From Gibson’s “Spook Country”.

I haven’t posted a good quote from a novel in a long time.  The last was some Bukowski stuff from September.  Though these could technically not count cause of the whole “non-fiction-I’m-drunk-at-the-Horse-Track” thing.  I read a lot of William Gibson’s Spook Country today; ahh the pleasures of public transportation- an excuse to read a book.  There were two excerpts I read today that both seemed funny, unique (in their views of said content), and post-Post-Modern.  This is Science Fiction at it’s most attainable.  Most of the devices in this book are things we have right now.  Technology we know.  The catch is the way people are using these devices, sometimes in conjuction with several others.  It’s crazy to think what’s around the corner even with already existing Technology.

The Econoline had a dozen of these sawn through its sides, each one covered by a screw-on, moveable scrap of black painted plastic.  These coincided, on the graffiti-tagged exterior, with solid black areas of various tags.  Assuming those were all genuine tags, Milgrim wondered, collected by leaving the van on the street, would the van’s disguise still fool a tagger?  How old were those tags?  Were they the Urban equivalent of using out-of-season vegetation for camoflauge?

Alberto had some kind of Jim Morrison piece he wanted to show her, up on Wonderland Avenue, and that just wasn’t going to work for her.  Even if it somehow managed to bypass the Lizard King’s iconic churlishness, and focus on, say, Ray Manzarek’s calliope pieces, she still didn’t want to have to write about invisible virtual monuments to the Doors, any of them.  Though as Inchmale had several times pointed out, back when they themselves had been in a band, Mazerak and Krieger had worked wonders, neutralizing the big guy’s sodden crankiness.

-William Gibson, Spook Country

Dinosaur Jr. is on the stereo right now speaking of music.

-Sonny

~ by sonnywilkins on March 2, 2009.