Comments or suggestions: Gerard Van der Leun

FuturePerfect

"Freak Men:" Gully Foyle Interviews a Robot Bartender

starsdestbig.jpg

One of my favorite passages from what many, rightly, call "the greatest science fiction book ever written:" Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination


'Life is so simple,' Foyle said. 'This decision is so simple, isn't it? Am I to respect Presteign's property rights? The welfare of the planets? Jisbella's ideals? Dagenham's realism? Robin's conscience? Press the button and watch the robot jump. But I'm not a robot. I'm a freak of the universe ... a thinking animal ... and I'm trying to see my way clear through this morass. Am I to turn PyrE over to the world and let it destroy itself? Am I to teach the world how to space-jaunte and let us spread our freak show from galaxy to galaxy through all the universe? What's the answer?'

The bartender robot hurled its mixing glass across the room with a resounding crash. In the amazed silence that followed, Dagenham grunted: 'Damn! My radiation disrupted your dolls again, Presteign.'

'The answer is yes,' the robot said, quite distinctly.

'What?' Foyle asked, taken aback.

'The answer to your question is yes.'

'Thank you, Foyle said.

'My pleasure, sir,' the robot responded. 'A man is a member of society first, and an individual second. You must go along with society, whether it chooses destruction or not.'

'Completely haywire,' Dagenham said impatiently. Switch if off, Presteign.'

'Wait,' Foyle commanded. He looked at the beaming grin engraved in the steel robot face. 'But society can be so stupid. So confused. You've witnessed this conference.'

'Yes, sir, but you must teach, not dictate. You must teach society.'

'To space-jaunte? Why? To reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?' "

'Because you're alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? don't ask about it. Live it.'

'Quite mad,' Dagenham muttered.

'But fascinating,' Y'ang-Yeovil murmured.

'There's got to be more to life than just living,' Foyle said to the robot.

'Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.'

'Why can't we all move forward together?'

'Because you're all so different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.'

'Who leads?'

'The men who must . . . driven men, compelled men.'

'Freak men.'

'You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.'

'Thank you very much.'

'My pleasure, sir.'

'You've saved the day.'

'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed. "



Clink Link for The Stars My Destination in PDF format


Posted by Vanderleun at Dec 10, 2016 8:21 AM |  Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
How to Elicit a Child's Sense of Wonder

Steven Spielberg: “I had to the left of the camera a cardboard partition, and to the right of the camera a second cardboard partition. To the left of the camera, I put Bob Westmoreland, our makeup man, in a gorilla suit — the full mask and hands and hairy body. To the right of the camera, I dressed myself up as an Easter Bunny, with the ears and the nose and the whiskers painted on my face. Cary Guffey didn’t know what to expect. He didn’t know what he was gonna react to. His job was to come into the kitchen, stop at the door, and just have a good time. … And just has he came into the kitchen, I had the cardboard partition dropped and Bob Westmoreland was there as the gorilla. Cary froze, like a deer caught in car headlights … I dropped my partition, and he looked over at me, and there was the Easter Bunny smiling at him. He was torn. He began to smile at me — he was still afraid of that thing. Then I had Bob — I said, ‘Take off your head.’ Bob took off his mask, and when Cary saw it was the man that put his makeup on in the morning, Cary began to laugh. Even though it was a trick, the reaction was pure and honest.” Once for All – Futility Closet


Posted by gerardvanderleun at Sep 21, 2014 4:07 PM |  Comments (2)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Always a lovely day, somewhere, sir.

anarchy_reigns_robot_bartender.jpg

"His senses uncrossed in the ivory-and-gold Star Chamber of Castle Presteign... he saw the high mirors and stained glass windows, the gold tooled library with android librarian on library ladder... he heard the android secretary tapping the manual bead-recorder at the Louis Quinze desk... he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.

...He ignored his enemies and examined the perpetual beam carved in the robot face of the bartender, the classic Irish grin.

'Thank you,' Foyle said.

'My pleasure, sir,' the robot replied and awaited its next cue.

'Nice day,' Foyle remarked.

'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed.

'Awful day,' Foyle said.

'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot responded.

'Day,' Foyle said.

'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot said. "

The bartender robot hurled its mixing glass across the room with a resounding crash. In the amazed silence that followed, Dagenham grunted: Damn! My radiation disrupted your dolls again, Presteign.'

'The answer is yes,' the robot said, quite distinctly.

'What?' Foyle asked, taken aback.

'The answer to your question is yes.'

'Thank you, Foyle said.

'My pleasure, sir,' the robot responded. 'A man is a member of society first, and an individual second. You must go along with society, whether it chooses destruction or not.'

'Completely haywire,' Dagenham said impatiently. Switch if off, Presteign.'

'Wait,' Foyle commanded. He looked at the beaming grin engraved in the steel robot face. 'But society can be so stupid. So confused. You've witnessed this conference.'

'Yes, sir, but you must teach, not dictate. You must teach society.'

'To space-jaunte? Why? To reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?' "

"'Because you're alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? don't ask about it. Live it.'

'Quite mad,' Dagenham muttered.

'But fascinating,' Y'ang-Yeovil murmured.

'There's got to be more to life than just living,' Foyle said to the robot.

'Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.'

'Why can't we all move forward together?'

'Because you're all so different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.'

'Who leads?'

'The men who must . . . driven men, compelled men.'

'Freak men.'

'You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.'

'Thank you very much.'

'My pleasure, sir.'

'You've saved the day.'

'Always a lovely day somewhere, sir,' the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed. "

-- Bester, Alfred. The Stars My Destination. New York: Berkley Publishing (1975; c. 1956); pg. 240.


Posted by Vanderleun at Nov 9, 2013 1:15 AM |  Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
"What the wife selects on her console will be paid for by the husband at his counterpart console."

Visionary film about the future of computers in the household from 1966:

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at May 31, 2011 6:51 PM |  Comments (3)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Passing Strange

"The horror! The horror!" KEIICHI MATSUDA's Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop


Posted by Vanderleun at Jan 26, 2010 6:32 PM | QuickLink: Permalink
Blade Runner: The Penultimate Scene Made New


Posted by Vanderleun at May 6, 2009 3:41 PM |  Comments (13)  | QuickLink: Permalink
THE FAMILY PLAN: Part 2 of "Mourning in America"

abill.jpg

The Democratic Un-super Majority in Congress continues in its rush to torpor. Indeed, with the vague move last week to replace the outmoded 18th century concept of the secret ballot with the way-new "card-check" system for keeping Union coffers brimming with enough money to pump into the Congressperns, they have once again shown that their energies are spent on campaigns and not legislation or cerebration.

And while the economy, much to their distress, continues to jump-start itself, it is past time to help the Democrats jump-start some legislation. Ordinarily this would be accomplished by running a pair of heavily-insulated jumper cables from Al Gore's Nashville Energy Festival to Teddy Kennedy's chest, but that would only serve to increase a carbon footprint the size of Cleveland's. Not correct in these days of offsets and indulgences.

Instead, to stave off the looming and dreaded legislation shortage, I think it is time to help the party I once revered get back in the Family Way. I've analyzed a lot of the Democrats' positions on The Family and it's like trying to work your way through a braille edition of the Kama Sutra page by page. Still, as with the Kama Sutra, there are moments of fulfillment to be had. I think I've been able to piece together a legislative road map for the Democrats. Here are a few of the rest stops on their route to our Brave New World.


Abortions R' US (also know as "MA1.5"): Dear Dems,
Let's just get to the point before you roll another joint.

What the country wants to see is where you really stand on this issue. Here's the program: Mandatory abortions after 1.5 children (MA1.5) for everybody except special congress people and high-net worth Democratic donors who can buy one or two more kids, or have one or two more of their parents offed with every election cycle. To make it easy and cheap to obtain this service, all Democrats in the House and Senate will receive funding to open abortion clinics in their home state's offices. To keep ordinary doctor's offices accessible such clinics will also be mandated to employ alien medical staff without green cards if they can produce a certified Medical degree from a local Kinkos.

Eco-rider to "Abortions R' US " (MA1.5): To better conserve the scarce resources of our eternally-endangered Planet, all aborted fetuses will be harvested into beer coolers, packed with dry ice, and dispersed by means of Lear Jets to Federal tissue and organ banks for the future use of important Americans such as politicians, film-stars, dotcom millionaires, and their heirs and assigns in good standing with the DNC. More stored abortions means a better chance of a perfect match should members of these groups pack in their livers, kidneys, brains, or sexual organs with booze or drugs. If this had been done 40 years ago, Walt Disney would still be alive.

StemWinding in Our Time: In keeping with the MA1.5, and other pilot programs to harvest and recycle all US, Canadian and Mexican medical waste and not just hypodermic needles, stem cells will be harvested as well. These vast Petri-dish collections will be dispersed to the newly created Federal StemScientist Laboratories and Spas in all the 50 states plus American Samoa.

"FedStem" labs will be fully-funded so that they can better muck about with the basic building blocks of life. Before being dispersed, all stem-cell harvests will be clearly labeled as to their genetic makeup so that the stemcell's membership in an endangered-victim group can be noted and Federally-mandated future victim quotas can be fulfilled. Stem-cells found to be associated with any majority or Republican group will be returned to the point of origin for incineration along with the donor.

It is hoped that mandatory abortions (MA1.5) will create enough stem cells to supply all the experiments that FedStem can dream up, but if the supply falls short mandatory stem cell collection will automatically be instituted via midnight raids on gated Republican communities.

The Better Americans Through Diversity Bill (BATD): Let's face it, too many Americans, when it comes to marriage, are still sticking to their own kind.

BATD solves that via forced marriages for the diversity-impaired. This bill, which requires all Americans to register their race, color, creed and national origin at birth, will give a much needed high-colonic to the presently stalled "Coffee Colored Compromise."

Good Democrats know well that the natural leanings of love often make mistakes (as opposed to the unnatural), but with good Democratic government the mistakes that the normals make can always be rectified. Because some critics have referred to this as "eugenics," the BATD Bill will mandate that it be called "newgenics."

With full-funding and draconian enforcement (which may or may not extend to mass sterilizations), the Democrats have no doubt that they can create the new Americans, the Unirace, within a decade -- especially if we offer free-sex weekends to selected teenagers during the school year in the gym. To ensure an optimum mix of breeding stock, bussing will be employed between such areas as Beverly Hills and South Central. To ensure that "race-neutral" breeding takes place as scheduled, fully-qualified members of the National Teachers Union will be paid double-time to oversee and instruct these "Prom" replacement festivals.

The Dynamic Diversity Blowout Bill (DDB): Here we would take a privilege previously reserved for the Democratic Hollywood elite and extend it to the Democratic Party masses via 3rd world baby adoption with a tax rebate. With two 3rd world baby adoptions in a year, you would get a five-year tax holiday. With three you would get egg roll.

The Be-Kind to Border Jumpers Bill (BBJ): To replace the millions of Democratic voters sadly culled by the MA1.5 bill, illegal aliens, regardless of country of origin, will receive a Diversity's Kidz Wavier (DKW) that requires them to have 5 to 12 children.

The Family Esteem Statute ("FES" also known as "On Beyond Rosie O'Donnell"): As the Democrats' definition of "Family" expands to encompass everything on the North American continent up to and including the caribou herds roaming the Alaskan tundra, it will be important for them not to just legislate but to educate as well.

After a long-overdue purge of local school boards and National Teachers Association recidivists, this act mandates hands-on kindergarten sex education from trained professionals who have previously been forbidden to live with 2,000 yards of a school.

In order to bring pride back to the millions of single mothers of five under the age of 20, the word 'bastard' shall be expunged from all dictionaries and literature, to be replaced with "village child."

Circumcision will be defined in said dictionaries and literature as "child abuse, no religious excuses, get over it." Previously circumcised citizens of the demonstrably male persuasion who feel cut off from their foreskins will be given, upon signing a pledge to vote Democrat, $250,000 grants to have replacement foreskins regrown at the FedStem tissue banks and reattached through the miracles of microsurgery. Should the procedure cost less, the grant recipients may either elect to spend the money on a boy-finding trip to Brunai or have a couple of extra inches tacked on.

The Comprehensive Anticipatory Child Care Act (CACCA): Given the well-known levels of stress and undue expense involved in raising a child, any parent may, upon application and proof of a solid Democratic voting record, have the child removed from the home and stored in a government approved "Foster Child Care Farm."

These institutions shall be established in the homes or on the property confiscated from any American shown to have voted Republican -- federal, state, or local -- since the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Upon his formal denunciation of "Republicanism" and his embrace of "Democratia Values" former Rep. Mark Foley will be appointed to administer this program as Teen Czar for Life.

The Dress for Survival Act (DFSA): "Stop that running! You'll put your eye out! Don't play in the street! Watch it! Watch it!" Who among us has not felt compelled to break our child's will with this kind of unfeeling and emotional criticism? And yet, children continue to be killed, maimed or get a boo-boo every day. With the passage of the DFSA this will come to a halt as all American children when exiting the bed will be required to don full-body Eddy Murphy-certified fat suits to prevent any injury whatsoever. The cost for this program will not create any new personal taxes because it will be funded by a 100% tax on oil-company profits.

The Four Non-polluting Wheels for All Program (FNPWA): Bicycles? Two wheels? You've got to be kidding. Millions of accidents waiting to happen. With the onset of FNPWA all bicycles will be confiscated and placed into our newly un-dammed ("Free!") rivers as fish habitats. Every American, at birth, will be issued a quadracycle (with basket) for their errands. The quadracycles will also involve no new taxes as they will be funded by a 100% tax on all oil-company revenues left after the tax on 100% of their profits.

The Traditional Family Readjustment Act (TFRA): In keeping with the goals of "The Family Esteem Statute," the words "mother" and "father" and their derivatives in daily speech are to be replaced by first names of parents (if both are known). In addition, the Fifth Commandment shall be expunged from all present and future Holy Books, as will all similar religious references to "Honoring thy father and thy mother" unless found in the Koran .

The You're Not the Boss of Me Bill (YNBM): Criticizing, looking sternly at, correcting, or in any way reducing a child's beautifully natural self-esteem from infancy to 35 years of age shall be a misdemeanor. Touching a child with corrective intent shall be a felony. As a bonus, this extends to any handling of the child's feces. Both will be subsumed under the new law informally known as "No Child's Behind."

The Universal Marriage of Everything Act (UME): Men, women, dogs, cats, goats, or Barbra Streisand in that hideous Focker movie. We don't care. If you can fondle it you can marry it. Complaints or whining about this fundamental fundamental will be punishable by summary execution, the better to cull the herd.

The Divorce with Benefits Act (DWB): Except upon proof of the murder of a spouse, all Divorces shall be no fault, but must be adjudicated as no-fault to a minimum of $50,000 in legal fees so that Trial Lawyers are not hurt by this ruling.

Gay divorces, should one ever actually occur, are exempt from the monetary awards of this act, but all window-treatments shall be divided equally along with the Spode China, so buy the 12 place set. For the first five years of this act, all gay divorces (should any ever actually occur) will be required to be done on a TV reality show so that Judge Judy not profit from this act.

Upon hetero or bi-sexual divorce, being declared officially to be no-fault on the part of any individual no matter how many people shall have been in the marriage, any male involved in the divorce shall be required to pay to a designated female involved in the no fault divorce (should there actually be any females in the marriage in the first place), a minimum of 60% of his before tax income calculated backwards to the date of the first kiss in the relationship that would later become marriage.

Should 1.5 children have arisen from the Union before the mandatory abortions kicked in, the father shall pay a total of 20% of his before tax income to towards the care of those children until they reach the age of 35.

Should the female remarry and bear any children to the next husband, the husband of the first marriage shall be required to pay 10% of his before tax income to the children of the second marriage since the female never would have had them if he hadn't been such a bastard in the first place.

Alimony and support provisions shall be waved of any couple, or pairing of species, that shall have split up without being married since the circumstances of their birth and ancestry doubtless compelled them to live in such a way.

Any children fathered out-of-wedlock in the United States shall be considered for inclusion, at the mother's whim, in a Foster Child Care Farm (see above) and endowed with a trust-fund of no less than $3,000,000 from the moment of conception.

Until they reach the age of consent, now reduced to 10 years of age, all the interest from said trust fund shall be paid in monthly installments to the birth mother. At the age of consent, the principle of the trust fund will be passed to the 10 year old child to do with as he or she or it sees fit, while the birth mother shall receive a one-time balloon payment of $500,000 tax-free.

Nothing in these bills shall be construed to represent an attack on Marriage, which the Democratic party still holds to be a sacred union between any one warm-blooded life form and another, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, gender (assumed or assigned) and species. Mammal to fish, reptile, insect or plant marriage is still outlawed under these provisions because you simply must draw a line somewhere.

The Spiritual Revivification and Normalization Constitutional Amendment (SPANCA): To eliminate all future arguments about "The Family" and other contentious questions about which religion is "best," all children born after the passage of these bills will be sent to one church and one church only, "The First Unitarian Church of the Agnostic Atheist." Only Muslim children will be exempted this necessary adjustment to their spiritual psyches since, well, they have suffered enough.


See also "EMBRACE THE MURTHA: Part One of "Mourning in America"


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 6, 2007 3:16 PM |  Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
EMBRACE THE MURTHA: Part One of "Mourning in America"


amurtha.jpg

Murtha: A Man, A Plan, A High Colonic

Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire?
-- Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, 1.VII

How Nancy Can Get Her Groove Back

After their stunning electoral victories, the Democrats in Congress have hit the ground shunning. Shunning confrontation, shunning decision, shunning crisis, and shunning leadership. The "First Hundred Hours" are now stretching towards the First Hundred Days with nothing but a lot of little victories that are all that has emerged from their big promises.

Continued...
Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 2, 2007 9:35 PM |  Comments (4)  | QuickLink: Permalink
On "the astounding baseness to which Liberal journalism has sunk." -- 1917

PLUS CA CHANGE, and so forth:

One of the two or three streaks of light on our horizon can be perceived in this: that the moral breakdown of these papers has been accompanied by a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the "DailyNews" or the "Daily Chronicle" (I mean in so far as it deals with politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious quality inits degradation than a sort of carelessness, at once of hurry and fatigue,with which it flings down its argument--or rather its refusal to argue.It does not even write sophistry: it writes anything. It does not so much poison the reader's mind as simply assume that the reader hasn't got one." -- LIBERALISM - A SAMPLE, Utopia of Userers, et al by Gilbert K. Chesterton
A nice little summation of our current run of "leading" newspapers even if it is almost a century old.

More to the point of how Chesterton means more at this moment than in many decades is what comes next in a comment that prefigures the "new" media.

A long while ago, before all the Liberals died, a Liberal introduced a Bill to prevent Parliament being merely packed with the slaves of financial interests. For that purpose he established the excellent democratic principle that the private citizen, as such, might protest against public corruption. He was called the Common Informer. I believe the miserable party papers are really reduced to playing on the degradation of the two words in modern language. Now the word "comnon" in "Common Informer" means exactly what it means in "common sense" or "Book of Common Prayer," or (above all) in "House of Commons." It does not mean anything low or vulgar; any more than they do. The only difference is that the House of Commons really is low and vulgar; and the Common Informer isn't. It is just the same with the word "Informer." It does not mean spy or sneak. It means one who gives information. It means what "journalist" ought to mean. The only difference is that the Common Informer may be paid if he tells the truth. The common journalist will be ruined if he does.


Posted by Vanderleun at Mar 3, 2006 7:35 PM |  Comments (1)  | QuickLink: Permalink
Carressing the Matrix

HYPNOTIC, BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING. You really have to see this to believe it. And you WILL want one:Multi-Touch Interaction Research
[HT from the always on-target Ole Eichhorn @ Critical Section ]

ON THE OTHER HAND, for something completely different, try the ever-popular KOREAN SCHOOLGIRLS!

ON THE THIRD HAND, you can observe and analyze two chinese boys:fairy . But be careful. It's the kind of thing that will have you converting to Islam in a twinkle.

ON THE LAST HAND: Via reader Jim Bass comes this weighty matter. Now you may ask yourself what's so special about the Beatles, three balls, and the juggler Chris Bliss. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? Really? Take a look. Like the Brits say, "It'll gobsmack you."


Posted by Vanderleun at Feb 18, 2006 9:25 AM | QuickLink: Permalink
Don't Like the Stars? Go Out and Make One of Your Own.

lodestar.jpg

"LODESTAR" -- FROM THE Popular Science | 2004 Design Competition, a synthetic star.

The designers of the magnificent Tribute in Light memorial for the World Trade Center turned their attention to urban night blindness: the blankness of the city skies. Urban Lodestar is a light-emitting five-pointed star designed to float serenely above a city center and pulse gently at the same rate as a resting heart to calm the city folk below. Lodestar hovers with the aid of helium-filled polymer balloons; propellant tanks and directional boosters attached to a GPS-equipped positioning system keep it from going AWOL. During the day, photovoltaic film panels harness energy from the Sun and store it in batteries; at night, electroluminescent strips in the shape of a star glow with that stored energy. Graphite composite struts provide stability, and a battery-powered xenon strobe creates the pulsing effect. Intermittent green flashes differentiate the Urban Lodestar from natural celestial bodies.


Posted by Vanderleun at Jun 23, 2004 3:21 PM |  Comments (6)  | QuickLink: Permalink
G2E Media GmbH
CATEGORIES

5-Minute Arguments
AKeeper
American Studies
Analog World
Appetites
Art Within America
Bad Americans
Blather & Spew
Blodder Award
Citizens
Click-Pix: Blogs on a Roll
Coasts & Heartland
Companions
Connect the DotComs
Critical Mass
Culture & Civilization
Drive-By
Drool-Cup Award
Enemies, Foreign & Domestic
Essays & Items
Fish Barrel Bang
Flick-Pix
Frequently Answered Questions
FuturePerfect
Global Reach
Grace Notes
Heroes & Hustlers
Iconography
Icons
Innovations
Intellectually Insane
InVerse
Issues & Episodes
Its the Law
iWar
Letters from Home
Letters Never Sent
Linkapalooza!
Mass Distractions
Military Affairs
Mondo Bizarro
Moving Images
My Back Pages
Myths & Texts
News to Me
Nota Bene
Obsessed & Confused
On the Land
Oneliners
Patriot Gains
PictureThis
Pinhead Punditry
Political Corrections
Political Pablum
PunditInstants
Pure Opinion
Pure Products of America
Quisling Corner
Reportage Redux
Rumors: Substantiated & Otherwise
Science Made Stupid
Simulacrum
Site Notes
Sites Unseen
Society
Space Patrol
Sports
Squawking Points
TerrorWar
The Americans
These Just In
Thinking Right
Tinfoil Brigade
Tools
Truth @ Slant
Under Review
Useful Idiots
VIA
What's Just So Wrong With This Picture?
WizDum
Word Forge
Zenecdotes


SIDELINES

FIND


BACKMATTER

RECENT ITEMS