Elegy

In the last couple of days I've noticed two dead animals (mammals) by the side of the road. One was a rabbit and the other was a squirrel. The rabbit was an especially sad sight because it was barely larger than a mouse, so it must have been a kit.

I note this not to be morbid, but as a kind of companion to other observations. You often see animals running across the street in a city. Cats seem to be very adept at it. But there's no guarantee of safety with this action. As is often the case. Drivers can do you in without--in most cases--intending to or even knowing you're there.

Future not what it used to be

The following is an excerpt from Bernard Wolfe's afterword to his own story suite "Monitored Dreams and Strategic Cremations", from Again, Dangerous Visions (1972).

Science has been from the beginning what it most spectacularly is now, the handmaiden of capitalism. SF has all along been the handmaiden to, as well as the parasite on, science. This is a treason to the profession of writing, which in its serious forms can be a handmaiden of nothing but disdain for, and assault upon, that-which-is. 

They will, of course, improve their dream monitoring in order to make their cremations more strategic. With the technical assistance of the for-anybody's-hire scientists. And the gleeful sidelines cheers of their sf votaries.

If you detect pretension, you're not wrong. If you've seen Richard Linklater's Slacker you may remember the old anarchist who insists that he was fighting Franco in the civil war when really he visited Spain once, in the fifties. That's how Wolfe tends to come off. 

But consider Silicon Valley and AI accelerationism. The congressional moratorium on states regulating AI is plainly unconstitutional, for all anyone lets that stop them. But it's the kind of thing that organized science and technology demands. You might think of it as the aggressive counterpart to defensive COVID panic, which was equally based on scientism.

Where both science and science fiction have gone wrong is in imposing an eschatology on both the social and natural world. An inexorable progress, resisted only by fools. But it's incumbent on us to ask, "Whose progress? Whose goal? And why should it be inevitable?"

Summer pushes us into the deep end

I trust that when I post on the trusty blog again in a couple of days I'll have something more interesting to say than "It's hot." But for now, it's very, very hot. Hit 100F today, in fact.

One thing that changes for me when the mercury goes way up is the way I drink water. For much of the year I'll pour a glass of water and just let it sit for a while, because drinking it right away isn't necessary. Might even be painful in the winter. But on really hot days I'll probably down it right away.

Varying dimensions of mind

À propos of nothing I figured I'd share my impressions of the four shows that have aired under the title The Twilight Zone. Here goes.

The first (1959-64): This is the one that really makes it. If it hadn't been a success it's unlikely they would have tried to revive it at all, or turn it into a movie. Rod Serling was a great writer for the medium, as well as being a special presence as narrator, despite not being trained as an actor. The writer part also applies to Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. The change to hourlong episodes in the fourth season was a bad move, with the exception of a few episodes. Still, that just proves that Serling had hit upon the right form to begin with.

The second (1985-89): Shakier. Like its predecessor, it had a heavyweight writing staff, led by Harlan Ellison. And some of the stories are very effective. Often seemed to think it was deeper than it actually was, although you could argue that too much ambition is better than not enough. Kind of wild that the Dead did the opening theme song.

The third (2002-03): Aired on UPN with Star Trek: Enterprise as its lead-in. One good thing it did was bring back the onscreen narrator, the position now being filled by Forrest Whitaker. Unfortunately, most of the stories were--what's the word?--bad. Good actors tended to be stranded. 

The fourth (2019-20): Created and narrated by Jordan Peele, it first showed on Netflix. Being a streaming show instead of a broadcast show meant they could throw in a lot of swears. It also meant they could pursue a narrower audience. Unfortunately--there's that word again--this meant in practice focusing on Resistance liberals and preaching to the choir. Which I guess is at least a new way to be bad.

So perhaps I'm biased but Serling's original seems to be the one to really hit it out of the park. I'd also note that the two better series--from the 50s and 80s--adapted short stories from print, while the next two didn't. Sometimes "original" ideas aren't.

Words to live by

 

It's a kind of retrofuturism. An image that calls up what they once thought the future would be like. 

When I was a kid anything science fictional or future-oriented was likely to be packaged with some kind of font that evoked a rounded-off square: no sharp points, but no actual circles either. The one on the right, now called Data 70, was especially popular. I think it got its futuristic image sometime in the sixties.

These were products of their time, and it seems especially of the daisy wheel printers used back then. The advent of the personal computer made it seem kind of old fashioned, although the prompts on the screens of early PCs and Macs weren't all that far off.

All the steps

Step 1: Put food in the oven.

Step 2: Close the oven door.

Step 3: Wait 30-40 minutes.

Step 4: Wonder why you still don't smell any food.

Step 5: Realize that it helps when you turn the heat on.

This is one of those things that's unbelievably aggravating in the moment but gets funny when you have a couple hours' distance.

Curveball

People can surprise you. Take Marjorie Taylor Greene. I never really got the liberal panic over her, but I didn't expect anything from her either. She'd spend one term in the house, maybe two, and spend all that time being ignorant and exhibitionistic. Then she'd get a commentator job at Fox or OAN or something like that, trading on her forgettable time in Washington.

Now she's doing as much as anyone in Congress to avert World War III. Not all by herself, but more than most, and very clearheaded about what's wrong with our foreign policy. Of course Congress has been abdicating its job on that front for so long that Presidents tend to get what they want by default. That deference started a long time before Trump, but it may not be sustainable anymore.