Daily Blah for... Saturday, November 16, 2002
A Lust For (Second) Life
No sooner do I finish dismissing a fictional virtual world than I run headlong into the genuine article (a real virtual world, that is -- I may have just hammered another nail into the coffin of the English language there, but you get the idea). It's called Second Life, it's coming next year from San Francisco-based Linden Lab, and although nominally an online game, it's also the most earnest and appealing digital pursuit I've seen in a long time. This is way beyond Everquest. This is a world where the emphasis is on creation, not destruction; where connections, community spirit and self-expression are rewarded. You build houses (or shops, or amusement parks, or discos or whatever takes your fancy), you construct whatever funky furnishings and machines you have skill enough to design, you buy and sell, you can at any time change your clothing and bodily appearance to any one of a billion possible permutations. You can fly. You see everything, including yourself, in 360-degree 3-D. When you meet others, they indicate they are instant messaging you with a comic little mime of typing on a keyboard. The clouds and the wind that bends all trees are run by chaos theory. The sunsets are delightful.
The result is the most intensely creative and neighborly environment I've experienced since Burning Man. (It helps that as many women as men are playing the game, at least at the testing stage.) It's heartwarming to see people walking around in the most outrageously original bodies and costumes, taking little subconcious fashion cues from each other. Wings, apparently, are becoming very popular. It's fascinating to see people setting up little shops, creating an entire economy out of thin air (and yet it's not all about capitalism; Second Life automatically skims property taxes off your earnings and doles out welfare payments to all inhabitants every week). And it's voyeuristically delicious to be able to walk in their homes. In Second Life, nobody locks their door.
Daily Blah for... Friday, November 15, 2002
Future Heaven: Hard to Swallow
Just finished the Dennis Danvers novel Circuit of Heaven. It was a thoroughly readable attempt at a science-fiction Romeo and Juliet, in which the backdrop was -- potentially, at least -- as intriguing as the romance. It's set inside a latter 21st-century computerized reality called the Bin, into which the vast majority of humanity -- twelve billion people -- have uploaded themselves. The Bin is indistinguishable from the real world except for the lack of crime, disease and death. The real world is a broken-down shambles populated by a few stubborn holdouts and religious extremists. You've guessed it -- one of the star-cross'd pair hails from the Bin, the other from dingy, death-filled Earth; a broad river of reality divides our lovers.
Nice idea, but alas, I was unable to make the mental leap into the Bin throughout. I speak as an avid SF fan, dew-eyed futurist and fully paid-up space cadet who can swallow the most ridiculous premise -- if explained well. The Bin was not. We are told at the outset that it stores human souls in a network of silicon crystals. I awaited elaboration in vain. We are told this network is stored in what used to be known as the Pentagon, and yet could somehow withstand a direct nuclear attack (Danvers was writing before 9/11, naturally). But most of all, I could not believe in twelve billion uploads -- including Congress, the Pope and most of his clergy -- by 2080. I could not believe the human race would so readily give up on its home and retreat into inner space. Even if it does hold out the promise of immortality, I doubt that many would take it if it meant consigning our real-world bodies to a vast crematorium and never being able to have real children. It's too deep in our programming to keep body and soul together for life, to procreate, and to die.
Nevertheless, with inspirational help from the technology all around us, this virtual world idea is fast becoming a sub-genre of its own -- the first real literature of the new century. Think of the Matrix, Ray Kurzweil's Age of Spiritual Machines, and Greg Egan's Permutation City. Someday I'm going to have to plunge into this sub-genre myself, mind first.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, November 13, 2002
The Tale of Bill's Toys
It's starting to feel like one of my very good friends is being persecuted by the New York tabloid establishment for the crime of having an alternative lifestyle. His name is Bill, he's a reporter for the Daily News, and some time ago he made a video personal for a New York cable show that practically no one watches. He did not identify himself in the ad, and said only that he worked for "a major metropolitan daily." But somehow, we're still not quite sure how, that video was seen and recognized by someone at the rival New York Post, and Bill was promptly made sport of in that paper's infamous Page Six gossip column. Why? Because the personal featured Bill showing off his sex toys -- furry handcuffs, a remote-control vibrating egg, and the like. Which would, to me, seem to make sense: if you're into activities that aren't exactly mainstream, it's as well to display them up front when you're seeking a partner.
Now I've written a gossip column in the past. I'm under no illusions about what is and isn't fair game. I think the Post went a bit far in emphasizing the fact that Bill described himself as agnostic (translation: our rival is a newspaper staffed by godless perverts), and I'm surprised that such relatively mild behavior still causes a stir (it's the 21st century, for crying out loud). But at the end of the day, gossip is gossip. Even Bill recognized it wasn't really about him: the whole business merely offered the Post a chance to poke fun at, and possibly steal circulation from, the News.
No, the real persecution came today, when Ed Kosner -- editor of the News -- decided to suspend Bill for two weeks without pay. He charged that Bill had brought the paper into disrepute, which is a little strange considering Bill hadn't used his or the newspaper's name. And as Bill pointed out, if the problem is with his private life, it's a little ironic that they've given him more time for it. Kosner's diktat was, of course, a monumental mistake. It allowed the Post to print a second-day story, poking more fun at the News. And it got the News' staffers so riled that they started a collection to make up for Bill's lost salary. I told Bill he ought to move out west, to San Francisco, where employers are a little more respectful of private lives and alternative ways of living them. Hell, the Chronicle would probably give him a medal.
That's in the long run. First, he should sue the bejesus out of the News. It's a clear-cut case of workplace discrimination.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Two Minutes Hate, Redux
Today's reappearance of The Evil One, albeit in audio tape form, sent me scurrying back to my favorite -- and most feared -- novel of all time, 1984. It seems ever more evident that bin Laden is our Emmanuel Goldstein: a bugaboo, an Aunt Sally, a monster we habitually throw up on the telescreen to terrorize ourselves into ever tighter (and more costly) knots of security. (Funny word, security. It often seems to make people feel less secure). If he didn't exist, the U.S. military and homeland security establishment would have had to invent him. Or as Orwell had it:
As usual, the face of the Enemy of the People had flashed onto the screen. There were hisses here and there in the audience ... long ago he had mysteriously escaped and disappeared ... The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure ... Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies; perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- it was occasionally rumored -- in some hiding place in Oceania itself.
Chillingly prescient, no? Strange how we got past 1984 with a sigh of relief, and started to feel quite smug about Orwell getting it wrong (even though, in a prime example of doublethink, we simultaneously knew he meant the book as more an ever-present warning than a specific date-based prediction). Then came 2001, and we're slap-bang in a Two-Minutes hate situation. Goldstein and bin Laden, both perfectly crafted TV enemies, down to the last detail:
[Winston] could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard -- a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose ... it resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheeplike quality ... the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically.
Automatically: a good choice of word. You see bin Laden's face, you hate him automatically. There's no thought process going on. You're a hating machine. What's worrying me is the more I get into this, the more parallels suggest themselves. Does the following sound familiar?
But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day, and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were -- in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his direction were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the state.
The telegraphed and telescoped existence of which, of course, is very useful to Big Brother. Or in our case, Little Son. Just as it is important for BB and the Party to encourage the belief that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, so GW would have us imagine America has always been at war with bin Laden and Saddam -- despite coddling up to both with bags of cash and weapons in the 80's. Many of us seem to have dropped those facts into our memory holes.
The more you think about it, the more GW becomes a terrifying modern version of BB. Both are figureheads; there's nothing there of substance behind the reassuring eyes and the Newspeak-like mangled language (anyone who's seen the candid documentary Journeys with George, now screening on HBO, can attest to that). He's a cipher for members of the elite Inner Party: Cheney, de facto head of the Ministry of Truth, Rummy at the Ministry of Peace, and John "O'Brien" Ashcroft over at the Ministry of Love. GW's existence, a reassuring distraction that looks good on the telescreen, allows for the acquisition of power for power's sake, not to mention the corporate boot on the human face, forever. Oh, and in the absence of any effective opposition, perhaps the GOP ought to drop the first two words of its name -- and become, simply, the Party.
Daily Blah for... Monday, November 11, 2002
Raddick Reviews Rock
Have you caught the Henry Raddick craze yet? Raddick -- real name uncertain -- spends what must amount to half his life on Amazon posting the most hilarious reviews of the most obscure and strangely-titled books. I've spent much of today busting a gut over them. He claims to be a Brit, a clinically obese thirtysomething living with an even more portly wife called Marjorie, a difficult teenage son, and a pug named Grendel. I know for sure only that he's a fellow Brit. The powers that be at Amazon tolerate him well enough, either because he always gives books positive reviews or because Jeff Bezos has a tremendous sense of humor (which, if you've ever spent more than five minutes in his company, seems the more likely option). The Register, that irreverent British technology review, has an interview with Raddick here.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, November 10, 2002
Rain Stops Play
In San Francisco, the skies have been crying for days now. At first they were in denial, but on Thursday night the floodgates opened. We had a fully-fledged storm on our hands. I happened to be on the way to opening night of Cirque du Soleil's new performance, Varekai, when a billboard bent over and collapsed not twenty feet away in the high winds. The performance was cancelled, of course, but they only told us that after we'd queued for tickets and stood outside the tent in the stinging rain for half an hour. The announcement was made through a megaphone by a guy with a Yorkshire accent, which somehow made the whole thing even more surreal.
We traipsed over to the pier shed where the afterparty was being set up; it was the first time I'd seen an afterparty without an actual performance, but people were glad to be out of the wet. The set-up, however, was not happening with too much haste, security people blocked us from the food and drink, and I hightailed it out of there, passing George Lucas and his heavily made-up date on the way out. It was not a night to schmooze with has-been childhood icons. It was a night to be curled up on the couch with Chinese food and a good DVD. Passing Pac Bell park, the wind tore down a large fiberglass and canvas structure from the roof just seconds after we walked underneath it. It fell to the ground in slo-mo, shards spraying in every direction, and we froze in terror, 9/11 nightmares briefly resurrected.
Progressive Blues
I haven't allowed myself to think much about the election results yet. Chances are that somehow I'd feel personally responsible for them. Not in any logical way, nor even in any mystical, karmaic, butterfly-flapping-its-wings way. I just always feel guilty when progressive parties lose badly. When the left lost the UK general election in 1992, I couldn't write -- and could barely speak -- for about a week. The sense of personal responsibility was overwhelming. I don't know why this should be, but I'm sure some amateur psychiatrists out there could explain it. I guess I just get too involved, too wound up, in the political fate and future of nations. I get too invested in wanting common sense and the common man to triumph over special interests and special forces. This, you see, is why I don't cover politics.
Early Wednesday morning, as soon as Jean Carnahan conceded and the GOP took the senate, I took out my frustration on all those cardboard boxes from the crap I get mailed every day (see Blahs passim), tearing a laundry room full of them into recycling-sized bits. By the time I learned about Mondale losing Minnesota, a thin veil of rationalization had been draped over the situation. It's all for the best, I told myself, because it means the Democrats get a good reality check way before 2004, and it increases the urgency to find the perfect candidate (step forward, Senator John Edwards). These things always happen in swings, I told myself. And when I learned yesterday that Nancy Pelosi, my very own representative, is in line to replace Gephardt as House minority leader -- the first female leader of any party -- it cheered me up immensely.
The veil, of course, is gossamer-thin. It ignores all the damage Bush can do over the next two years (absent a couple more Jim Jeffords). It turns a blind eye to all the judicial nominees that will get free passes. As sweet as Pelosi's appointment is, it matters not one jot next to the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Sigh. And when that happens, I'll probably feel responsible.
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