Cyberpunk..

[Lauren Hynde]

Re: Knudeaux

Pps. I hope she didn't actually wade through all the Dune books in order to make sense of them. Urgggglll

Just the first one, actually... I had too much time on my hands back then...

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Knudeaux

Just the first one, actually... I had too much time on my hands back then...

You needn't read the others. You have them nailed.
MG
Ps. I thing FHebert died from the sheer weight of meaningless words.

 

[Guest]

Re: Knudeaux

LH has written some of the best stuff ever to appear on this site.

I wish Wagnerian opera was amenable to her treatment. It would save so much time. Sorry, Perdita.

Hey, what about my Shakespeare haiku? How soon they (you) forget.

No apology necessary. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. (AYL, III.ii). I've been to a 5+ hours "Tristan und Isolde" and not wanted it to end. The moment the prelude begins I am pained knowing this.

But then I cannot bear more than ten minutes of baseball. (Repeat quote above.)

Perdita

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Ooooh!!! Cool! Now do my stories!!! *jumping up and down*

I'll read one tonight...

 

[gauchecritic]

Just to save Lauren any pain and discomfort and before every one else jumps on Svenskaflicka... 's bandwagon.

Any story by Gauchecritic

Various sexual things happen interspersed or interrupted by various other sexual things. With flashbacks (sexual)

Gauche

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Knudeaux

Hey, what about my Shakespeare haiku? I've been to a 5+ hours "Tristan und Isolde" and not wanted it to end.

Dear Perdita,
They weren't haiku, but they were wonderful. LH's treatment of SPeare was terser, but yours was far more poetic.

If I tried TundI, my bottom would wear out long before my ears tired, I'm afraid. I love the Liebstodt part of that, though. Betcha didn't think I knew anything about it.
MG
Ps. Auntie is pounding on the door. We're off to the high point of the Bayarrhea cultural weekend: Gs vs Milwaukee at PacBell Parque.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Knudeaux

If I tried TundI, my bottom would wear out long before my ears tired, I'm afraid. I love the Liebstodt part of that, though. Betcha didn't think I knew anything about it.

The Liebestod is the very end of the opera, you'll need to prepare your cheeks if you ever decide to hear it live.

I meant to say haiku-like, but thanks for the nice thing you said.

Perdita

OK, Go Giants!

 

[Quasimodem]

. . . my bottom would wear out long before my ears tired, I'm afraid. I love the Liebstodt part of that, though. . .

Leit-motifs and numb bum are a Wagnerian Tradition.

 

[Guest]

Leit-motifs and numb bum are a Wagnerian Tradition.

So is having every nerve in my body come alive and being taken to gut-wrenching levels and depths of beauty and passion. After Wagner I either want to die, listen to more, or fuck til I die.

calming down, putting on some Mozart (that's a jab),

Erda

 

[ffreak]

So, let me see if I have this right.

An ideal date with Perdita would be to fly to Venice, have a light dinner in the open air, take in a Wagnerian Opera, return to the hotel via gondola and make sure you have plenty of Viagra.

-FF (looking for one of those thousand prescription ads I deleted prematurely)

 

[Guest]

Eff, you got it!* Really made me grin wide.

Perdita

*not me though, I've got my dream date in my head.

 

[ffreak]

After getting all dressed up.

-FF (and still no place to go)

"Only what changes is real: to be real, to live - what this means is to be created, to grow, to bloom, to wither and to die;"
-Richard Wagner, in a letter to August Röckel

 

[TheEarl]

I liked the Dune books! Okay so they were dense symbolistic tomes and the writing was appalling, but exactly the same could be said about Lord of the Rings. At least Dune was interesting and didn't go off on wild tangents to talk about Frodo's love of mushrooms. Admittedly the standard dropped sharply with each addition to the series, but I can still quite happily read all of them. Apart from Chapter House Dune.

Chapter House Dune:
Frank Herbert: All women use sex as a weapon. All women ensnare men. All women are evil and conniving.
Reader: We take it you've had a bad experience somewhere along the line?

The Earl

 

[ffreak]

You forgot about Herbert's White Plauge
Herbert: Irish Politics suck! - You kill my woman I'll kill all women.
Reader: I don't know if I can survive this.

some women live thanks to nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

The End.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One of the most significant ways in which CyberPunk differs from older Sci Fi hasn't been mentioned yet, and that has to do with the abandonment of the idea of scientific progress.

It might seem hard to believe now, but for most of the twentieth century we all believed that science was leading us into a better world, and that things would continue to get better and better. The general idea was that mankind was steadily making Progress towards a better and happier world, with Science marching in the van and leading the way. I don't know of anyone who believes that anymore.

Earlier SciFi might come up with its occasional dystopia like 1984, but these were meant more as warnings. They were noticed primarily because the idea of dystopie was so bizzare and counter to what everyone knew was true.

I suppose we all have our different moments when we suddenly realized that, hey, things were changing but they weren't really getting any better. This is something that CyberPunk takes for granted.

---dr.M.

 

[Serge_Gorodish]

[B
b) If you already know of it, and are a cyberpunk fan, how do *you* define/explain it to friends? [/B]

I don't try explaining Cyberpunk to friends. Most of my pals are conmutuant types who already know what I am referring to. Mainstream science fiction writers tended to poo poo Cyberpunk as a legitimate subgenre of sf, until sales of William Gibson's books went into Mona Lisa Overdrive then they took it serious. Its like technomusic. How do you explain techno to anyone? You really can't. All you can do is sit them down with Idoru or one of the many books Gibson has out and say...go for it.

From a technical sense, you will discover that you understand the language very quickly. Unlike Dune, you don't need a dictionary or a compendum to tell you what the hell is going on. These novels seem to have a faster pace, and much more broadly drawn characters. If anyone out there has watched Japanese anime, the character development is about the same, and Gibson (et.al.) draw most of the character development from situations we've already encountered so there is no need to really explain them. (kind of like we all know what kind of world the post apocalypse will look like because the majority of us have seen Mad Max, and we have all encountered the technogeek that loves his computer more than his live so he sleeps under his desk at work)
Anyway I like them because they are quick reads for me. As far as there being a profound statement on the human condition though...this isn't Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep...so its really not much more of a slice of our future lives...and so I agree with the assessment that its depressing.