william-gibson

From a recent interview: William Gibson Hates Futurists :: tyeebooks.ca

On whether some new terrorist attack will make 9-11 look small

“Eventually, I would say it’s almost inevitable. Not immediately, because there is no need. The last one is still working. In some strange way, [for terrorists] anything that was less than 9-11 won’t do. Anything less spectacular just won’t do.

“How terrorism works in the broadest sense really is the inversion of the psychology of the lottery. The paradigms of asymmetrical warfare are such that one of the defining and unchanging characteristics of the terrorist is that he has very, very little in the way of stuff to work with. He can’t really do much. He can kill a few people. He can knock down a few buildings in New York. But if he does it in a terroristically effective way, and if the society he does it to responds in what to the terrorist is the optimal way, everybody in society feels threatened. In spite of the fact that the odds of any given individual being done in by a terrorist’s bomb are about the same odds of that individual winning the lottery.

“Terrorism is a con game. It doesn’t always work. It depends on the society you are playing it on. It certainly has worked with the United States.”

Hawai’i and Memories
Well, this is a bit better. Since I last typed, I jumped off a 40 foot lava rock a few times, swam with 3 honest-to-goodness sea turtles, had some bagels and lox, flew from Maui to Hawai’i (the locals write it out that way. Hawaiian is not a written language, it’s about the sound, and the apostrophe better approximates the pronunciation). I’ve sent a bunch of postcards (apologies to anyone I’ve missed); did some watercolors; lots of snorkling; lots of swimming; walking, and yes, more.

I’m reading the out-of-print A Woman On Paper, a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. She’s a fascinating woman, as illuminated through letters and images and especially her relationship with the author, Anita Pollitzer. One thing in particular I thought fascinating was that when she was a young girl, and doing portraits of people, often she would destroy what she made soon after making them because she said she did not want them floating around to haunt her. I like that notion – of making a piece of art, then destroying. I think of some native arts where at the completion of the art, you destroy it. Sand painting I think of first. And I also think of the part in the film (also a book, but I know the movie) A River Runs Through It—the father has the boys write a theme, he reads it, and then tells them to throw it away. That dedication to craft, coupled with the destruction of it, I find really interesting. In web design much of what I do is designed to be permanent. Jakob Nielsen says that web pages must live forever. But I think of William Gibson’s Agrippa, which was created in 1992, and was far too expensive for one such as I to buy. It was designed to be read once. Then it would be destroyed. Of course, now, the text is widely available.

The internet remembers. It has a long memory. Whether that is the usenet archives or the internet archive. The net remembers forever. If it appears as bits, someone can remember it. Memory, of course, is very much the topic of much Cyberpunk fiction. Blade Runner. Johnny Mnemonic. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale / Total Recall. Robocop.

And memory is, in the end all we have.

Now I will go make more memories in the water.

Onward.

No Maps for These Territories, a documentary about William Gibson is now out on DVD.

Surveillance State
The surveillance state is beginning. 1984 is no longer the relevant text. We need to look to how information flows in Cyberpunk novels like those of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Where having surveillance and databases out there in the aether don’t necessarily make anyone safer or happier or more secure. We must think carefully about how information tracking technologies can and will be used, abused, and subverted.

It may also be time to learn more about the EFF.

Keeping a journal is a responsibility, once you start it. But what does one do when there is precious little to share? I’m in transition now. Lots of irons in the fire. Things on my mind.

Other people have things about to happen as well. The new Bruce Sterling interview in Locus indicates a new nonfiction book from him called Tomorrow Now sometime soon. William Gibson is working on a new book, no idea of the release date. David Byrne has a new album due to be released soon. There’s a new biography of Talking Heads out soon.

So much stuff. Meanwhile, visions of new articles for artlung.com are gelling in my head. Stay tuned.

Another reason why I idolize William Gibson:

I can’t get the phrase “Venice decompressed” out of my head. The phrase is in the book Idoru. I’ve been listening to the audio book version on my short commute.

Venice decompressed.

The Fresh Air radio show from Tuesday, April 10, 2001: a remarkable interview with the author of a new biography of Timothy McVeigh.Their book is significant to history, given Mr. McVeigh’s shyness with the press, and yet the authors, both journalists, come across as mild-mannered to a fault. Until I had heard an exerpt on the radio, I had not realized that McVeigh had confessed to the crime.Their book is called American Terrorist and looks to be worth a read.

William Gibson, in the new film No Maps For These Territories, describes seeing footage of the Murrah Building on CNN as a pivotal moment. The bar for science fiction had been raised, as the modern world made another leap of incomprehensibility.