your head in a vice

Samuel Butler said,

"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

i concur, good sir! Plato claimed the soul is like a chariot (reason) pulled by two horses: spirit, and appetite. spirit is easier to control than appetite, so we must develop our reason in order to better control our 'horses,' and not lead a life where debauchery outweighs integrity. 


and John Keats wrote wrote an ode on indolence (laziness). in this poem, he describes three figures: ambition, love, and poesy (poetry, which Keats sees as his vice). are we sensing a pattern yet? i must warn you that everything below is my own interpretation and i am by no means an authority. the full text of the poem is provided at the end of this post so's you can make your own interpretation.


Keats laments that he cannot have all three, but that in order for one to flourish, the others must retreat. He describes them:

They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn

When shifted round to see the other side;

They came again, as, when the urn once more

Is shifted round, the first seen shades return; 

i.e., you can't look at all sides of the urn at once; to fully see one figure, it has to be turned so the others are just out of focus. once he recognized 'who' they are, our narrator seems overcome with emotion. he recognizes that he doesn't have love, and that ambition is short-lived, but that his art - poesy - makes him indolent. it is his vice. 


however, the way he ends this ode is most interesting to me. some think he's refusing to acknowledge these three ruling forces in his life, or that he's deciding to continue to choose poesy over love and ambition with his final declaration:

Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;

Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

And for the day faint visions there is store;

Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright,

Into the clouds, and never more return!

i think, though, he's decided they are crude representations of life. they're masque-like on a deary urn. he has visions - inspiration - and that is worth a lot to him. he calls them phantoms, mocking his idleness. he may look idle, but he's filled with his 'vice.' 

i choose to reject the 'dualist' thinking that separates spirit from appetite, and love, ambition, and art from one another. it's just not that simple. it's the whole mind over matter, body versus mind mentality that i tend to disregard as naive. these are helpful ways to examine life and oneself, but the lines are much blurrier.


i see his 'ambition' as a representation of work, 'love' as a representation of family, and 'poesy' as art. but these are all intertwined in a life. further, for Keats, his ambition was his poetry, his work. and his friends/family were, granted, second to his work, but all surrounding it, inspiring it, relating to it.


we all have art in our lives in one way or another. is Keats saying that art is a luxury, to be enjoyed as a vice for those who have time to laze about and sigh and think and feel? and are those people then lacking in ambition and love? i don't see a lot of bums writing poetry.also, i find it interesting that this isnt an ode TO indolence, but ON it. prepositions have all kinds of meaning, you know. he's not singing a pretty song to laziness. he's lamenting ON the topic of it. 


ok, enough deep thoughts. anyone know who Jane Campion is? she's rad. i fell in love with her when i saw The Piano. anyone seen the piano? she wrote and directed it. guess what else she wrote and directed? her first in many many years - Bright Star. it's about Keats (oh, there's the connection). Campion rules at invoking emotion and mood with color and placement and all that mise en scene stuff. 

i have no idea how historically accurate it is, and i dont really care. kind of like i know Amadeus isn't accurate, but it's still one of my favorite movies. if you liked The Piano, and/or you like Keats, and/or you like period pieces, great art, etc, etc, just see the movie. it's long and slow, plotwise, but if you pay attention, every minute has something to show you.






now, as promised, the complete Ode on Indolence by John Keats:



One morn before me were three figures seen,
    With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
    In placid sandals, and in white robes graced:
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
    When shifted round to see the other side;
        They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
    And they were strange to me, as may betide
        With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, shadows, that I knew ye not?
    How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
    To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days?  Ripe was the drowsy hour;
    The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
        Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower.
    O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
        Unhaunted quite of all but - nothingness?

A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd
    Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd
    And ached for wings, because I knew the three:
The first was a fair maid, and Love her name;
    The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
        And ever watchful with fatigued eye;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
    Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek, -
        I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth!  I wanted wings:
    O folly!  What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition - it springs
    From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;
For Poesy! - no, - she has not a joy, -
    At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons,
        And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;
O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,
    That I may never know how change the moons,
        Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

A third time came they by: - alas! wherefore?
    My sleep had been embroider'd with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er
    With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
    Though in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
        The open casement press'd a new-leaved vine,
    Let in the budding warmth and throstle's lay;
O shadows!  'twas a time to bid farewell!
        Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three ghosts, adieu!  Ye cannot raise
    My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
    A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
    In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;
        Farewell!  I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
        Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright,
    Into the clouds, and never more return!

Written in 1819

too close for missiles; i'm switching to guns

you've seen a movie based on a book right? and maybe you've read that book. and no matter what order you did that in, you thought the book was better.. cuz there's more details n things you can't portray in film, blah blah, doesn't really matter.



i just read top gun. 'member top gun? best movie ever? yeah. here's that movie in text form (left).


equally rad in text form. kinda hard to read in that format, but you know what it is as soon as you start - then it's just the fun of realizing that yes, it is the whole movie. on one big piece of paper masquerading as a page in my esopus magazine that i've had for .. a while. 


i will now tell you two (2) things:
1. top gun is awesome in every form, and 
2. esopus is awesome in every form. (as if you didn't already know that based on my new top gun poster. but i'll go further.)


1. "take me to bed or lose me forever," or, how i learned to stop worrying and find that lovin feelin.


reasons top gun is awesome include, but are not limited to:

• great soundtrack
• jets
• rebellion and turmoil and love !
• sunsets
• beautiful people
• a surprising lack of violence ('splosions don't count as violence)
• 'splosions
• DANGER ZONE !
• boys singing to girls

but most of all, this:



i will accept no argument on this point.


further, it illustrates that christie was right, and they just don't make movies NOWADAYS that are as cool as the ones we grew up with. the fact that this movie was included as tiny-type-written, crisply-folded, perforated-for-ease-of-removal page in esopus 12 illustrates still further that this movie is freakin rad. 


it also suggests that someone thought it appropriate to include in the edition of esopus highlighting "black and white." hmmm. other thank ink on the ink on the page, what is black and white about this movie? quentin tarantino has an idea (i'll let you click on that instead of embedding the video because, obviously, it's offensive. enjoy.). but i'm not going to get into all the homo-erotica of this movie. i'll just leave it at 

take me to bed or lose me forever.

2. not a literary journal, not a magazine, just awesome.
esopus is a .. thing. that could be mistaken for a magazine, since it's called esopus magazine, or a literary journal, since it includes artsy writings and artsing, or probably a slough of other media. but whatever it is, i stinking dig it.


this is a non-profit. there's a spring and a fall edition, and they obviously cost WAY more to produce than they charge. one edition is $14, and a year subscription is $24. there are no ads. it is 100% art. art includes the aforementioned top gun story from esopus 12 (NOT the script, mind you). it also includes collages, short stories, poetry, sketches, articles, photography (sometimes even actual negatives), newspaper clippings, postcards, posters, creative images and words from any and everything you can think of. 


and each edition (i keep wanting to type 'episode' because it seems more fitting) comes with a CD of songs on the theme of the edition, requisitioned by esopus from awesome artists. for example, as previously mentioned, esopus 12's theme was black and white, artists (including lisa cerbone, sand pebbles, and sam amidon) chose black and white films (such as it's a wonderful life, to kill a mockingbird, and raging bull) as inspiration. from the editor. tod lippy:

some contributors took a direct approach, reflecting on, or expanding upon, the film's narrative; others created what are essentially post-facto soundtracks. they are all fascinating complements to their source material, not to mention compelling songs in their own right. 

i encourage you to check it out. it will challenge and confuse you, as it's not like any other media you're used to. but hopefully it will also make you grin and get excited and dig deeper and enjoy all the awesome there is to be devoured and digested in this life.

the future includes sex, guns, drugs, and body-swapping.

so i gave you some "girly" recommendations; now let's hear it for the boys. i read Altered Carbon in college, and once i had finished with all the rest of school's requirements, i read the other two books in this trilogy. i must say, holy stinking piles, batman. i understand (but am a bit terrified) why this story has been purchased by some sort of film industry for the making-into-a-movie action they tend to do to ruin so many books these days. silly kids, hollywooding my precious business. richard morgan is going to be filthy stinking rich, and he's not even old! kinda seth mcfarlane-lookin, huh. morgan's british though. anywho.

here's the deal. it's in the future, and our main character is a ... mercenary of sorts. his name is takeshi kovacs (pronounced TALK-eh-she KO-vatch). he used to be this super hardcore special ops marine type soldier guy, and now he's just a disturbed badass. dude's rad. and crazy. but he's not the most interesting thing about this book/series. the crazysauce is that in this future, one's consciousness is stored in a lil chip, like a harddrive. all your memories, your identity, per se, is all on this "cortical stack" in your brainstem. sounding like another book at all? it's not the same at all, don't worry. 

the kicker is that, should you die, your little chip can be inserted into another body. continue where you left off. or whenever your last 'upload' was. now, this new body could be a clone of you, another body like the one you were born with, or it could be some other body. you could potentially transfer everything there is about you into a body of the opposite sex, at any age. for instance, at one point our protagonist is reanimated into a body that was a smoker. so he's irritable until he figures this out, and then he's a trying-to-quit smoker for a while. 

this body issue is, by far, the awesomest idea i've come across in a long while, and i'll get into why a little farther down the page, but first, more about the story, cuz i think i've yet to hook you.

let me begin some hooking with this here fan art. reasons you will like this book include:

• badass dude with guns and super enhanced muscles and fighting SKILLZ
• who pretty much can't die
• and is a little crazy. 
• fight scenes so rad you'll think The Matrix was boring (note: if you liked The Matrix, you will like this book)
• travel between planets
• interplanetary turmoil
• body modifications with technology that give you extra 'powers' 
• crazy drugs do weird stuff with your body technologies
• like make sex crazy steamy
• crazy steamy sex scenes
• psychological issues 
• related to the whole body thing
• and unrelated to the whole body thing
• mysteries!
• the ability to insert a consciousness into a simulation and do just about anything to them
• like torture - they can't die! just go insane.. 
• or fun stuff
• or a whole ton of planning and chatting for days or weeks while only passing a few minutes in the 'real world'
• whole religions, economies, and philosophies developed around these new crazy technologies
• for instance, the hardcore religious types believe the soul cannot be contained in technology, so if one of them dies, even if their 'stack' is in tact, they are not to be placed in a new body. they're d-e-d, dead.
• also, of course, only those who can afford it can get new bodies if they die - and you have to be pretty stinking rich to get clones of yourself, so the moderately rich get bodies unlike their own.

ok, enough for now. i think you're titillated. on to the whole consciousness-in-a-chip/body-swapping issue, and its implications. this is something the author doesn't explore as much as i wish he did, but it certainly gets those mind grapes juicing. can you sense i'm going to get all existential on ya? you have such good senses.

where, when, and who am i?

consider: our protagonist is already over 100 years old. his body looks, oh, say, 30? who knows how many times his body has died. but he has memories from decades ago, on this and other planets, and, unlike most people around him, was actually born on Earth. (oh yeah, we've totally colonized lotsa other planets by now, don't you fret.) he has memories of wars. lots of them. of aliens. of loves and losts. of death. a lot of death. 

in a great movie that you should see called 13 Conversations About One Thing, a character raises his glass and says to another, "may you get everything you want," and he and his friend joke that this is an old gypsy curse (not unlike 'careful what you wish for'). ah, to live forever. but we've seen it again and again in great literature, the curse that is eternal life. you only really begin to see it later in the series, but takeshi starts to go batshit crazy from all his past - that's just too much past for one person. 

not to mention, it is (as it always has been) the rich who inherit the earth. or, planet, as the case may be - Earth is long gone. though the technologies are available to everyone, these things have their price. a well-to-do person could have a whole warehouse of cloned bodies, as well as a number of backup servers to ensure his constant survival. what's to keep those old rich farts from getting older and richer, and gaining too much power? what IS too much power? who's going to keep tabs on these old crazies? and of course, what about the poor sap who gets caught in the crossfire of a gang fight, whose stack was totally transferable, but whose family couldnt foot the bill for a new body? peace out, dude. 

worse still, what of the guy who said 'no seriously, keep my stack around til my funds can cover a new body,' so the government hung on to the thing, and plopped him in a new body 150 years later? this guy has no family, no friends, and might even be on a different planet, and he's in an unfamiliar shell. hrm.

or, even, what if the stack is in tact and in holding, or just in the body still, but the body is dead, can't afford a new body, or chose not to... is he still there? in nothingness? in a sort of purgatory? could he be placed into a new body should someone try that experiment in a couple decades? would he still be a person? a sane person? does one have to destroy the stack to 'release' the actual person?

there is one scene where a guy who was in prison [prison is all psychological, no body attached. your consciousness is pretty much just suspended on hold til your time is up, then you get a body.) gets out and goes to see his wife. there is mention that, even though she knows immediately that it's him and they're madly in love, blah blah blah, she felt like she was cheating on him because of the new body. oOoooo....

and.. where are my important bits?

further, the idea that your memories = you... interesting. you see, if you can store everything that equals you in this little chip, that means our bodies really are just vessels. we are not a part of them. this gets back to the question of 'where does my essence lie?' if you cut off my arm, i say, 'that is my arm, but i am me.' if you cut off my head, would i say 'that is my head, but i am me'? so then, does the 'soul' reside in the head? is the 'stack' just the human invention to embody the soul? 

the religious fanatics in the story obviously don't think so. they think your body is you, and if it dies, you're gone. crush that backup file, i'm outta here. but wait! we already have synthetic everything-parts! anyone seen Bicentennial Man? if you have a metal leg, a plate in your head, two hearing aids, glasses, and a pig's heart.. are you still human? what makes us human? if you have someone else's body, are you still you? what happens if you put a 'stack' in an animal? (this is touched on briefly in simulation in the series.) is any of this reminding you of Blade Runner? aka, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep? (which was written by Phillip K. Dick, after whom the Phillip K. Dick Award was named, which Richard K. Morgan won for Altered Carbon, btw. something about a middle name beginning with K...)

SKADOOSH!!! that was your head exploding. so awesome. i got some shrapnel. sure do love these questions. anywho, if you dig these ideas, or even just the rad 'film noir' meets dick tracy style of this book, i suggest you continue with the series. don't worry, two more! Woken Furies, and Broken Angels. here's the author's website, if you feel so inclined. 

ladies, ladies. there's plenty to go around.

maybe it's the font of the title, maybe you thought you recognized the author, maybe the cover art sparks some distant memory, just out of reach in your memory.. whatever the reason, you pick up a book you would never ever ever choose of your own volition. you roll your eyes, read the back flap, get slightly less uninterested, and decide you're intrigued enough to read the first paragraph, right there in front of the shelf at barnes and noble (you haven't invested enough in it to actually sit in one of the comfy chairs and get intimate with this book yet; it's still feeling-it-out time). 


usually, this ends with a harrumph and a not-so-gentle placement back on the shelf. but occasionally, you are ensnared. sarah dunant hooked me bright and early with The Birth of Venus, even though i regret to type, i had fallen into the habit of treating books that look like this and have subject matter like this as pulpy pseudo-intellectual romance novels. 


in fact, i loved it. i loved it so much i bought another book by sarah dunant to read next. that's right, NEXT, with no break to read something else in between. woah.

The Birth of Venus is a story about the life of a woman from childhood to oldladyhood, in Florence (and other places) in the 1500s. It is historical fiction, from which i usually shy away - mostly because i like totally made up stories better than ones that are trying to be realistic; i read to escape reality, after all. but this setting is mesmerizing. war, gore, politics, art, art, art, to name some of the awesomesauce of the historical accuracy of this book. all so perfectly woven into the main plot that you don't get that 'historical fiction' vibe of being lectured about boring goings on of days of yore. at all. 


but above all else, this novel is about what it means to be a woman. to grow into your role as a person, a character in your life, in your family, and in your history. this is not sexist, or feminist-y. it is easy to relate to and it is beautiful. i was shocked how much this book touched me. there are weddings that occur for a million reasons, none of which are love; there are births that are.. not as planned; there are passionate connections that are socially unacceptable; there are deaths and the multitude of perspectives, emotions, and rippled reactions through friends, government, enemies, society, and most of all, family. 


our main character grows into herself and learns to deal with all life throws at her in this very difficult time and place. she has to make choices that break her heart, and nearly her soul. she has to decide what it means to be a daughter, sister, lover, wife, mother, and adult, among much else. also, SO beautifully written. 


now, if you want something slightly more light-hearted, the book i read next (though written before) resulted in actual LOLs. In the Company of the Courtesan (also dunant), is about the same time period, and takes place in Rome and Venice. the main character goes through an epic (historical) tragedy, and ends up having to start from scratch with no help but her dwarf-buddy-servant-helper-friend. he, by the way, is the narrator. 

My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.

i dunno bout you, but i think that's a pretty good way to start a book. fiametta, if you haven't figured it out by now, is a courtesan (you know. like. a female companion. for a fee. but don't worry, it's not dirty). she goes through some significant horrors and findings about herself, her home, her friendships, her family, and most of all, her power. 

these are woman who are out of sync with their time, who are brilliant and cunning, and who refuse to be placed below men in their society. without giving anything away about either book, i must say that these are insanely empowering novels of enchanting clarity. well done, dunant. you've impressed me. 

oh, you're divine.

arrite kids, this one's about music, not books - but it's still about stories, so never you fear. i need to start this post with something comforting and (hopefully) familiar that relates almost immediately to the rest of this bizniz (for once!): 


  When I was just a little girl
  I asked my mother, what will I be
  Will I be pretty, will I be rich
  Here's what she said to me.

  Que Sera, Sera,
  Whatever will be, will be
  The future's not ours to see
  Que Sera, Sera
  What will be, will be.


if you haven't heard of wax tailor, i suggest you start hearing. the video below is almost all of the music video to their super awesome song, Que Sera (sound familiar?). 





the whole song is available on their website, and also here. hopefully you watched/listened to that, and noticed the abundance of Metropolis footage. i'll get into that sort of .. strategically. first of all, sound clips! throwing a bajillion sound clips into a super rad song is what wax tailor is all about (among others) - the artist is actually just a french dude who totally wins. but the compilation of various clips has a great (and intentional) effect in this song. for instance:


  "i need everyone to understand"
  "i don't understand"
  "i don't understand"
  "there are a lot of things we don't understand either"
  "we need answers from you"
  "what did you expect to find?"
  "what is gunna be our future?"
  "it's your responsibility to do something about it!"


et cetera. which brings me to my first point (thank god!). "que sera" implies we have no control over our future! what happened to responsibility?! it can be very comforting to think that FATE will run its course and we'll just float along que sera-ing though this world, but seriously? not so much. 


also, the juxtaposition of soundclips demanding understanding and getting none show the awesome dialectic between those with control and those without it, and the lack of communication, the lack of understanding. this can even be applied to the mother and child in the original doris day tune: child asks mom, mom says 'no worries, we have no control over our future.' if i were that kid, i might be comforted; but when i got a little older, i might be a little pissed off. 


this, of course, applies at a much higher level, to society/government at large (oh no, she's getting all 1984 again). hence, Metropolis. like everything i mention, if you haven't seen this classic, please do. the point is similar to those mentioned in the aforementioned post re: Feed/1984; that we're becoming drones, susceptible to ever-increasing levels of brainwashing and control through fear and desperate times and overpopulation and blah blah blah. i really do love these apocalyptic theories. it's almost as though, as each generation sort of fails at building on the one that came before, we're giving up our rights to everything out of laziness and the idea that whatever will be, will be. we are not responsible for our future or The Future, or any of it. someone else will handle that.


anywho. there's so much to dissect here that i'm just going to let it sink in and probably engage these ideas at a later date. if you like wax tailor, and what technology has done/is doing to music (or are at all interested by it), i'd like to make one more suggestion... 


seattle's emp (experience music project) is hosting a super stinking awesome conference next week about technology and music, called pop machine. it's FREE, and goes from April 15th through the 18th (check out the agenda by clicking on the dates in the upper right), which includes some very cool sounding lectures, panels, workshops, music, and i definitely saw mention of a cash bar. i will be there for what i can be there for, and will lament what i miss. did i mention it's free? 

my name depends on you

another time, i will compare in watermelon sugar to if on a winter's night a traveler, but not today. today i dive into the ridiculousness of richard brautigan's beat fiction "novel," in watermelon sugar, without clouding or confusing (further) by addressing out the similarities on an theoretical level to italo calvino's play on the reader's role in the act of reading. (woah, that was a lot of prepositional phrases. sorry, won't happen again.)

this book is called in watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. is it just me, or could you totally go for a tall glass of kool-aid right about now? anywho. i love this book. it's another that will only take an hour or two to read, you time-starved/short-attention-spanned people. but i must warn you, it's certainly not for everyone. i can't tell you much about the plot due to my no spoilers policy, but here's what the publishers apparently thought it was about (from the back cover): 

   in watermelon sugar

   is a story

   of love and betrayal

   that takes place in

   an extraordinary environment 

   where the sun

   shines a different

   color every day.

huh? exactly. but let me just say that this book plays with your mind the way phantom tollbooth teased you when you were little. everything is made out of something called watermelon sugar. or trout. the characters live on a sort of commune. i guess. there's a love story, but it's not easily recognizable as such. there are bad guys, but really just in the way that the people who choose to live underground in demolition man are 'bad.' 

here's a fun tidbit from what could be considered chapter 3, called My Name:

I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.

If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.

That is my name.

Perhaps it was raining very hard.

That is my name. 

awesome! i'm going to start introducing myself like that. there really is story and plenty of depth in this book; it's not just crazysauce to contemplate. that just makes it delicious. also, the tigers are good at math.


ok, last point, then i'll leave it up to you to read it and form your own opinions. many find this book frustrating because it's not clear what is "real." for instance, if you see something happen, dream the same thing, hear about it from someone else, what actually happened? does it matter? does it only matter what you believe happened? the concept of death has a great time in this story too. i'll leave it at that. 


if you've read it, or once the ambiguous 'you' have read it, i invite you to take a more academic look by trudging though the paper i wrote about reading between the lines of this fantabulous novel.

what to read if you only have an hour or two and want to devour a meaningful book

"we went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

don't you love it when you're hooked on the first sentence? Feed, by M.T. Anderson, is a postmodern young adult novel. don't you dare give up on it right now because i said it's young adult. c'mon. we're all young adults. if i haven't recommended this book to you personally yet, it's probably because i don't know you or haven't talked to you in the last handful of years.

reasons i recommend this book to everyone include:

• it really does only take an hour or two to read but it's not fluff
• it's hilarious AND relatable (because it's terrifyingly telling and accurate about where our society is headed)
• it addresses some very important questions about our society/culture
• the story could only be called formulaic by a stretch of the old boy-meets-girl, but it's a great story
• anyone between the ages of .. oh.. cognizant enough to use a computer to curmudgeon-y will find something to love about it (or hate, which by translation in the literature world means the book got to you enough to make you feel strongly, and therefore, the book still wins.)

remember the first time you read 1984? or the first time you saw Vanilla Sky? or when you figured out who Keyser Soze was? that's how this book makes you feel. the best way to describe it, i suppose, is that it's 1984 for today's youth. but see, now i sound like a tool. so allow me to elaborate (without spoilers).

the main characters are teenagers in the not-too-unbelievably-distant future. the narrator is a teenager. i'm going to let that sink in for a moment as you think about how current teenagers talk. or think. *shudder.* this doesn't make the novel unbearable, as one might assume, however. it makes it funny. i swear. please refer back to the first sentence. also, it's interspersed with the actual advertisement, song lyrics, etc. with which the teens are being bombarded. it's scary how similar these are to current pop culture. because of the ridiculousness.

these teens live in a future (second generation or so) where, at birth, "everyone" (the way we say 'everyone' has a cell phone) is implanted with a feed. think internet that could fit on the head of a pin, stuck in yer brain, so you can access all the stuff you google and wikipedia just by thinking it. also, you can watch tv. also, you are bombarded with advertisements all the time, in your brain. there is no need for school anymore because anything you need to know you can just look up. in your feed. in your brain. but even further, there's really no reason to learn anything we would consider academic because society is based primarily on consumerism. the kids go to school, sure, but it's to learn what to wear, what to buy, how to decorate their bedroom. school is a corporation. the clouds themselves are trademarked. getting the idea?

another important point: you are profiled, categorized, based on what you buy. what you consider buying. the types of things you look up in your feed. starting to sound familiar? i love google, but sometimes those targeted ads creep me out a little. even further, there are seven categories. doesn't that make you feel special? you are one of seven types of highly predictable consumers.

ok. that's all i'm going to say about the book, besides READ IT. now i'm going to venture into a couple of the reasons it struck me so personally (i.e., if all you wanted was the book review, you may go now). now to address two points:

1. in a world where everyone has all the most up to date information, knowledge, pop culture, etc. accessible by instant thought, things change SUPER FAST.
2. consider the gap between where we currently are and the future this premise predicts. we have netbooks. we have bluetooths (blueteeth?). we have hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, and something called 4G! if "everyone" jumped off a bridge, would you?

1. superfast:
once upon a time, i was having a conversation with my dad (in person) and having a text conversation at the same time (on my fancypants flip phone). my dad was shocked. he said, astonished, "it's like.. you've... partitioned your brain!" oooo, i can text and talk at the same time! wait, that's actually pretty crazy. also, my dad knows what it means to partition (he really meant it like a hard drive partition!). but seriously, what?

i have applied the following thesis to literature, film/theater, music, business, conversation, relationships, adult learning, and child rearing. and it's not that profound. we are goin fast. we are goin faster than we went 10 years ago, way faster than 20 years ago, and stinkin crazy faster than ever before then. by fast i mean our attention spans are shorter because more information is available FASTER. in film, if the camera stays on one shot without moving for more than something like 3 seconds, the modern viewer is bored or uncomfortable. can you imagine waiting on a dial-up connection now? or waiting for a letter from your significant other (written by hand and delivered on horseback) versus the constant texting and chatting of today? seriously, 5 years of courtship in days of yore = maybe a week or two of tech-assisted get-to-know-you conversation now.

so. here comes a future so devoid of waiting, so fast, that in a group of friends - mid-conversation - all the female-types rush to the bathroom and return with a different hairstyle. because that's the newest trend and they're that up to date because they have all the latest pop culture (tv, music, commercials!) playing constantly in their brains. is this where we're headed?

i challenge you to stop everything and see how long that lasts. or, for that matter, do only one thing for more than 10 minutes. don't check your phone, don't go to the bathroom, don't check facebook, don't write yourself a little note, don't turn on the tv, don't pet the cat. IMPOSSIBLE, ISN'T IT?! because in our fast-paced society, we're trained to do so many things at once, and take in so much information that we can't sit still. in brain or body.

2. all the cool kids are doing it:
we're already at a place where it's mandatory to have a laptop for college. where every job you might want requires at least a basic knowledge of technology. what if, to compete in society, to get an education, to get a job, you actually had to implant something in your brain? what if you could get that bluetooth permanently implanted behind your ear? what if you everyone had one? what if you had to make the choice that, to give your CHILD a fighting change in society, you needed to implant some form of technology in them at birth? right up there with counting fingers and toes, standard procedure. we already put tracking chips in our pets. you have poor eyesight; you get glasses; you get contacts; you get laser eye surgery... you get electronic eyeballs?

i'm not saying the advance of technology is a bad thing. quality of life! longevity! awesome! i'm saying, what if something goes wrong? what if continue on this road? will we all end up superhuman? the antithesis of the ubermensch? will we end up like the society in wall-e? fat, lazy, bored, and useless, while our planet and everything of value about human society dies?

wee!! i hope you're not too depressed. just some stuff to munch on.