Submitted by The Avante Guardian on October 6, 2008 - 8:05pm.
Gospodin Libar/Mister Bookseller/"All But One" is as magnificently honed an instrospective illustrated storytelling as I've seen in a long while; beautiful and heartbreaking. Thanx Cap.
/BEGIN SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT/
If you haven't read Mister Bookseller (as provided by Captain X in article above) and plan to, please skip this paragraph if you plan on reading it. and return when you do. imo it's well worth the trip.
S
P
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S
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...right, if you've read it, this will no longer be a spoiler, if you haven't, and read the next line, well, you have been advised this contains a spoiler.
Still 'ere? K, good.
*tug down on shirt*
I actively look for what the bookbuyer is given, in USBs and the like.
Though it's not limited to books. I once found a baseball hat with my brother's name in it at a lawn sale. Since my brother committed suicide, it means a lot to me. It perfectly reflects his personality too; it's light colored (I can still see his bright blond hair peeking out from under it) and aesthetically pleasing.
I have a lot of baseball caps, because none of them ever look just right, either the rim is too long, too short, looks wonky or the top is too small, too large, too pointed, et cetera, so I picked up another one, and then another, and so on.
Until now, where I have about 30.
Interestingly my lawn-sale-found brother's bb cap is probably the last I'll ever buy, it's the one that looks the most aesthetically pleasing, the most balanced, friendly and cool, yet cool without looking like you're trying to look cool. unpretentious with style. The coolest of them all.
Like he was when we were kids.
There's a scene in one of the shorts in The AniMatrix that hits Bookseller-sim beauty-and-majesty-and-melancholy of childhood chords, where the children are playing in a rift in the Matrix.
Everytime I see it, I remember, that really IS what childhood was like, climbing over fences and finding MAGIC there.
I still live there in that rift, sometimes.
I think a lot of us still do, from time to time.
But for now, back to reality.
re: The Guardian wonders whether (the future as depicted in SF -Ed) always has to be so gloomy. I don't think so. Do you? - Captain X.
Not exclusively no, I agree.
I think SF at its best is at its core social-commentary with a bit of an attempt at social-engineering tossed in.
I don't think of current SF as _un-necessarily gloomy_ or dystopic for glooms sake per se, I think it's often necessary.
IYAM if you want to promote a better system, it starts with first pointing out what's potentially wrong with the current one, and/or other possible ones vying for the public's attention.
The Current British Conservative's for example are now going gangbusters at an attempt to bring BigBrother to the BBC.
I jest ye not.
They are suggesting that the government withhold/slash the BBC's budget if they don't start bringing some "VISION" to BBC programmes.
/BEGIN British Telegraph Article Excerpt/
He said: "They get a £3.3 billion guaranteed cheque every year and with that investment by the nation's taxpayers comes huge responsibilities. What I'd like to see from the BBC is a broader vision of how they can help us tackle the big broken society issues: the rise in knife crime, gun culture, broken families - all the things that are really intractable problems that people in Westminster scratch their heads trying to solve."
He adds: "If I could see how BBC3 was going to play its part in changing social norms
and reducing the number of people who carry knives.
If I could see that link I'd feel much more comfortable about the BBC spending that money but I don't think simply having large audiences is enough."
But "If I could see how BBC3 was going to play its part in changing social norms"
sets all my social-engineering via propaganda alarm bells off.
(mostly thanks to SF which advises us to be on the look out for this sort of thing)
And that is where I draw the line.
The BBC is a mass media outlet, an arts promotion institution, a communications hub, and a news organization.
It already educates the public in line with traditional British values, in terms of *some* of the content of its programs.
When we listen to an audio play version of a book that was originally promoted/read in a British school, for example, the BBC are _already_ acting as an extension of the school, and therefore as an extension of the British system. To a certain degree.
BUT
For the BBC to be forced to adopt this conservative "VISION" (read: agenda) of "guiding the public"; to effectively introduce PROPAGANDA as a primary critiera of programmes on the BBC
and therefore by dangerous extension (because of how they're interlinked at the BBC) promoting propaganda as primary programming criteria in:
1. "mass media"
2. "arts"
3. "communications"
and
4. "news".
That is about as bloody DANGEROUS/ORWELLIAN as you can get.
We can't avoid propaganda, it exists everywhere in some form, but for a political-body to publicly suggest that propaganda should become a primary tool of the BBC
"or else we will slash your budget/put you out of business"
ought have the British public breaking out copies of 1984, and doing a double-take.
As I see it, as long as these BigBrother philosophy-AND-government-policy espousing sorts of people exist within the power structure in the western world, SF really NEEDS to deal with them.
To highlight them and their potential dangers.
Otherwise, we just move deeper and deeper into a REAL dystopic world.
I prefer my dystopias as fictional-tools thank you very much!
I agree SF ought not be ALL about the dangers of fascism and corporate/government control of the proletariat, there's room for all different sorts of SF, but until we can expose these sorts of people and their BigBrother agenda, I think SF must remain vigilant in exposing what the current and near-future dangers within our system are.
There's room for happy-fun-time too of course.
imo the best SF
* educates
+
*incoroprates philosophy
+
*social commentary
+
*a -bit- of social-engineering.
to the extent that SF can provide a positive _alternative_ future for man _to consider_.
+
*entertains.
but I don't think it ought move one inch away from its current goal of exposing the current dangers in our system.
If that means having the work labeled "dystopic" that's a price I'm willing to pay.
It seems to me that "dystopic" has become a catchall negatively connotated phrase used by critics (mostly the sort that don't like SF to begin with, I notice, New York Times I'm lookin at you *cough*) to widesweepingly take a shot at SF.
As if "oh it's dystopic *frown* *roll eyes*" were some sort of legitimate literary argument or criticism.
Norman Co-Ordinate.
It's not anything but an observation on a dynamic within a sub-genre, or more properly an (extrapolation -Ed) tool used to expose where the current dangers in our system lay.
And imo it's an extremely important one.
Dark futures point out where we're in danger of going wrong, we need that if SF is to remain the champion of our future.
But I agree, optimally the best work includes both the potential dangers in our current system, and examples of where we can steer things positively.
I'd add that, in my view when it's really at its best, it's funny too.
The Avante Guardian. ---- Einstein's Hair^2 //Approved.
Gospodin Libar + BigBrother: Conservative calls for "BBC Vision"
Gospodin Libar/Mister Bookseller/"All But One" is as magnificently honed an instrospective illustrated storytelling as I've seen in a long while; beautiful and heartbreaking. Thanx Cap.
/BEGIN SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT/
If you haven't read Mister Bookseller (as provided by Captain X in article above) and plan to, please skip this paragraph if you plan on reading it. and return when you do. imo it's well worth the trip.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
.
.
S
P
A
C
E
R
...right, if you've read it, this will no longer be a spoiler, if you haven't, and read the next line, well, you have been advised this contains a spoiler.
Still 'ere? K, good.
*tug down on shirt*
I actively look for what the bookbuyer is given, in USBs and the like.
Though it's not limited to books. I once found a baseball hat with my brother's name in it at a lawn sale. Since my brother committed suicide, it means a lot to me. It perfectly reflects his personality too; it's light colored (I can still see his bright blond hair peeking out from under it) and aesthetically pleasing.
I have a lot of baseball caps, because none of them ever look just right, either the rim is too long, too short, looks wonky or the top is too small, too large, too pointed, et cetera, so I picked up another one, and then another, and so on.
Until now, where I have about 30.
Interestingly my lawn-sale-found brother's bb cap is probably the last I'll ever buy, it's the one that looks the most aesthetically pleasing, the most balanced, friendly and cool, yet cool without looking like you're trying to look cool. unpretentious with style. The coolest of them all.
Like he was when we were kids.
There's a scene in one of the shorts in The AniMatrix that hits Bookseller-sim beauty-and-majesty-and-melancholy of childhood chords, where the children are playing in a rift in the Matrix.
Everytime I see it, I remember, that really IS what childhood was like, climbing over fences and finding MAGIC there.
I still live there in that rift, sometimes.
I think a lot of us still do, from time to time.
But for now, back to reality.
re: The Guardian wonders whether (the future as depicted in SF -Ed) always has to be so gloomy. I don't think so. Do you? - Captain X.
Not exclusively no, I agree.
I think SF at its best is at its core social-commentary with a bit of an attempt at social-engineering tossed in.
I don't think of current SF as _un-necessarily gloomy_ or dystopic for glooms sake per se, I think it's often necessary.
IYAM if you want to promote a better system, it starts with first pointing out what's potentially wrong with the current one, and/or other possible ones vying for the public's attention.
The Current British Conservative's for example are now going gangbusters at an attempt to bring BigBrother to the BBC.
I jest ye not.
They are suggesting that the government withhold/slash the BBC's budget if they don't start bringing some "VISION" to BBC programmes.
/BEGIN British Telegraph Article Excerpt/
He said: "They get a £3.3 billion guaranteed cheque every year and with that investment by the nation's taxpayers comes huge responsibilities. What I'd like to see from the BBC is a broader vision of how they can help us tackle the big broken society issues: the rise in knife crime, gun culture, broken families - all the things that are really intractable problems that people in Westminster scratch their heads trying to solve."
He adds: "If I could see how BBC3 was going to play its part in changing social norms
and reducing the number of people who carry knives.
If I could see that link I'd feel much more comfortable about the BBC spending that money but I don't think simply having large audiences is enough."
/END British Telegraph Article Excerpt/
read complete article ((here))
Maybe it sounds reasonable, to some.
But "If I could see how BBC3 was going to play its part in changing social norms"
sets all my social-engineering via propaganda alarm bells off.
(mostly thanks to SF which advises us to be on the look out for this sort of thing)
And that is where I draw the line.
The BBC is a mass media outlet, an arts promotion institution, a communications hub, and a news organization.
It already educates the public in line with traditional British values, in terms of *some* of the content of its programs.
When we listen to an audio play version of a book that was originally promoted/read in a British school, for example, the BBC are _already_ acting as an extension of the school, and therefore as an extension of the British system. To a certain degree.
BUT
For the BBC to be forced to adopt this conservative "VISION" (read: agenda) of "guiding the public"; to effectively introduce PROPAGANDA as a primary critiera of programmes on the BBC
and therefore by dangerous extension (because of how they're interlinked at the BBC) promoting propaganda as primary programming criteria in:
1. "mass media"
2. "arts"
3. "communications"
and
4. "news".
That is about as bloody DANGEROUS/ORWELLIAN as you can get.
We can't avoid propaganda, it exists everywhere in some form, but for a political-body to publicly suggest that propaganda should become a primary tool of the BBC
"or else we will slash your budget/put you out of business"
ought have the British public breaking out copies of 1984, and doing a double-take.
As I see it, as long as these BigBrother philosophy-AND-government-policy espousing sorts of people exist within the power structure in the western world, SF really NEEDS to deal with them.
To highlight them and their potential dangers.
Otherwise, we just move deeper and deeper into a REAL dystopic world.
I prefer my dystopias as fictional-tools thank you very much!
I agree SF ought not be ALL about the dangers of fascism and corporate/government control of the proletariat, there's room for all different sorts of SF, but until we can expose these sorts of people and their BigBrother agenda, I think SF must remain vigilant in exposing what the current and near-future dangers within our system are.
There's room for happy-fun-time too of course.
imo the best SF
* educates
+
*incoroprates philosophy
+
*social commentary
+
*a -bit- of social-engineering.
to the extent that SF can provide a positive _alternative_ future for man _to consider_.
+
*entertains.
but I don't think it ought move one inch away from its current goal of exposing the current dangers in our system.
If that means having the work labeled "dystopic" that's a price I'm willing to pay.
It seems to me that "dystopic" has become a catchall negatively connotated phrase used by critics (mostly the sort that don't like SF to begin with, I notice, New York Times I'm lookin at you *cough*) to widesweepingly take a shot at SF.
As if "oh it's dystopic *frown* *roll eyes*" were some sort of legitimate literary argument or criticism.
Norman Co-Ordinate.
It's not anything but an observation on a dynamic within a sub-genre, or more properly an (extrapolation -Ed) tool used to expose where the current dangers in our system lay.
And imo it's an extremely important one.
Dark futures point out where we're in danger of going wrong, we need that if SF is to remain the champion of our future.
But I agree, optimally the best work includes both the potential dangers in our current system, and examples of where we can steer things positively.
I'd add that, in my view when it's really at its best, it's funny too.
The Avante Guardian. ---- Einstein's Hair^2 //Approved.