The Windup Girl, Capital Cities In A Swamp And Open Thread
A beautiful and finally tolerable day in the Imperial City. Call them ‘surrender monkeys’ all you want, but when Pierre L’Enfant in 1791 began designing Washington, D.C., he’s not the one who decided the capital should be on a swamp. Here’s an open thread.
We’re tuning out for a day or two all the click-baiting, ankle-biting meme chihuahuas (Gore and Portland, this person is or is not a racist, etc.) in favor of a new book. “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi. We recommend it.
People seem to think Bacigalupi is the next William Gibson (after all, it says so in the blurbs). Perhaps he is, but so far we find him closer to Murakami’s excellent Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Also highly recommended.
Reviewers suggesting it’s a new ‘Neuromancer’ aren’t completely off. That book’s now oft quoted “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” doesn’t convey the richness of “Windup.” And Murakami’s textured (and structurally clever) “Hard Boiled Wonderland”, although not as well known to most Amerikuns, while of the same early 1980s era as Gibson went beyond just ‘jacking into the net’ and explored some of the biological themes fully developed in “Windup.” What we get with “Windup” is a more richly created dystopian world.
Is Bacigalupi another Vance as others suggest, a ‘world builder’ without peer? That’s for another post, perhaps. “Windup” is a great read filled with wry observations about a future with mindless American-Davos consumerism/branding triumphant. Dystopian to be sure but always entertaining and at times witty as well.
Why Can’t Americans Make Good Spy Movies?
The question came about 5 minutes into utterly trivial ‘Salt.’ Americans grovel before a larval Counter-Intelligence State (a term the deservedly respected, former DIA veteran John Dziak so aptly used for the Soviet Union). America’s tolerance for militarization and threat-addiction is so high now it shrugs off formerly toxic-level dosages without notice. So why can’t it make a good spy movie?
Inception – Chris Nolan Is Right
One central conceit of Chris Nolan’s movie ‘Inception’ is that an idea, once planted, is unstoppable. No direct spoilers below – unless you follow links. Providing spoilers requires more cognitive commitment than just watching it.
‘Inception’ is supposed to pass for ‘high concept’ science fiction these days. Some compare it to Fellini’s ‘8 1/2’ – seriously. (Bonus points if you knew before Googling where CHUD came from). Remember all those now tenured faculty launching careers ‘revealing’ hidden subtexts in the first three Star Wars movies? Same deal, geekier arena.
People playing the pundit game these days are no different. We remember leaving ‘Attack of the Clones’ with a national security type and spouse. The spouse — whom you may even read on the Interwebs now — was crestfallen, bemoaning all those years studying the VHS tapes . . . wasted. So one might want to wait before writing off the ‘Inception’-Fellini meme. It may have a long half-life.
If it’s not Fellini, what is it? It’s doing good business for one thing. The movie boasts a remarkable 85% ‘fresh’ rating from Rotten Tomatoes. New Yorker critic David Denby doesn’t buy it. We’ll let you decide. Despite the ads, this movie works as well on a big screen now, Cinemax later or even computer monitor.
We do think Fellini Chris Nolan is on to at least one thing. A week ago we read this review declaring ‘Inception’ to be a calamitous pitch of Clooney’s self-admiring ‘Ocean’s 11’ meets ‘The Matrix’. Clever, actually – and funny if you remember Buck Henry’s pitch meeting in ‘The Player.’
The relevant point? The reviewer kept mocking Di Caprio as ‘fetus face’. Childish. Dismissible.
So it’s a week later. In a movie theater surrounded by people who subscribe to AARP magazine (we ignore the direct mail). They really do reach and turn off their cellphones when told to do so before the previews, etc. Then the movie. And from scene one all we could do was keep thinking ‘fetus face.’ Scene after scene. Until final credits. You see, an idea, once planted really is unstoppable. We were . . . incepted, if you will.
Someone could just say ‘Hey Stiftung, check out this queen of hearts, yo!’ More succinct. Ten bucks saved. No fetal imagery. If ‘Inception’ is the price for at least one future greenlit good sci-fi movie ‘to cash in’, a reasonable down payment. A shame it couldn’t ever plausibly be compared to ‘Satyricon’.
But did you know you are being incepted now as you read this? You *will* remember this exact moment years in the future. When someone turns to explain the deep subtexts within the first ‘Inception Trilogy’. You will wake up. In America.
We Were Somewhere On The Edge Of Barstow . . . (Summer Boredom Edition)
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
OK, it was Foxhall Road, not Barstow, the ribbon-like vein leading down to Canal Road, Key Bridge and the Imperial Metroplex. And it was Summer 1985, not the era of the last good Stones albums. For a D.C. summer, it was still brutally humid, made crushingly worse by a savage vodka hangover.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- …
- 15
- Next Page »