Paddy's Wanderings

Surfing the Babel Infocalypse

Have you read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?

No? I can wait. Take your time, it is pretty good and you'll enjoy it.

Ok then, either you have read it, or just read it, or think I am a nut job. Either way, you're still reading or maybe not. I am still going to go on and on. The beauty of a blog is I can add to the (babel) of info and at some point, someone, somewhere, will read along with me. Call me crazy.

What drives this book and makes it one of my favorites.. yes I am reading it again, for the 3rd time right now(maybe its three, maybe its more, I dont know), is the language, or rather, the use of language. The future setting(it is SF and cyberpunk to the core~or maybe post-cyberpunk, whatever..) is interesting, but not what drives the story. The story drives the story. In other words, the narrative is extremely compelling.

What is the story about you ask? I don't know, not really. The man character, Hiro Protagonist discovers a religous cult who is sporeading the drug snow crash, to take over the world. I think. Maybe. Snow Crash is a drug that affects not only the Metaverse(read the internet as visualized in virtual reality) but a person's Reality, and how the two interface. The crazy old white dude trying to take over the world syndrome is present and the 'bad guy'.

What the story explores(back in 1992) is the explosion of information and the use of the internet as an escape from boring Reality. After all Hiro is a hacker, but he gathers info and downloads it into the library in the hopes that people will access it and hence he makes money off that info. He also lives in a storage unit in Reality and at the begining of the novel is a high speed pizza delivery driver. But he shines in the Metaverse and at times, seems more real, more then some poor schmuck out of work programmer living in a storage unit with a wannabe rock star.

It is the dance of Reality and Metaverse, the switch between what really is real, and what matters in a life that makes cyberpunk so fascinating. Read the book, get confused and wonder what the hell it is all about, then let me know. I have no idea what it is all about, but the writing and the language rock, the story is hip and I have no idea what I am talking about here, So read it, clue me in.

Happy Wanderings

 

A Kidney Shaped Table

Yeah man, I want this table. Call me crazy, but I dig kidney shaped tables from the fifties. Actually, I dig furniture from the fifties to early sixties. I am on the hunt for one of these, and I will have one.

I dig the modern era. Something about the style, even in art work like this, gets the groove on, go fig. I am on the hunt for similar styles of artwork.

If it aint got fins, its not a real car. Apparently in the ads from that time, a Bel Air was sweet, smooth, AND sassy. I agree.

Cool cats. Cool doesn't even come close. I need a suit like that. Oh and the hat, and it wouldnt hurt if I could sing either. But hey... the clothes make the cool cat.

Yeap, on a kick from circa 1960 today. I have days like that. Today is one of those days.

Ain't that a kick in the head..

Happy Wanderings

 

Mixing Metapohorical Machines

I like Metroplis, it has some stunning imagery. The story is still as poignant today as when it first appeared. Well.. at least to me.

I have been on a kick lately, a strange kick. I have been watching all kinds of movies, like Metroplis, Matrix, stuff that is kinda out there. My reading list has altered. I have on my list 1984, Brave New World and such. Time to reread those.

I have not been working on the blasted novel, or for that matter, any poems for the past couple weeks. I am working on the plethora of short stories and one in particular I have been working on for over a year seems almost there. I even discovered a title for it. Cellophane.

When I get it out there, you'll understand the reason for the title. I had a moment and looked up cellophane, dont know why. I did a couple of hours of research on the history and voila, title for this short story. Strangely, it fits rather well, and now the story is almost done. Weird how that works.

I have the day off, so I am blogging and writing. What a wonderful day. I leave you with this bit of fun.

Happy Wanderings

 

 

Paddy's Poetry Corner ~ Summer Dream

I was a boy once, very much like the boy in this poem. I know a little boy who just might like this place, although it has changed much. We may have to take a trip, see if we can catch a glimpse of a shadow of that time. I have the stool in hand, let's groove.

Summer Dream

Whistling the theme song
from his favorite show,
the young boy pushes
his coon skin cap forward
to shade his eyes from the sun.

Cane pole slung over his shoulder,
bouncing in rhythm to his
shuffling feet, the boy kicks
up dust clouds from the
old, one lane road.

He turns at the rust stained
cement bridge, heading
toward the gurgling creek,
down the moss covered slope
into the shadow of the swamp.

He sits his tin can down,
careful not to spill the freshly
dug worms into the water,
and places his lunch bag
by his fishing rock.

With ease of long practice,
the boy hooks a worm
and cast his line out into
the creek, the baited hook
landing next to a fallen log.

The boy stops whistling,
takes a seat on his rock
and leans back on the bridge;
closing his eyes he smiles,
and dreams his summer away.

Of Tinkering and Musing

I am in danger of becoming a haphazard blogger...

If anything about blogging, or the blogoshpere that has always bothered me, was finding a neato blog and finding that it has trailed off into nothingness. Now I am not so vain to think that ye olde blog here is super neato and gajillions of people wait with baited breath for the next post. That would take an ego that would be.. unimaginable. But still and all, I should post more then the three times I posted in February. Sigh...

I have no excuse really. It seems when I do have time to scribble away, it is on the blasted novel or some other such project. I am a tinkerer of words. That is the problem really. I have three 'novels' in progress, the blasted novel being the one that is almost ready for editing and beta reading and two others I have taken to tinkering with more and more lately. We will not discuss the dozen or so short stories and the hordes of poems in progress.

Alas, that is what I have been doing lately, and not posting. Even this post is pretty lame really.

But, I found that picture of the coast of Ireland and I have been gazing at it all morning, listening to some soft celtic music and musing and tinkering. Searching for some mental calm and trying to find a center of peace, which I need to find. There is a sentence fragment for ya.. but thats how its been lately for me.

Winter is the pits and I find as I get older, the season gets even more.. pit like. Spring is on the horizon, so thats a good thing. Maybe I will even tinker less and finish more.

We'll see..