"Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a thousand masks,
masks that I am afraid to take off and none of them are me." —Unknown

22 October, 2004 - 12:06 p.m. - The purpose of cyberpunk
Lately i've been thinking about the whole idea of cyberpunk. In many ways over the years, it has gone from being a revolutionary concept around which stories revolved to being a plot device that simply exists as a convenient way of getting the characters from point A to point B.

On a related note, one of things i've been thinking about is breaking things down to their base levels, and whether or what perspectives genres add to storytelling.

If you have a story about a person whose essence has been uploaded to a global network, is it really anything more than a ghost story? If the character in the story takes the form of a program who has been exiled from a specific server, is it really any different from the story of a person who's been banished from his tribe? Maybe it would have to be a tribesman with magial powers, maybe the character would have to be a shaman--but really, is there any difference? Does putting human characters within the confines of intelligent programming really change the story all that much?

Does it all boil down to setting, or is there actually something different about this kind of story? Is it just another way of telling a tale that already exists--with a setting that's more reflective of today's technology (and hence, updated, or at least more fashionably clothed metaphors)?

Bottom line: is there really anything that cyberpunk can do that non-cyberpunk fiction can't? Is it just fancy dressing, or does it really teach us something new about humanity?

I'm curious about people's opinions on this. If you have one, please write it in my guestbook.

20 October, 2004 - 4:47 p.m. - Unique
When it comes down to it, the human species isn't the only one that wages war, makes tools, or has a complex social structure. Nor is our species the only one that uses language, exhibits a wide range of social interactions, or builds dwelling structures. It's not even clear whether our species is the only one that's self-aware (depending on where you draw the line between self-awareness and simple biological reaction--it's a rather large continuum).

No, these aren't the qualities that make our species unique. Not by a long-shot. When it comes down to it, what really makes us different from all the other species out there is our tendency to create wonderful things (be they social, architectural, political, or technological inventions), complain about how crappy they are, and go on living with them.

I swear, sometimes i think we must be the stupidest species on the planet.

20 October, 2004 - 12:18 p.m. - Recent reading
I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately, but i haven't posted any reviews here in a while. Part of the reason for that is that i was feeling a bit unqualified to write reviews. The more i think about it, however, the more it seems that reviews from readers are just as important as reviews from academics.

I don't think i'll go back to doing full reviews (unless a particular work moves me enough to write one), but little "capsule reviews" strike me as a good middle ground. So here's what i've been reading, along with a few thoughts on each. (I'm not going to summarize the contents of the works of fiction on this list, as i have more than enough to say about why i did or didn't enjoy the books.)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (fiction - novel).
The length of time it took me to read this book (one month) is less an indication of its page count or plot than my desire to savor every word. There's a reason why this book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001: it's just brilliant. The characters are rich and believable, the plot is engaging, and the writing style and use of language are pretty much flawless. Chabon used the perfect blend of detail and sparseness in his phrasing; almost every passage flows well. If this book is any indication, Chabon is an author who knows how to write a good, satisfying ending. This has become one of my favorite books.

Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint (fiction - short stories).
Having just read Kavalier & Clay, i found myself feeling a bit stagnant with this one. While the characters are more or less believable and the ideas are interesting, many of the stories in this collection left me wanting somthing. There's no question that de Lint excels at character development; the plots of these stories are far less important than the growth of the characters touched by the events--but i found the straightforward, show-don't-tell, "the ball is red" style of prose disappointing within this context. By the end, i was glad to put it down, but still willing to read more of his work.

Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen (non-fiction).
This is the book that has proven to me once and for all that although i love Buddhism, it is not the path for me. Hagen's book does what few other books about religion (though after reading it, you'll realize that Buddhism isn't really a religion as much as it is a system) have done successfully, which is to remove the beliefs and methods from their cultural contexts and present them, stripped down to the basics, in a logical way. This is particularly important because there are so many schools of Buddhism, and because there are a number of rituals and symbols that have developed over the centuries--all of which is confusing to the person who just wants a clear understanding of the beliefs at the heart of the religion. Well-written, clear, and thought-provoking.

The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll (fiction - novel).
Had i known what this book is about, i probably would not have picked it up: the basic revelation of this story is the kind that i'd expect from two-bit writers with delusions of grandeur. So i'm thankful that the synposis on the back cover is as vague as it is, or else i wouldn't have taken the opportunity to enjoy this fascinating piece of ficiton. It's not a masterpiece, but Carroll proves himself to be a thoughtful writer who is capable of handling both character and plot, such delicate things as they are, with the steadiness and elegance of a surgeon. There are points where the entire story feels as though it's about to fall completely apart, but the author manages to contain everything. My major disappointment with the book is the sudden shift, in the last two or three chapters, in importance from plot to character development. I think Carroll was attempting the make the development of the main character a significant aspect of the plot, but the shift felt a bit awkward. Despite leaving a few ends loose, the ending is relatively satisfying.

Messiah by Andrei Codrescu (fiction - novel).
From the moment i began reading this book, i wondered who it sounded like. With every page, i could have sworn that i'd read something very similar ages ago, and i'm still not sure what it was. It might have been something by Tom Robbins, though i can't be sure. At any rate, i enjoyed the writing and the characters quite a bit, but the plot (and keep in mind that this book is more or less fantastic realism) slowly and steadily degenerates to the point where even fantasy can't save its believability. By the end i felt a bit cheated that the author decided not to address some of the story's more interesting and undeveloped aspects--millennial fear, American subcultures, the politics of angels, the Great Meeting of the Minds, the confluences of so many religions, and the use of a city (New Orleans) as a character. While the use of language, writing style, and characterization are very good, the other elements lacked enough that the book felt uneven. I found the ending most unsatisfying. I don't always expect closure, but i do hope that when i set a book down at the end, it will feel that what needs to be in place is in place. In this case, it wasn't.

The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis (non-fiction).
I've discovered that vodoun is a subject of which i will probably never grow tired, and it's all Wade Davis' fault. His quest to discover the poison that creates zombis led him to realize that the roots of this practice are deeply cultural rather than random criminal activity--and that to truly understand zombification, one must understand its cultural foundations. It's a wonderful comment on the transformation of a young anthropologist, a documentary on the passage from skepticism to wisdom whose focus changes slowly but steadily from a detached and clinical sense of Western understanding to a deeper and more holistic socio-cultural-historical perspective. It's also a riveting adventure that makes me wonder why more anthropologists don't write popular accounts of their fieldwork. Although i found the epilogue a bit confusing (and it seemed a rather abrupt ending), the rest of the book is extremely well-written, extremely readable, and overall solid.

18 October, 2004 - 9:40 a.m. - Veils
Back in May, a local woman went missing. We didn't really know her, but we saw her fairly often because she worked at a bagel shop around the corner from our old apartment (a place we still frequent). Like others in the community, we feared the worst.

Shortly after she went missing, the police canvassed our old neighborhood. B was home when they knocked on our door. We had nothing to tell them. Apparently, no one else did either.

Late last week, they found her remains. I don't think for a minute that anyone held out any hope that she was alive, as much as people wanted her to be. Hell, 19 year-old mother of two young boys goes missing: who wouldn't be saddened by this? But hopeful? People here seem to be more realistic than that.

Anyway, we've been following the news since her disappearance, wondering (like many others here, i'd imagine) whether the boyfriend did it, as the police (and, i'm willing to bet, much of the community) suspect.

On Saturday the local paper ran a story about the tip-off that led police to her remains. (I get the impression from news reports that there really wasn't much left of her--and, given that a body won't deteriorate that quickly in an area like this, i'm disgusted to think of what the killer must have done to the body afterward.) One of the final paragraphs in the article is this (Zyair and Paul are the victim's two sons; Kindlon is her mother):

"Zyair understands his mother is up in the sky with God," Kindlon said. "He was holding a picture of her Thursday and hugging and kissing it. Then he turned around and said, 'What?' as if he was talking to someone. And then he turned to Baby (Paul) and said, 'Mommy loves you.'"