“You’re a good guy,” she said. “You ought to get somebody good. But Pierce.” She waited till he looked at her. “You got to make a deal, and make it stick. You and her. You got to know what deal you’ve made, and it’s got to have something for you, and something for her. You got to deal. Even I know that.” (33)
John Crowley, Endless Things
A different perspective
This is the way movie reviews should be written. Or any kind of reviews. In fact, why don’t you go on and check out the entire website - it’s ferociously funny, addictively informative and scary-smart to boot. All of which information is courtesy of Iceblink. Including what follows. Thank you. You can go back to your drinks now.
Standing at the punch table swallowing punch
can’t pay attention to the sound of anyone
a little more stupid, a little more scared
every minute more unprepared
I made a mistake in my life today
everything I love gets lost in drawers
I want to start over, I want to be winning
way out of sync from the beginning
I wanna hurry home to you
put on a slow, dumb show for you
and crack you up
so you can put a blue ribbon on my brain
god I’m very, very frightened
I’ll overdo it
Looking for somewhere to stand and stay
I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away
Can I get a minute of not being nervous
and not thinking of my dick
My leg is sparkles, my leg is pins
I better get my shit together, better gather my shit in
You could drive a car through my head in five minutes
from one side of it to the other
I wanna hurry home to you
put on a slow, dumb show for you
and crack you up
so you can put a blue ribbon on my brain
god I’m very, very frightened
I’ll overdo it
You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
for twenty-nine years
You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
for twenty-nine years
Another of my many obsessions (click through for a larger image) - from the bottom: the Polish DVD (don’t even ask about the aptness of the translation), the American DVD, the American Blu-ray, and the unreleased Cannes cut (yup, they booed Kelly out there - basteds!).
What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell.
At the heart of Synners there is love. Genuine love. Not a synthetic jacking (into the Matrix, that is), not slick cybersex (even though there is a bit of that, too), not a candy-sweet affair. The man with a different world in his eyes may be gone into the big blue of his virtual beach (or should we say, Big Blue?), but in this world, right now, right here, there is a marked (Mark-ed?) – dreadlocked and black – woman. Gina. One that was always there for Mark, one that made looking for him, lost in the revel without a pause (software does not have the “pause” function, you know), her way of life. It is her anger (remember that punch she launches on Gabe just as he left some change in the machines?), her confusion (no, she’s no angel), her resigned affection for the man made of noise and light and her growing attachment for another man (this one made very much of flesh that can be punched) that make Synners so warm, so human, so recognizable for all those who have been places Gina has. The cover blurb for Steve Erickson’s (no, not fantasy’s Steven Erikson) The Sea Came In At Midnight says: “lyrical, aching with loss, […] most haunting exploration of the mysteries of desire and redemption.” Scratch Erickson (just for a second, that is – we can’t get him off the radar at all other times) – this is the blurb for Synners.
It is Gina’s “who do you love?” that echoes throughout the novel, driving it from stem to stem. Reverberating through the scenes of noise and fury in which the world is collapsing (in fact, it is only the GridLid that is collapsing after Mark’s stroke is released onto the nets, but for many there is no difference), “who do you love?” says more about the novel than any other phrase or sentence. It is also Cadigan’s declaration of independence that stands in M/m-arked opposition to Case’s “Who do I hate?” in Neuromancer’s conclusion. The uber-cyberpunk hero fuels the Kuang virus with self-loathing, “old alchemy of the brain and its vast pharmacy.” Definitely Gina, certainly Gabe, possibly Sam, maybe a few others – they are fueled by what stands on another shelf in that same pharmacy. Love.
God, he thought, and felt ill. Was this what Tanya Lee had called the “aquatic horror” shape? It had no shape. Nor pseudopodia, either flesh or metal. It was, in a sense, not there at all; when he managed to look directly at it, the shape vanished; he saw through it, saw the people on the far side — but not it. Yet if he turned his head, caught it out of a sidelong glance, he could determine its boundaries.
It was terrible; it blasted him with its awareness. As it moved it drained the life from each person in turn; it ate the people who had assembled, passed on, ate again, ate more with an endless appetite. It hated; he felt its hate. It loathed; he felt its loathing for everyone present — in fact he shared its loathing. All at once he and everyone else in the big villa were each a twisted slug, and over the fallen slug carcasses the creature savored, lingered, but all the time coming directly toward him — or was that an illusion? If this is a hallucination, Chien thought, it is the worst I have ever had; if it is not, then it is evil reality; it’s an evil thing that kills and injures. He saw the trail of stepped-on, mashed men and women remnants behind it; he saw them trying to reassemble, to operate their crippled bodies; he heard them attempting speech.
I know who you are, Tung Chien thought to himself. You, the supreme head of the worldwide Party structure. You, who destroy whatever living object you touch; I see that Arabic poem, the searching for the flowers of life to eat them — I see you astride the plain which to you is Earth, plain without hills, without valleys. You go anywhere, appear any time, devour anything; you engineer life and then guzzle it, and you enjoy that.
from PKD “Faith of Our Fathers”
Are you shivering? Are you cold?
Are you bathed in silver or drowned in gold?
This dream’s vitality
With filaments as fine as a spider’s web
Pour through your mouth
They pour through your mouth
O river of silver, O river of flowers
I lie down and shiver in your silver river
Out drips the last drop of this vital fluid
Our life has grown weary
The stars have grown old
Are you still shivering?
Are you still cold?
Are you loathsome tonight?
Does your madness shine bright?
Are you loathsome tonight?
In the oceans of the moon
Swimming squidlike and squalid
This bright moon is a liquid
The dark earth is a solid
This is moon music in the light of the moon
