The Future Revisited
I'm re-reading Neuromancer. I think i first read it sometime in 1990. When it was already, even then, six years after its publication, part of the canon for the "cool kids". Who i hung with when they'd let me, and i'd watch the things they'd do with ftp, and try to understand, always making analogies which they'd laugh and shake their heads at ...
When i first read it, i had connected primarily with the dystopia. The Sprawl, Chiba, the Ninsei plastic neon overkill .. and characters that had nothing to lose, less to prove, but enough "fuck it" existential paranoia to drive the narrative home.
On a second pass, the things that stand out for me - just how beautiful the prose is, how intricate the plot. Therez an immersion, an ambience, which i definitely experienced the first time around, but now (post-internet, post-y2k), itz somehow more meaningful.
Especially when you consider that when i first read it, it would be two full years before i'd have a modem, or even an ISP... I think i was concerned that when i re-read it, my current understanding of the matrix and cyberspace would conflict with his vision, making it obsolete, gernsbackian... But in so many ways, gibson's sprawl future is still possible. Still just enough beyond us, but familiar.
Trick, Treat or Retainer
On a conf call with client and cowerker last week:
Client: ... sorry someone just walked into my office and i was showing her pics of my daughter in her halloween costume - i'm back now.
Pwylla: ... Oh really, what did she go as?
Client:... Raggedy Anne
Pwylla and Cowerker: Aaaaaaaaw!
Pwylla: [to Cowerker] And what did your son go as?
Cowerker: He went as a lawyer ... you know, with the fangs and the little black cape.