Category: General
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The empathetic function in fiction
We often think that the empathetic function in fiction is accomplished via the writer’s relation to his characters, but it’s also accomplished via the writer’s relation to his reader. You make a rarefied place (rarefied in language, in form; perfected in many inarticulable beauties – the way two scenes abut; a certain formal device that…
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Roadtrips and brickbats
It’s high time I collected up mentions of and responses to the manifold things I’ve been up to over the last year or more, having fallen rather out of the habit; the decline of G**gle Alerts meant I stopped paying attention, basically. I can’t even do vanity right! Anyway, let’s start with fiction. I’ve not published…
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Cool your head
Another day, another minor mention of immortalism in the mainstream media; this one’s rare in that it mentions the really important element of the business model of Alcor and other such cryogenics “service providers”: The majority of patients choose to take out life insurance policies naming Alcor or the Cryonics Institute as their beneficiary. Read that again. Let the implications…
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Neither good nor bad, and never neutral
The network is neither good, nor bad, and never neutral; instead, the repetition of national politics in virtual space reminds us that our digital lives take place in the context of history and society, subject to the same powers and pressures as our physical lives. The network can be occupied, controlled, forbidden and attacked in…
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Our lives are linked to land and water
Last weekend I was a guest at Brown University, Providence, appearing as a panelist at Jo Guldi’s Land & Water conference, a conclave of academics and activists with a mutual interest in the historical forces mediating our access to the environment and its resources. There should be more material to come at the link above, including session…