
The world that the children made.

Every night they rock us to sleep, digital family!
Is it real? Or is it a dream? Can you believe in machines?
Outside, the beating sun, can you hear the screams?
Well never leave, look at us now.
So in love with the way we are here!

So yes, as it would turn out, the song is kind of creepy. But I also find it to be lovely. What do you think?

—Sarah Torribio