more on William Gibson's Pattern Recognition
The late Hugh Kenner's theory of everything by John Wilson He [Kenner] was himself a "pattern recognizer," as he described inventor Raymond Kurzweil in the December 1990 issue of the pioneering personal computer magazine Byte. (Kenner was surely the only writer ever to serve at the same time as a columnist both for Byte and Art & Antiques.) "A 'Kurzweil,' " he wrote, "that would be a pattern recognizer. Examples: a machine that can read books aloud to the blind; another machine that can type to human dictation; yet another that combines acoustic patterns so accurately that professional musicians have thought they were hearing a $400,000 concert grand." In his masterpiece, "The Pound Era," published in 1971, Kenner had given another example: the "patterned energy" of a poem, transferable from Greek, say, to English or Chinese. As a rope makes a knot visible, Kenner wrote, so the Greek text "makes Homer's imagined realities apprehensible." But "the poem is not its language. Hence Pound's reiterated advice to translators, to convey the energized pattern and let go the words. To tie the knot you need not simulate the original fibers." "The Pound Era," Kenner said, was a book he'd been trying to get started for years. What enabled him finally to pull it together was the insight that the great writers of the early 20th century and their kindred spirits in the arts and sciences shared a common awareness of "patterned integrities" -- the knot that exists apart from the rope; the gist of Homer -- that make up "a universe of ordered dynamisms." For Kenner, the Oxford English Dictionary's sequences of citations, T.S. Eliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," and the revolutionary cinematic montage of the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein were all aspects of the same great enterprise that gathered the energies of the era. For the organizing recognition of "patterned integrities" Kenner credited the visionary architect and engineer Buckminster Fuller (it was he who stood on the platform of college auditoriums, explaining "the first principles of the universe" to dazzled undergraduates by tying and untying an invisible knot). To repay the favor, Kenner followed "The Pound Era" with the 1973 guidebook "Bucky," still the best introduction to Fuller's work, as well as a 1976 manual for do-it-yourselfers, "Geodesic Math and How to Use It." (The book was recently reissued by the University of California Press, which noted it had been its most-requested out-of-print title.) [excerpted from 12-07-2003 Boston Globe]
The Next Level of Footage
Fiction mimics life: Does that internet bar in Moscow on the Arbat exist IRL? How about Caffeine? "Kofe-In (Caffeine) Bolshaya Dmitrovka ul. 15; Teatralnaya metro. A few main meals, but mainly great coffee and desserts" (courtesy of Yahoo Travel).
How about taking Cayce too seriously? As Zoolander? Slavery vs. Satire? Prisoners as wage slaves? Is Cayce an anti-hero? She takes the money and runs ... Zoolander frees the sweatshop workers by saving the Prime Minister of Malaysia ... and what about the real PM of Malaysia? Too coincidental . . .
Job of Love versus Job of Work So in Pattern Recognition Cayce is a coolhunter but the majority of her time in the novel is occupied by detective work. Similarly, in Deepness in the Sky, Pham Nuwen spends next to no time in his primary profession as trader and the majority of his time conspiring like an undercover agent. How many other novels have main characters whose occupations are X but who end up doing Y in the novel? In Gravity's Rainbow, Slothrop's job is one thing but his off-the-job lovemaking coincides with where Nazi rockets land. Is this the secret to NovelIst HeaVen where one job is jettisoned for another? Mid-career change? What happens in The Magic Barrel is that the matchmaker's daughter ends up being matched with the narrator but that's not what the matchmaker intended to have happen. Interesting how fiction wants one thing to occur instead of another for dramatic tension. Babble Babble babel makers ...
Moorcock Schameless co-MarkEting
Cayce's power to differentiate is not limited to marketing. She also senses supernatural as when she visits Japan. Ghost worlds . . . unlike ghost dog by Jim Jarmusch
It's on the second page that we are acquainted with what Cayce's affliction/talent is: Damien calls it an allergy, but the narrator refers to her as "a 'sensitive'. . . a dowser." If one thinks of aesthetics as criteria to ascertain beauty then what Cayce has is not an aesthetic reaction to things. The things she reacts to have high worth determined by the marketplace's 'cool' early adopters: She recognizes what folks will buy by seeing patterns that match what will be cool amongst early adopters. She also reacts in a negative way to patterns that are uncool, but this reaction is what Damien refers to as "allergy" because Cayce can be so overcome by depleted style that she almost goes catatonic.
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when in England, do as the English
not many people get blotto from brewskis in Gibsonia . . . why?
Yes, the inspiration of the footage is surveillance video. Moreover, its composition poses real threats to artistic freedom as we know it. Who are the performers? Who are the camera operators? Where should credit be due? With America's Funniest Home Videos, at least you can assign blame . . . can't you? With the footage, try to find the one who is most blameworthy. Try to find it at all . . . soon it will be everywhere, from NASA Select TV to convenience store spycams. Who will be the next Homer (Simpson, duh?) . . .
Russian Prosecutors Freeze Billions in Oil Company Stock
1) "Pattern Recognition" is a traveller's tale in which Cayce is the traveller to different worlds (or 'stages'). 2) Cayce's mission in "Pattern Recognition" where Bigend sends Cayce to search for the author of the footage parallels Marly Krushkova's mission in "Count Zero" where Virek sends Marly to find the maker of the Cornell-like boxes. 3) Gibson has refined setting in such a way that what would seem to be commonplace becomes a marvelous 'stage' on which action occurs. 4) These 'stages' encapsulate oddities in the same way a Cornell box captures artifacts.
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