In junior high I had an English teacher who's name I can't remember. I can still see her strange smile in my memories and I'll forever associate her with Ray Bradbury's short story collection I sing the body electric. If I remember right we read a story called "The electric grandmother" in her class. I was tickled by the novelty of a grandma who could fill up my glass of O.J. with a spout form her finger and I don't think I realized how creepy or uncanny that would be. Sometimes though, I wondered if our teacher wasn't trying to tell is indirectly that she was an electric grandmother. There was something a bit weird about here that I could never pinpoint, know I realize that she could have been a cyborg.The Borg from S.T.N.G. were always the scariest bad guys Jeann-Luc Picard as a Borg scared me to death when I was a teenager. At the same time Locutus was "Rad!" and "Kick butt!".
"[M]odern developments in technology and telecommunication, instead of diminishing the realm of ghosts [...] enhance the power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us". That is a quote from Derrida playing a pretty good Derrida in the not so pretty good 1984 film Ghost Dance by Ken McMullen. Despite the bad acting, Derrida does say some interesting things. What's interesting are not so much his ideas, (he says nothing new), rather, the intrigue comes from the fact that it is Derrida addressing the subject of ghosts and technology, something that sci-fi had been aware of for years.
(If you want to see the guy that plays Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies play the drums and drop the f'bomb a lot, rent it. But good luck, there's a reason it's not an easy to find film)
Listen to this song by Electric President and check out the lyrics here. The lyrics are clever and there is a healthy dose of irony in the title as well as the lyrics.
I still can't believe I was never able to take DP's class on science and literature. I had a chance to redeem myself by going to Wash. U. to study with AB, but for reasons I still can't quite fathom I'm going to UCI.
4 comments:
I as well regret having not taken DP's Science and Literature class. I had no idea it was about sci-fi. I honestly thought it was going to be about the role of the scientific method or something like that in literary studies. I should have just asked. Sigh.
Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why you're not studying with AB at Wash U.
I knew I shouldn't have put the Cheney picture up on FB. I would avoid it if I saw it too.
J Jiminy. Some of the main reasons for going to CA are: proximity to family, a Visual Studies emphasis that will allow me to get some formal training in film studies and , I think, help make me more marketable, and the happiness of my wife, who might only see me on weekends for the first two years of the program. She preferred CA to MO.
It was a tough decision and no matter where I decided to go I was going to lose out on something good. The economy in CA has made me quite nervous though. Maybe after a year in Irvine my funding will disappear with the rest of the money in CA and I'll be forced to chose another career. That would be depressing.
I'm sure everything will work out well for you. I have to keep telling myself that as well since I go to MLA this December. Yikes!
Well the good news is that they are considering legalizing marijuana to pay for the budget deficit. Ah yes. Smoking pot to keep our schools funded. A beautiful irony.
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