Utter craziness from the mad scientist mentioned two posts down. The good reads keep coming and this one proved to be no exception. How the fuck do you get a parable about the dangers of technology, a physics lesson, a meta-physics lesson, a quantum physics lesson, a nanotechnology seminar, a comedy, and a love story all in 320 pages? Oh, and by the way, this book features the end of the world, that is, the destruction of planet earth and all life on it. And that’s just the first chapter. Can I interest anyone in a some inter-dimensional tourism?
The snippets I’ve heard from this record, including this single, sound a bit like a slightly calmer version of Destined Solitaire, the band’s 2009 release. There seems to be continued development away from big melodic themes and more toward very tight, stop-on-a-dime arrangements that come at me with more force than the very listen-able Sleeping In Traffic records. Release is scheduled for March 30.
The written word is probably just as powerful as any music, if wielded with just the right force, just the right expertise, just the right passion. And while the musical input and throughput remains as powerful as ever (for chrissakes, I’m listening to The Watch’s Timeless!!), it is the written word, whether on paper or glowing Kindle app that has snared so much of my free time lately.
Getting comfortable with the crowded insanity and brilliance of Lovecraft over the past several months has been a major catalyst. His influence on John Carpenter, on Alien, on Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman – well, it’s not just some archaic referent with no independent value to me personally. Actually, the opposite is true. It starts with the time I spent in Providence from 1990 through 1994. Also, once you get through the adverbs and the ‘eldritch’ and ‘cyclopean’ and all that other stuff, there is a thrilling and horrifying narrative. It’s easy to see why the man’s work is so influential. He’s like the Robert Johnson of modern horror.
I also wanted to get out in front on the Mountains of Madness movie that is getting under way with Guillermo del Toro at the helm. Now that I’ve read the book, his sincere remonstrations and declarations of fealty to the source code have meaning. Let’s hope he can carry through.
And, while I think I have found a significant resonance with Lovecraft and his progeny, it’s not been just the sons and daughters of that twisted Rhode Island intellect. Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente is heavily promoted on Amazon and the set-up sounded prurient enough: have sex with the right person, go to a magic city in your post-coital sleep. Here’s the trailer:
It’s a good read, certainly steamy enough. I was worried it may be a bit light on story, and that proved to be true, but the atmosphere, descriptions and emotions were so detailed and sumptuous, that it really didn’t matter. I was somewhat reminded of my recent (and first) experience with Murakami – Sputnik Sweeheart embodied some of the same loss and longing. But where that book was a dry martini, Palimpsest is paisley layer cake, detailed and deranged beyond belief.
Having dispensed with love and sex beyond the edge of reality, I somehow got directed, I think through my previous enjoyment of William Gibson (Pattern Recognition remains one of the most entertaining and moving novels I’ve read) to Rudy Rucker. Fortunately, he’s a mad scientist. ‘Postsingular‘ imagines a world where we are always connected to the orphidnet, like the internet, but interfaced with nanotechnology, instead of a computer or some other dumb machine. As a result, everyone is a mind-reader, AI’s float before our eyes and help us in our daily routine, and travel between alternate realities and dimensions seems possible. I say seems, because I’m only about a third of the way through. As hard as the singularity is to imagine, that moment in time (AND the before and after) when EVERYTHING changes for EVERYONE – this book has done it. It’s stylistic and chaotic and a terrible amount of fun.
And now we come to the AuntBeast herself. This may be an addiction in the making. Caitlin Kiernan appeared alongside John Carpenter, Guillermo del Toro and even S.T. Joshi in the Lovecraft documentary Fear of the Unknown. Her incisive commentary and inclusion among such giants caused me to want to find out more and I got ‘Silk’ for the Kindle app. Again, I’m only about one third of the way into it, but all I can think is that I know I want to read everything she’s ever written. The atmosphere is terrifying, the characters are drawn with skill and detail that makes them come alive. And in this book, there are a few main characters to keep track of, all women and all young, so the distinctions and distinctiveness are essential as we go from person to person, place to place, skipping through time. But it is the hurtling story, the breakneck swirl of events, even in the set-up, leading to and hinting at this vast (celestial?) evil that doesn’t care about your boyfriend or your girlfriend, or your band or your drugs – that grip of pure fear and madness is literally unlike anything I’ve ever read before. And I love it.
And to top it all off, I finally took delivery today of two Alan Moore titles – Yuggoth Cultures (which, curiously, contains a lot of work NOT written by Moore. Hrmmm…) and The Courtyard. So the fear and madness just keep clicking along.
So I’ve been reading, scaring myself and not blogging. But now, I think I’ll let the dark creepies and nasties out of their cage so that I can share them with you.
You thrilled to her in Flight of the Conchords, now enjoy the lovely Kristen Shaal on The Daily Show, which comes to you from me via Talking Points Memo. Because you only thought you knew what “rape” meant.
This stuff, from Scalzi’s Whatever is absolutely brilliant. Make sure you read the whole screed, but here are few choice tidbits:
Facebook has made substandard versions of everything on the Web, bundled it together and somehow found itself being lauded for it, as if AOL, Friendster and MySpace had never managed the same slightly embarrassing trick. Facebook had the advantage of not being saddled with AOL’s last-gen baggage, Friendster’s too-early-for-its-moment-ness, or MySpace’s aggressive ugliness, and it had the largely accidental advantage of being upmarket first — it was originally limited to college students and gaining some cachet therein — before it let in the rabble.
In addition to the elitism, which I hadn’t previously thought of, there is the dumbed-down web aspect:
Facebook is the Web hit with a stupid stick, but that doesn’t mean people are stupid for using it.
And let us not forget what it’s all for – not bringing people together, that’s merely a by-product of the commercial enterprise:
Its grasping attempts to get its hooks into every single thing I do feels like being groped by an overly obnoxious salesman. Its general ethos that I need to get over the concept of privacy makes me want to shove a camera lens up Zuckerberg’s left nostril 24 hours a day and ask him if he’d like for his company to rethink that position.
Again, it is not the people who use Facebook that is the problem, it is the platform itself. And the real question, which Scalzi presumes to answer, is whether the MASSIVE market penetration will ever let this unfortunate and inadequate advertising device go away. Here’s a clue to Scalzi’s opinion: He’s a bit more optimistic than I am.
While Scalzi looks at the technological inadequacies of Facebook, which he thinks will be its downfall, I see evidence that the outsized adoption rate, the 500 million members, creates a mythology of profit that goes beyond the reality of substandard technology.
I have no idea who Joseph Perla is, but this article, which may overstate the case a bit, brings up some questions about the value received by Facebook advertisers.
More and more people sign up to Facebook, and more and more businesses hear about how many people are on Facebook. It seems like a huge opportunity. TV shows and award-winning movies are made about Facebook.
Perla suggests that the it’s all sizzle and no steak:
What is clear from everyone I know who has advertised on Facebook is that it was a waste of money. Facebook promises big returns on ad spending, but delivers nothing. Yet, their value and growth continues because they can use that money to grow their user-base more and assert profitability (in this sense it’s not quite entirely a ponzi scheme, but there is no closer idea). It’s possible that they do not even realize that they are like a Ponzi scheme.
Perhaps Facebook is not a Ponzi scheme, but this concept of questionable value to advertisers has been on my mind for a while. It was refreshing to see someone echo those sentiments.
‘Tracker’ is a film from New Zealand that not only has one of my favorite actors of all time, but also stunning visuals and photography and a simple story of a bounty hunter and a Maori fugitive falsely accused. The trailer is below, but may get pulled shortly. Read more at QuietEarth!
Trial was scheduled to start today. I’ve got nine witnesses in my case, so it’s a pretty big deal for me – could take as long as two weeks and I’ve got over $1.5 million in lost wages to show the jury. Also, a significant sum has been offered, but it’s not enough.
New Jersey trial courts are extremely congenial and the Judges and their staff are terrific to work with. One problem is that the state has had to cut down on the number of judges, so cases have to wait to be tried.
On the one hand, I could get all grumpy about spending so many hours last week and all weekend getting it ready and being mentally prepared to get the show on the road today. That being said, that’s just not how my job works. So, whenever I get the call, whether it’s tomorrow or next month – I’ll just tighten everything up, call my witnesses and go do what I do.
I feel like this project has been around for a long time and I’m glad it’s finally done, but this trailer makes it look WAY too mainstream. That being said, his recent effort for the Masters of Horror series “Cigarette Burns” was so good, I have no doubt that he’s still got it. I’ll be there.
Utter craziness from the mad scientist mentioned two posts down. The good reads keep coming and this one proved to be no exception. How the fuck do you get a parable about the dangers of technology, a physics lesson, a meta-physics lesson, a quantum physics lesson, a nanotechnology seminar, a comedy, and a love story all in 320 pages? Oh, and by the way, this book features the end of the world, that is, the destruction of planet earth and all life on it. And that’s just the first chapter. Can I interest anyone in a some inter-dimensional tourism?
