NN um (nemahvað) Stephenson

If you like Neal Stephenson's works, you'll probably like the novels written by his grandfather (Len A. Stephenson) even better. They were marked TOP SECRET by the OSS and have only just recently been declassified.

Although in my opinion, the novels of Stephenson pere et fils are all derivative of the fantastickal opium dreams committed to vellum by Duke Lane Stephenson, a 17th-century nobleman who was (by an astonishing coincidence) their distant ancestor.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go visit a strange alternate world where I am a person of considerable importance in spite of my nerdy tendencies, there to have emotionally distant but phenomenally skilled sex with a woman much younger than myself.

Úr grein um D&D í The Believer, sept. 2006

Hallur benti mér á þessa grein, hún er góð lesning. Þessi efnisgrein kveikti allavega ljós hjá mér:

Here I am tempted to advance a wild argument. It goes like this: in a society that conditions people to compete, and rewards those who compete successfully, Dungeons & Dragons is countercultural; its project, when you think about it in these terms, is almost utopian.[22] Show people how to have a good time, a mind-blowing, life-changing, all-night-long good time,[23] by cooperating with each other! And perhaps D&D is socially unacceptable because it encourages its players to drop out of the world of competition, in which the popular people win, and to tune in to another world, where things work differently, and everyone wins (or dies) together. You will object that a group of teenage boys slaughtering orcs and raping women doesn’t sound like utopia. Granted. But among teenage boys whose opportunities for social interaction were otherwise not great, D&D was like a door opening. Forget for a moment that behind the door there were mostly monsters and darkness. For us, for the people who played, what waited behind that door was a world, and the world belonged to us. We could live in it as we really were; we could argue about its rules; we could learn how, by working together, to get the better of it. For some of us it was a lesson: the real world could, on occasion, and by similar means, be bested. For others of us, who never really left the game: at least we had a world.

Ég held að málið sé ekki það, að samfélagið byggist upp á samkeppni eingöngu, og að leikurinn sé mótvægi gegn því. Samfélagið byggir svo mun meira á samvinnu heldur en leikirnir okkar gefa til kynna, og það er spennandi að geta kúplað sig útúr stóra heiminum og inní einhvern einka-heim, einsog gaurinn talar um, án þess að allt þurfi að miða að absolút endapunkti, þarsem einhver ,,sigrar".

-b.

Lína úr The Glass Bead Game, cf. Stephenson?

"You mathematicians and Glass Bead Game players ... have distilled a kind of world history to suit your own tatstes. It consists of nothing but the history of ideas and of art. Your history is bloodless and lacking in reality. You know all about the decay of Latin syntax in the second or third centuries and don't know a thing about Alexander or Caesar or Jesus Christ. You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow mathematical present."

Fín stutt grein um sæfæ

This is one of the things some people complain about as “too much hard work” and which I think is a high form of fun. SF is like a mystery where the world and the history of the world is what’s mysterious, and putting that all together in your mind is as interesting as the characters and the plot, if not more interesting. We talk about worldbuilding as something the writer does, but it’s also something the reader does, building the world from the clues. When you read that the clocks were striking thirteen, you think at first that something is terribly wrong before you work out that this is a world with twenty-four hour time—and something terribly wrong. Orwell economically sends a double signal with that.

Ég verð að viðurkenna að þetta sem öllum þykir rosa töff hjá Orwell, að klukkan slái þrettán í fyrstu línunni í 1984, er eitthvað sem ég tók ekki eftir þegar ég las hana. Já já, klukkan slær, og hvað, inn um annað augað og útum hitt. Svona er (var?) ég latur lesir.

En þetta er skemmtileg líking, að vísindaskáldskapurinn sé ráðgáta þarsem heimurinn er morðið. Og rímar ó svo skemmtilega við.. McHale? Sem segir að ráðgátan sé hið ekta-móderníska skáldsagnaform og að vísindaskáldsagan sé hið ekta-póstmóderníska form. Þarsem ráðgátan spyrji hvernig hægt sé að skilja heiminn sem við lifum í, en vísindaskáldsagan spyrji hver allra mögulegra heima þetta sé.

Ég er ekki viss um að þetta hjálpi manni að skilgreina Cryptonomicon eða Barrokk þríleikinn, en skilin á milli þeirra og td. Snow Crash eða The Diamond Age eru mjög skörp og liggja einmitt á þessari línu. The Diamond Age vísar reyndar í 1984, með því að taka fram klukkuhringingar í fyrstu línu. Hvernig var það.. ,,The bells of St. Mark's were ringing changes up on the mountain when Bud skated over to the mod parlor to upgrade his skull gun." Andstætt Orwell þá öskrar Stephenson ÞETTA ER SÆFÆ. Hverjum er ekki sama hversu oft klukkurnar slá, þessi töffari á hjólabrettinu er að láta græða byssu í höfuðkúpuna á sér. Þetta óverdræf er eitthvað sem hann sneið svo að segja alveg af sér í Barrokkinu, það var sosum af nógu öðru að taka en þar tapaðist einhver sjarmi.

Annað við þessa byrjun hans er það að Bud, þessi gaur í byrjun bókarinnar, deyr í þriðja kafla eða eitthvað álíka. Það er einhver Philip K. Dick í því finnst mér, eða er það rugl? Stephenson gerði þetta líka í Snow Crash, að kynna einhvern til sögunnar og segja frá lífi hans þá stundina eða dagana í smæstu atriðum, og slátra honum síðan þegar aðalpersónurnar (eða aðal-aukapersónurnar) létu loks sjá sig. En að byrja á dúkku virkar skringilega.

-b.

Það kemur mér mjög á óvart að sumir skuli fá meiri peninga en aðrir

Nánast hílaríus: Feisbúkk hóparnir Verjum sjómannaafsláttinn og Burt með sjómannaafsláttinn. Í þeim fyrri eru sjómenn og meðhjálparar sem segja ,,Hefur þú verið á sjó? Þú ættir að prófa að fara á sjó og koma síðan aftur og bla bla bla." og ,,Alþingismenn eru með dagpeninga."

Ég bíð eftir Alþingismanninnum sem barmar sér og segir ,,Hefur þú setið á Alþingi? Þú ættir að prófa að sitja á Alþingi og koma síðan aftur og bla bla bla."

Ég veit ekki betur en að það sé bitist um bæði þessi störf. Spurningin hvort þeirra býður uppá stærri bónusa eða afslætti er langt, langt útaf korti. Ef við gætum nú öll bent á Alþingismenn til að sýna framá að við verðskuldum líka sérmeðferð eða meiri péning, og ætlast til þess að einhver taki mark á okkur..

Og seinni hópurinn. Mig langar að spyrja hvort sá tappi hafi ekkert betra að gera, en það er kannske ekki hægt að krítísera fólk fyrir það þessa dagana.. Þá bara fyrir þetta innlegg frá manni sem mér skilst að sé sjómaður:

,,Hefur þú verið á sjó drengur,ef ekki ættir þú að prófa það og sjá svo til hvað þú myndir segja,það ætti að hækka sjómannafslátinn,við sjómenn vinnum erfiðustu vinnu sem finnst á íslandi,auk þess erum við lengi frá konum okkar og börnum og á sjó í öllum veðrum og aldrei með sléttan flöt undir fót,þið ættuð að skammast ykkur fyrir að segja svona..."

Að kalla mann, sem er litlu yngri en þú sjálfur, ,,dreng" og segja honum að skammast sín vegna þess að þú ert ósammála því sem hann segir.. Það gerist bara litlu betra en það.

Jú jú jú, það er þessi bakkafulli lækur og ég er að bera feisbúkk athugasemdir í hann. Só vott. Þetta er minn lækur.

-b.

Ályktun stjórnar Lögreglufélags Vestfjarða 28. okt. sl.

Fundurinn harmar þá ákvörðun sem Ríkislögreglustjóri hefur tekið varðandi rafbyssur sem valdbeitingartæki, þ.e. að eingöngu að heimila sérsveitinni notkun á því. Fundurinn óskar eftir útskýringum á því hvers vegna það er lagt til að þrautþjálfaðir og vel vopnum búnir lögreglumenn sérsveitar RLS verði búnir rafbyssu valdbeitingartækjum á meðan illa tækjum búnir lögreglumenn á landsbyggðinni, sem starfa einir, fjarri allri aðstoð, og þurfa oft á tímum að leysa samskonar verkefni og sérsveit RLS verði án þessara tækja.

Gah.

Í fyrsta lagi: Ef ,,illa tækjum búnir lögreglumenn á landsbyggðinni, sem starfa einir, fjarri allri aðstoð" sinna oft samskonar verkefnum og Sérsveitin (og tekst það væntanlega bærilega, maður heyrir a.m.k. engar fréttir af ófremdarástandi, lögleysu og ringulreið frá Vestfjörðum), hvaða þörf er þá á Sérsveitinni?

Í öðru lagi: Ég gef mér að við þurfum á Sérsveit að halda, án þess að hafa neitt fyrir því í sjálfu sér. Og ég get ímyndað mér aðstæður þar sem illa tækjum búnir lögreglumenn á landsbyggðinni duga hreinlega ekki, en það er ekki síst vegna þess að eðli málsins samkvæmt þá eiga Sérsveitarmenn að hafa hlotið mun meiri þjálfun en óbreyttur lögregluþjónn, og eiga því að kunna að fara með vopn. Þótt við getum sammælst um það að einhverstaðar oní skúffu megi vera til þrautþjálfaður smáher með alvæpni, þá er ekki þar með sagt að hvaða löggupilla sem er megi búast sömu vopnum.

Í þriðja lagi: Hvernig í ósköpunum dettur ykkur í hug að svarið við fámenni sé að hlaða á sig hættulegri vopnum? Að fólk með einbeittan brotavilja vopnbúist ekki á móti? Og ef þið haldið því fram að rafbyssurnar séu hættulausar, eða hættuminni en kylfurnar, hvernig koma þær þá til með að nýtast ykkur?

Sérsveitin er ill nauðsyn og það á eitthvað að skilja á milli hennar og ógrímuklæddra lögregluþjóna.

Í fjórða lagi: Ályktunin er illa skrifuð og klunnalega orðuð. Ég legg til að þið ráðið skrifandi einstakling í hlutverk fundarritara. En ég hef á tilfinningunni að þið mynduð frekar vilja kaupa ykkur beittari kúlupenna..?

-b.

Fín stutt grein um Vonnegut

Among many other things, "Slaughterhouse-Five" is a book about the difficulties of trying to write "Slaughterhouse-Five." Vonnegut, being Vonnegut, was determined to make the result as easy as eating ice cream. He was always on the reader's side, a stance that, as his career went along through many books, some excellent ("Breakfast of Champions," "Galapagos"), others fractured and not-so-good ("Deadeye Dick," "Timequake"), made him easy meat for critics while being admired and adopted by the many practicing writers who have proclaimed his influence, among them Irving, Jonathan Safran-Foer and Haruki Murakami.

Props

___________

Mr. Ward Cleaver
485 Mapleton Drive
Mayfield, State

My Dear Mr. Cleaver:

This paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
It is here merely to fill up space. Still, it is words,
rather than repeated letters, since the latter might not
give the proper appearance, namely, that of an actual note.

For that matter, all of this is nonsense, and the only
part of this that is to be read is the last paragraph,
which part is the inspired creation of the producers of
this very fine series.

Another paragraph of stuff. Now is the time for all good
men to come to the aid of their party. The quick brown
fox jumps over the lazy dog. My typing is lousy, but the
typewriter isn’t so hot either. After all, why should I
take the blame for these mechanical imperfections, with
which all of us must contend. Lew Burdette just hit a
home run and Milwaukee leads seven to one in the series.
This is the last line of the filler material of the note.
No, my mistake, that was only the next to last. This is last.

I hope you can find a suitable explanation for Theodore’s
unusual conduct.

Yours truly,

(Signed)

Cornelia Rayburn


_________________

Tekið héðan, bloggið Letters of Note.

-b.

Haninn og hneggið

Ritstjóri Morgunblaðsins gerir grín að bloggurum, sem rífast og skammast yfir engu en hafa sem betur fer engin alvöru áhrif á almenna umræðu eða lífið í landinu. Það er semsé fyrri helmingur pistilsins. Seinni helmingurinn er þessi klisjuhlaðna grein um skemmtikrafta sem öllum er sama um, sem er svo banal og bitlaus að hún gæti eins hafa runnið úr máðu lyklaborði Stefáns Friðriks Stefánssonar, erkimyndar hins skoðanalausa bloggara. Sjá:

Spaugstofumenn sjónvarpsins eru snillingsmenni sem létta mönnum lund vikulega á vetrum, þegar þörfin er mest, líka þeim sem helst verða fyrir barðinu á þeim. Ómar Ragnarsson er sem skemmtikraftur óborganlegur og úthaldið, þrekið og „nefið“ fyrir hinu spaugilega engu líkt. Laddi á sjötugsaldri er afburðaeintak og það er rétt hjá „Magnúsi“ að það er náttúrlega bilun að hann skuli ekki fyrir löngu orðinn heimsfrægur. Söngfuglinn Ragnar Bjarnason er nýorðinn 75 ára og hefur í meira en hálfa öld átt hvert það bein þjóðarlíkamans, sem getur dillað sér. Það er ótrúlegt hverju sá maður kemur í verk með hangandi hendi. Þessir menn eru eingöngu valdir af handahófi úr hópi gleðigjafanna góðu. En síðastur skal nefndur maður, sem Morgunblaðið sagði frá á dögunum að væri að koma heim aftur með nýtt hjarta, Jóhannes eftirherma Kristjánsson. Öll sætin á sagaklass hefðu ekki dugað fyrir þær persónur sem sá maður getur brugðið sér í. Við þökkum gleðigjöfunum, nefndum og ónefndum, og teljum við hæfi að segja að við fögnum hjartanlega heimkomu Jóhannesar Kristjánssonar og allra hans fjölmörgu fylginauta.

- Leiðari Moggans, sunnudaginn 4. október sl.

Það er líklega ekkert öruggara fyrir gamlan og þreyttan álitsgjafa en að mæla með grínistum, sem eru sjálfir orðnir svo gamlir og þreyttir að enginn nennir að mæla gegn þeim lengur. En það er eitthvað pínu sorglegt við að sjá þennan sama gamla mann farinn að herma eftir páfagaukunum sínum, inná milli þess sem hann æpir og skammast yfir því hvað þeir hafa hátt.

-b.

The sharp Mitchum ear..

Surprised that Robert Mitchum sings Calypso? It would be stranger if he couldn't. Fact is, he was learning the fascinating language of Calypso long before it became the rage in the U.S.A. And he was learning it in its true home, Trinidad.

Deep down, Robert Mitchum is a wanderer, and he probably would have got to Trinidad anyway, but actually it was Hollywood that sent him there, "on location" for two feature films... to Port of Spain, a colorful and sunlit place where people have come from many corners of the earth, mingling accents and spilling out their hearts in a unique musical idiom called Calypso.

In Trinidad, the sharp Mitchum ear was quick to hear the subtle coloration of word and melody that gives this native song its special sound. And, expert mimic that he is, he was quick to give it voice, in every characteristic detail.

For ten months of the kind he likes best, Mitchum followed his Calypso trail, listening acutely to local champions like Lord Melody and Mighty Sparrow, memorizing newer and more intricate lyrics in some small native bistro, absorbing the rhythmic excitement of such festivities as the great annual Jump Up Carnival.

Returning to the States, he was happy enough merely to spread the gospel of the Calypso style among the entertainment fraternity. But show-wise listeners soon recognized the quality of the Mitchum demonstrations, and insisted Bob record the songs himself.

The result: this album.

Not all the songs he sings here are absolutely as he first heard them (the censor wouldn't stand for it). A couple of the tunes are already well known; a couple are even newly written for the occasion. But every one has the authentic flavor, the beat and the vitality of the real Caribbean thing. All are products of great talent and great enthusiasm. Calypso, Robert Mitchum says with considerable authority, is like so...

Um þjóð Abrahams og Sódómara vía Prúst:

[Proust] warns that the descendants of those who lied to escape from Sodom now populate the world and 'form in every country a colony at once Oriental, cultivated, musical and slanderous, which has charming virtues and unbearable defects.' Proust is concerned that these 'inverts' might organize themselves and for that reason he 'wanted provisionally to forestall the fatal error that would consist, just as a Zionist movement has been encouraged, in creating a sodomist movement and in rebuilding Sodom.'

I disagree.

The year 2008 marked the sixtieth birthday of the state of Israel, an entity that brazenly justifies its existence and territorial expansion by citing the political geography of the first magical-realist text, also known as the Old Testament - a view uncritically accepted by the governing elites of the Western world, whose Christian forbears regarded Jews primarily as Crist-killers. Is it not therefore time now for other tribes whose tribulations have also been recorded in the same five books to claim what is rightfully theirs? Why should the sauce for the Zionist gander be denied to the Sodomist goose? The Old Testament is seen by some as the family history of the Jewish tribes (for challenging this view in the seventeenth century and claiming that the stories were fairy tales, Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Synagogue), but for the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah it is nothing more or less than slander, an elder version of what we could describe as the Protocols of the Elders of Sodom: a false account of the destruction of tribal groups that resisted Abrahamic hegemony.

Af vísi (eða: Hvað er málið með þessar löggur, þrítugasti og áttundi hluti)

Tveir útlendingar, sem búsettir eru hér á landi, klifruðu í nótt upp vinnupallana á Hallgrímskirkju í Reykjavík og fóru inn í klukknaportið. Þar fóru þeir að hringja kirkjuklukkunum með því að slá í þær með verkfærum, sem þar eru á vegum verktakans, sem vinnur að viðgerð á turninum. Lögreglu var tilkynnt um málið laust upp úr klukkan tvö og þar sem mennirnir vildu ekki koma niður, þurftu lögregluþjónar að klifra upp vinnupallana, við hættulegar aðstæður, og sækja mennina. Þeim var sleppt, enda liggja ekki sektir við svona athæfi.

Athæfið er ekki sakhæft, en lögregluþjónarnir þurftu samt að klifra uppá vinnupallana viðhættulegar aðstæður?

Maður spyr sig hvort þetta orðalag komi frá lögreglunni eða fréttaritara Vísis. Það er náttúrulega gaman að fíla sig sem hetju í háska, jafnvel þótt engin sé ástæða til, og þá er um að gera að fólk viti af hættunni, hugrekkinu, nauðinni.

...

Eða hvað, er það hluti af þjónustu við borgarbúa að draga drukkna Pólverja niður af klukkuturni þarsem þeir halda vöku fyrir Þingholtunum? Eflaust væri ég á þeirri skoðun, ætti ég heima þar. Og ég ímynda mér að fréttin gefi litlausa, kornótta, einvíða mynd af útkallinu einsog það birtist í nótt.. Hversvegna er samt það fyrsta sem mér dettur í hug, þegar ég les svona fréttir, að löggan sé á villigötum?

Er ég gamli maðurinn sem var eltur af hundi sem barn, og heldur nú á lofti öllu illu um hunda, sönnu eða lognu?

Þetta er ekki beint krísa. En maður verður að hugsa útí það afhverju maður hugsar það sem maður hugsar.

Annars veit maður ekki fyrren maður er farinn að sparka í hunda og rausa um allsherjarreglu í sjónvarpi.

-b.

Frábært:

Nóttin var dimm og það var myrkur í henni. Dökkt var allt í kring vegna myrkursins sem var þarna útaf dimmri nóttinni. Rökkrið var mjög mikið vegna næturinnar, sem var koldimm, því það var komin nótt. Klukkan var þrjú eftir miðnætti og þá var komið myrkur afþví klukkan var orðin svo margt. (Þrjú) Það var stormur úti og vindurinn gnauðaði í glugganum því það var svo hvasst. Hvassviðrið var svo mikið að allt fauk í rokinu, sem var þarna af því það var svo hvasst. Og mikið rok og vindur, margir, margir metrar. Á sekúndu. Regnið lamdi gluggana og droparnir fuku á þá í rokinu sem var þarna af því að það var svo hvasst. Og dimmt. ? Og þá var allt blautt í rigningunni og rokinu. Klukkan var rosalega margt og komin nótt og rok og rigning.

Rigningin og rokið settu svip sinn á þessa dimmu dimmu nótt.

Úr The System of the World

The first thing Princess Caroline saw every day, when she opened her eyes, parted her bed-curtains, and glanced toward her window to check the weather, was two intersecting stone walls of window-grid, marching off in an infinite logarithmic progression.

Merely seeing it would put Leibniz into a funk. What was only boring to Caroline was troubling to him, because he felt partly responsible. The Doctor had grown up in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War when many towns did not have buildings at all - only ruins and shanties! The structures that survived were round-shouldered half-timbered things, as same and yet as various as a basket of apples. But the buildings of today were informed by geometry; which meant that each one betrayed the particular Idea of geometry that its architect had drilled on in school. A hundred years ago this might have meant parabolas, ellipses, surfaces of revolution, involutes and evolutes, and parallel curves. Now it meant Cartesian rectilinear coordinates - the cruel gridiron to which all of those soaring arcs had been lashed fast by the toiling algebraists. A plaything for hares had fallen among the tortoises. The non-helpless minority of Christendom - those who could read, who could travel, who were not starving - had (Leibniz brooded) got only the most superficial notion of what had been happening in Natural Philosophy and, rather than going to the trouble of actually understanding it, had fastened on to the Cartesian grid as a relic or fetish of enlightenment. A result was grid-buildings. Leibniz could not bear to look at them because more than anyone else he was responsible for Cartesian coordinates. He who had launched his career with an epiphany in a rose-garden! So he and Caroline tended to meet, not in the waffle iron of the Leine Schloß but out beyond the ramparts along the gently curving banks of the Leine, or at Sophie's garden.

- Neal Stephenson, The System of the World, bls. 320.

Svipað viðhorf kom fram í Cryptonomicon, og þá til póstmódernistanna sem fyrrum kærasta Randy og vinir hennar tilheyrðu. Það er fátt auðvirðilegra í bókum Stephensons en sá, sem skilur ekki eitthvað en lætur sem hann geri það.

-b.

Úr The Confusion

The next day they left the field pimpled with smoking twists of blackened iron and marched south to Dublin. James Stuart had already run off to France. Protestants were running wild, looting Catholic homes. Bob ventured into a certain quarter where Protestants were more apt to behave themselves, if indeed they went there at all. He found Teague Partry sitting on a stoop smoking a clay pipe and gravely observing the bums of passing milk-maids, as if nothing much had happened recently. But the right side of his face was flushed red, as if sunburnt, and pocked with recent wounds that all appeared to have radiated from a common center.

Teague bought him a mug of beer (it being Teague's turn to do this) and explained to him that James's foreign cavalry regiments had panicked first and, finding their escape route blocked by the Irish infantry, had opened fire on them to clear the way. He put it to Bob that Irishmen had it in them to fight effectively when they were not being massacred by Continental cavaliers who were supposed to be on their side, and (pointing significantly to his face) when they were provided with guns that projected musket-balls instead of blowing up in their faces. Bob agreed that it was so.

- Neal Stephenson, _The Confusion_ bls. 313.

Daniel Waterhouse er sjanghæaður í nýrnasteinsuppskurð

"In truth you are still alive and will be for many years - more years than I have remaining. There are some who die of shock, it is true, and perhaps that is why all of your friends wished to come and pass time with you before I started. But, as I recollect, you were shot with a blunderbuss once, and got up and walked away from it. So I am not afraid on that 'count. The bright lights you see are sticks of burning phosphorus. And I am Robert Hooke, than whom no man was ever better suited to perform this work."

"No, Robert."

Hooke took advantage of Daniel's plea to jam a leather strap into his mouth. "You may bite down on that if you wish, or you may spit it out and scream all you like - this is Bedlam, and no one will object. Neither will anyone take heed, or show mercy. Least of all Robert Hooke. For as you know, Daniel, I am utterly lacking in the quality of mercy. Which is well, as it would render me perfectly incompetent to carry out this operation. I told you a year ago, in the Tower, that I would one day repay your friendship by giving you something - a pearl of great price. Now the time has come for me to make good on that promise. The only question left to answer is how much will that pearl weigh, when I have washed your blood off it and let it clatter onto the pan of yonder scale. I am sorry you woke up. I shall not insult you by suggesting that you relax. Please do not go insane. I will see you on the other side of the Styx."

Whe he and Hooke and Wilkins had cut open live dogs during the Plague Year, Daniel had looked into their straining brown eyes and tried to fathom what was going on in their minds. He'd decided, in the end, that nothing was, that dogs had no conscious minds, no thought of past or future, living purely in the moment, and that this made it worse for them. Because they could neither look forward to the end of the pain, nor remember times when they had chased rabbits across the meadows.

Hooke took up his blade and reached for Daniel.

-- Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver bls. 916.

Hooke langt leiddur í Quicksilver

Roger Comstock was peering down the stem of his clay pipe like a drunken astronomer drawing a bead on something. In this case the target was Robert Hooke, Fellow of the Royal Society, visible only barely (because of gloom and smoke) and sporadically (because of table-flitting patrons). Hooke had barricaded himself behind a miniature apothecary shop of bottles, purses, and flasks, and was mixing up his dinner: a compound of mercury, iron fillings, flowers of sulfur, purgative waters from diverse springs, many of which were Lethal to Waterfowl; and extracts of several plants, including the rhubarb and the opium poppy. "He is still alive, I see," Roger mused. "If Hooke spent any more time lingering at Death's door, Satan himself would have the man ejected for vagrancy. Yet just as I am wondering whether I can make time for his funeral, I learn from Sources that he is campaigning like a French regiment through every whorehouse in Whitechapel."

Daniel could think of nothing to add.

-- Neal Stephenson, _Quicksilver_, bls. 659-60.

Ahh, lu franz

Óvíst er með framhald raunveruleikaþátta í Frakklandi eftir að Hæstiréttur þar í landi dæmdi þremur keppendum í Eyju freistinganna (e. Temptation Island) í hag. Keppendurnir kröfðust bóta þar sem ekki voru gerðir við þá launþegasamningar og á kröfuna féllst rétturinn.

Hverjum keppanda voru dæmdar ellefu þúsund evrur í bætur, eða um tvær milljónir króna, fyrir vinnuframlag sitt í þágu þáttarins. Var þar um að ræða laun samkvæmt kjarasamningum, yfirvinnu, orlof og bætur fyrir að vera sagt ólöglega upp, þ.e. brottrekstur úr þættinum.

Það að vera sparkað úr raunveruleikaþætti fyrir lélega frammistöðu eða hvað sem stjórnendunum dettur í hug yfirleitt, er ólögleg uppsögn. Það er hreint út sagt æðisleg túlkun. Bravó Frakkland.

-b.

Í næsta kafla

"I'm worried something'll happen to 'em before we can turn 'em into real money."
"What is 'real' money, Jack? Answer me that."
"You know, pieces of eight, or, how d'you say it, dollars--"
"Th -- it starts with a T but it's got a breathy sould behind it -- 'thalers.'"
"D-d-d-dollars."
"That's a silly name for money, Jack -- no one'll ever take you seriously, talking that way."
"Well, they shortened 'Joachimsthaler' to 'thaler,' so why not reform the word even further?"

Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver bls. 414.

Þetta er svo þungt! Afhverju ertu að lemja mig með þessari þungu kylfu þinni, Stephenson? Ertu hræddur um að ég nái þessu ekki?

Það sama var uppi á teningnum með nafnbreytinguna New Amsterdam - New York. Ha ha, það kemur aldrei neinn til með að kalla hana New York, það er fáránlegt. Áts. Hættu þessum barningum Stephenson! Þeir eru þungir veistuekkihvað.

Mér finnst upplýsingarnar sjálfar athyglisverðar. Ég vissi ekki að orðið ,,dollar" væri komið af ,,Joachimsthaler". En það eru til settlegri leiðar en þessi margþvælda fortíðar-írónía, þarsem það fáránlega í augum sautjándu aldar fólks er það sem við teljum sjálfsagt. Að gefa í skyn að aðalpersónan sé á undan sinni samtíð eða þvíumlíkt vegna þess að hún dettur niður á orðin sem við notum í dag. Blarg.

Þetta eru smávægilegir annmarkar á annars þrælfínni bók. En það var ekkert þessu líkt í Cryptonomicon og ég tók einmitt eftir því þegar ég var að lesa þá bók, þar voru næg tækifæri til þess. Mér fannst það klassi. En hérna dettur Stephenson í gryfjuna oftar en einusinni.

Æja.

-b.

Fyrsta kynlífssenan í Quicksilver

“All right, let’s rehearse it again. ‘Jack, show the gentleman that bolt of the yellow watered silk.’ Go on—that’s your cue”
“Yes, milady”
“Jack, carry me across yonder mud-puddle.”
“With pleasure, milady.”
“Don’t say ‘with pleasure’—sounds naughty.”
“As you wish, milady.”
“Jack, that is very good-there’s been a marked improvement.”
“Don’t suppose it has anything to do with that you’ve your fist lodged in my arse-hole.”
Eliza laughed gaily. “Fist? Jack, this is but two fingers. A fist would be more like—this!”
Jack felt his body being turned outside in—there was some thrashing and screaming that was cut short when his head accidentally submerged in the sulphurous water. Eliza got a grip on his hair and hauled his head back up into the cold air with her other hand.
“You’re sure this is how they do it in India?”
“Would you like to register… a complaint?”
“Aaugh! Never.”
“Remember, Jack: whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”
There followed a long, long, mysterious procedure—tedious and yet somehow not.
“What’re you groping about for?” Jack muttered faintly. “My gall-bladder is just to the left.”
“I’m trying to locate a certain chakra—should be somewhere around here—“
What’s a chakra?”
“You’ll know when I find it.”
Some time later, she did, and then the procedure took on greater intensity, to say the least. Suspended between Eliza’s two hands, like a scale in a market-place, Jack could feel his balance-point shifting as quantities of fluids were pumped between internal reservoirs, all in preparation for some Event. Finally, the crisis— Jack’s legs thrashed in the hot water as if his body were trying to flee, but he was staked, impaled. A bubble of numinous light, as if the sun were mistakenly attempting to rise inside his head. Some kind of Hindoo apocalypse played out. He died, went to Hell, ascended into Heaven, was reincarnated as various braying, screeching, and howling beasts, and repeated this cycle many times over. In the end he was reincarnated, just barely, as a Man. Not a very alert one.
“Did you get what you wanted?” she inquired. Very close to him.
Jack laughed or wept soundlessly for a while.
“In some of these strange Gothickal German towns,” he at last said, “they have ancient clocks that are as big as houses, all sealed up most of the time, with a little door where a cuckoo pops out upon the hour to sing. But once a day, it does something special, involving more doors, and once a week, something even specialer, and for all I know, at the year, decade and century marks, rows of great doors, all sealed shut by dust and age, creak open, driven by sudden descent of ancient weights on rusted chains, and the whole inner working of the thing unfold through those openings. Hitherto unseen machines grind into action, strange and surprising things fly out—flags wave, mechanical birds sing—old pigeon-shit and cobwebs raining down on spectators’ heads—Death comes out and does a fandago—Angels blow trumpets—Jesus writhes on the cross and expires—a mock naval battle plays out with repeated discharge of cannons—and would please take your arm out of my asshole now?”
“I did a long time ago—you nearly broke it!” Peeling off the knitted length of sheep-gut like an elegant lady removing a silken glove.
“So this is a permanent condition?”
“Stop whining. A few moments ago, Jack, unless my eyes deceived me, I observed a startlingly large amount of yellow bile departing your body, and floating away downstream.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t barf.”
“Think harder, Jack.”
“Oh—that kind. I should not call it yellow but a pearly off white. Thought it has been years since I saw any. Perhaps it has yellowed over time, like cheese. Very well! Let’s say ‘twas yellow.”
"Do you know what yellow bile is the humour of, Jack?"
"What am I, a physician?"
"It is the humour of anger and ill-temper. You were carrying a lot of it around."

Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver bls. 411-12. Þessi gaur hafði skrifað þetta upp fyrir mig.