The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1974)

Heinrich Böll

            There are two kinds of news media on this planet: the kind that soberly reports the news, unbiased, with a nose for the truth, and the vicious, sensationalist kind, that cares only for ratings and money and will sacrifice and mutilate anyone just to stir up trouble. Here in America if the former ever existed then it is a dinosaur, on his way out, but the latter is alive and well, the most well known manifestation being FOX News. I think every one in America has had the misfortune of knowing someone writhing in the grip of FOX: a bigoted relative, a rabidly anti-union boss, someone who really hates “Socialism” or immigrants, a guy who wants to get a business degree, a cop, etc. This kind of “journalism” is like an agent provocateur in the service of the the new robber baron aristocracy, an agent who utilizes the sensationalist and confrontational language designed to appeal to a generally uneducated proletariat (a proletariat that has been hobbled from birth and views the world in simple us-versus-them terms), an agent who comes to the working class bar in the middle of the night and incites stupidity so the pigs can burst in, make some arrests and flex their muscle. Now, FOX did not invent this sort of reporting, it has been around as long as there have been people and their reptile brains, and, of course, a cowed and obedient media is one of the cornerstones of fascism.

Neuromancer

 

Neuromancer, 1984

William Gibson

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

           

            One of the most important aspects of science fiction as an art form is the genre’s interest in extrapolating our self-knowledge into the possible worlds of the future; that is, to hypothesize on our inevitable encounters with new technologies, social structures, and paradigms. We know how we act and we expand on it; and in the way that I, as an individual, might fret over an upcoming party and the potential embarrassments I might find when mingling, the science fiction writer frets over how we, as a species, might embarrass ourselves when we encounter new ideas and new things. While I stumble with a girl, we stumble with the atom bomb. Part of this extrapolation is prediction, and of all the genres of science fiction the one I believe most likely to come true is the cyberpunk genre. There’s an improbably remote chance that we’ll ever meet alien life, invent time travel, or build space stations around the gas giants, but I guarantee you that in the future the plutocrats that rule our planet will use newer and more efficient technologies to suppress and pacify the masses. Seems like so obviously a given that it hardly qualifies as a prediction; like prognosticating that the sun will rise.

Woes of the True Policeman

Woes of the True Policeman (2012)

Roberto Bolaño

            There was an exceptionally pathetic period in my life, which I now recall with great regret, when I, for painfully unsound teenaged reasons, fancied myself some sort of record collector. Somehow, beyond all reason, I was convinced music was really interesting and that I was really into it. Yawn. I’d rather have the money and the time back. Being really into music is a waste of both. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I had a notion that I was a teenaged punk and rock and roller and now I’m kind of embarrassed by it. The effort I put into finding old hardcore records would have been better spent on college. I haven’t purchased a record in years (thank god) but I remember that the riskiest wager was the B-Sides album, the B-Sides and Outtakes album. You could end up with a bunch of hidden gems or a bunch of garbage that went unreleased for a reason. I guess I’ve sold a lot of my records now, but I still have a decent collection of 80s/90s punk, hardcore, screamo, and indie records. They’re in my closet. I’ll probably unload them eventually.