No Perfect Teeth 21 December 1998

9:06 PM: It's just one of those typo days. Maybe I can think of some other things to say.

This new Bruce Sterling book, Distraction is fun. It sounds so much like him, too, especially after seeing him speak. I suppose I mean that it sounds more like the fellow who gives funny speeches and writes articles for Wired than his other books have, apart from Heavy Weather. I imagine it's because of the subject of the book, which is the complete corruption and hellbound state of America and the world. There's a point where his main character says that America just isn't cut out to be The World's Policeman. "What America should be is The World's Movie Star!" It's an argument.

I am liking this new Beck CD more and more, as well, although I am not liking the actual physical compact disc so much. I've had it, what, a week? and it's skipping. Ditto the new PJ Harvey which I've played maybe three times. Pisses me off. Now the dark side of online commerce emerges. "Well, sir, if you have the original packaging, including all the cellophane and little annoying sticky pieces of plastic, in their original undamaged condition, you can return the CD to us for credit." "If I had all that I would never have been able to play the CD in the first place." "Well there you go, sir."*

I also read this new Jack McDevitt paperback, Moonfall, about the world being destroyed, and those are always cheerful. On the other hand, Colony by Ben Bova, which I bought thinking it was new only to find out it was from 1978 which'll teach me I guess, well it's about saving the world, and it's not cheerful at all. A better word might be "god-awful". I know that if I'm going to choose to read a Bova book, I have to cut it a certain amount of slack, and believe me, I'm usually quite willing. But this time, oy, everyone is tall and handsome and muscular, or petite and beautiful and lithe, or lush and beautiful and deadly, or... Except the big fat black guy and the nastly short Arab. Neat, huh? This old spotty rich bastard who is one of the villians for god's sakes even comes out as an OK guy, because after sexually and mentally abusing and degrading his red-headed, former-cheerleader, lush-and-beautiful-etc. secretary for the entire book, at the very end he extends a slight effort to stop her from being killed. And she's grateful! Me, I'd have shot the bastard at the first opportunity. Yick. The politics is pathetic, too: The World Government versus these five rich guys who control all the world's corporations, personally, to the point where they can build their own private O'Neill colony as a safe house/vacation retreat. Um, hello, nobody except royalty personally controls that much money. Oh, and then there's the People's Revolutionary Underground, which in a truly astounding development, is actually effective. In America! I want some of whatever he was smoking.

Maybe it all seemed more likely 20 years ago. I'm almost afraid to imagine what might make Sterling's vision seem quaint, 20 years from now...

* Simulated conversation.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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