Lazy, fun summer days

...are finally here. My "Russian History Since 1855" class finished in mid-June. It was quite interesting. So much rapid (often forced) social and technological change, and so much pain and suffering! It made me feel grateful to my ancestors for coming to North America. One theme I found intriguing was of continuity in Russian history. There were some surprising similarities between the tsarist, Communist and post-Communist regimes. I'd recommend the text we used: Walter Moss's History of Russia, Volume 2. It was highly readable, if riddled with typos.

The text included not only political history but also cultural and artistic developments, and reminded me of some Russian sf/fantasy-with-religious-elements that I've been meaning to get around to: the films of Andrei Tarkovsky (especially Solaris and Stalker) and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Nothing says "summer relaxation" like a fat Russian novel, in my opinion.

In related news, did you know that a religion-themed Canadian TV show recently called on Gabriel McKee as an expert on religion in science fiction? The show also features Robert J. Sawyer, John C. Wright, Robert Charles Wilson and Peter Kazmaier. Check it out!

Science-fiction-wise, I'm currently reading House of Suns by UK author Alastair Reynolds. It was kindly given to me as a birthday present (I turned 32 on the 28th of June.) It's entertaining so far, though I find myself over-analyzing and trying to spot all the influences he's drawing on.

In other news- it's finally summer! The Winnipeg Folk Festival is coming up soon! Hurray! The mosquitos are back! Booo! I've already registered for my last year of undergraduate classes, which I'm looking forward to a great deal. They include Byzantine History, South Africa in the 20th Century, and the Origins of the American Civil War. And I need to start researching grad schools pretty soon, so as to begin applying this fall. Perhaps I'll be coming soon to a university near you!

Also, in mid-June (a few days after my Russian history exam) I graded to my first kyu (second-level brown belt) in Goju-ryu karate. So for the next five or six months I'll be training hard for my shodan (black belt) grading, which is coming up sometime late this year.

So maybe "lazy" isn't the right word for this summer... But I think "fun" will still apply.

Alive!

Yes, I am alive. Winter term is done! Work has been a little hectic since then, though, and I've been trying to get caught up in karate. On Monday spring term begins - I'm taking six hours a week of "Russian History Since 1917." Gulag archipelago, here I come!

I have been able to fit a few books in, though. One was David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which I heard about from Åka. It's quite compelling. Some people might describe it as being a little gimmicky - it consists of six stories, each one chronologically later than the one before it, and each one interrupting the last, until you come to the middle story, which is told in its entirety. Then you start to get the second halves, until you come to the earliest one at the end. Each one is in a different genre. The first is rather like an Aubrey/Maturin tale from Patrick O'Brian. There's a paperback thriller story from the '70s. The final two (or middle two) are a harrowing Blade-Runneresque cyberpunk tale and an homage to Riddley Walker.

I thought he carried it off fairly well, and I'm used this sort of complex narrative style, thanks mainly to Gene Wolfe. A few weeks back Ian observed to me that "confusion" and "genre" are like salt and pepper for Wolfe, and (as usual) he's right. Mitchell drops a few more hints than Wolfe would, I think. Anyways, Cloud Atlas has numerous moments of brilliance and I want to reread it some day. It's also got interesting religious, metaphysical, and ethical themes. There are some admirable religious characters (Christian, Buddhist, and, er... henotheistic neo-pagan? something like that) as well as some utterly deplorable ones; some liberating uses of religion and some highly oppressive ones. I don't think I'm giving anything away in saying that reincarnation helps tie these stories together, though the book doesn't revolve around it. There were a few bits in the cyberpunk story that reminded me of Cordwainer Smith's "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," (always a good thing) and a searing, enlightening moment when the cyberpunk story's main character asks "Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? He sees a game beyond the endgame."

It's well worth reading. Here's some interesting thoughts on the book and especially the cyberpunk bit, from a Christian who works as a biologist - but note that those thoughts include some spoilers.

Another book I've finally managed to read is Neal Stephenson's gargantuan Anathem. It's quite something, and I'm not just talking about the workout it gives your forearms. To call it "thought-provoking" doesn't do it justice. It's brainy and funny and all over the map, like all of Stephenson's work. I think any I review I did would have to be in the form of a month-long Socratic dialogue and at the end of it I might have to go live in a monastery, so I'll just say that I agree entirely with Gabriel's review over at SF Gospel. I particularly liked Fraa Lio, the martial artist, and Fraa Arsibalt, the overweight genius who's interested in building bridges between science, philosophy, and religion. There were a few moments near the end that reminded me very strongly of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Long Sun, when Silk and Patera Quetzal are in the tunnels, and it made me think of Stephen Jay Gould, and Tim Lilburn, and also this book... but I digress. I will say there are numerous echoes of A Canticle for Leibowitz. Here's a good quote, only one of many (Protas is basically Plato, and a Bazian ark is like a Catholic church):

"If Protas could be respected for saying so, then what was wrong with me thinking that our Mynster, and this machine hall, were both shadows of some higher thing that existed elsewhere-- a sacred place of which they were both shadows, and that cast other shadows in such places as Bazian arks and groves of ancient trees?" - (p. 84)

Towards the end the main character (following Emerson) draws a contrast between poets and mystics. Poets understand that while symbols can bear cosmic truth, they change, so that a symbol that is true or liberating at one time can become false and oppressive. Mystics, he says, wrongly fixate on just one set of symbols. I get the point that Stephenson is making, but I personally wouldn't use the words 'mystic' and 'poet' in that regard.

I bring this up because I just saw a brilliant poet-mystic in concert last night - Leonard Cohen. It was AMAZING. The guy just keeps getting better with age. If he's coming to your town or somewhere nearby, do yourself a favour and go!

The Third Man

This post is not actually about the great Orson Welles/Graham Greene movie. It's about a book I recently came across, The Third Man Factor. It has an ambitious subtitle: The Secret to Survival in Extreme Environments.

Fans of T.S. Eliot will recall these lines from The Wasteland:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

—But who is that on the other side of you?

This is part of the poem's 'Journey to Emmaus' section, but in the notes Eliot explained: The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.

It turns out that a fair number of people in extremely stressful conditions, often explorers, report an encounter with a mysterious "Other." Unlike sleep paralysis or experiences of "hauntings," these presences seem supportive or helpful and have given some people the determination to carry on and survive harrowing conditions. It's not always a get-out-of-jail free card - Geiger cites one case where a climber described the experience in his diary before dying. The book uses some neurological findings to argue that the Other is a psychological survival mechanism, a hallucination triggered by the brain in certain cases of stress.

Geiger cites some people who interpret this in a dismissive fashion - standard-issue "See, all this mystical bunk is just in your head!" rhetoric. He also quotes those who believe that something supernatural or paranormal is being encountered, beyond how the brain interprets it. The introduction to the book is from Vincent Lam, the Canadian doctor and award-winning writer. Lam is an Anglican (the last I heard anyways) and in his introduction he describes a stressful period in his life when he encountered what he believes was "a guardian angel."

Geiger himself takes a stance between these positions. He seems to conclude that it's "just" happening in the brain, but that it's a wondrous, even spiritual experience at the same time. For him, it speaks to human inter-connectedness, our need for others, and the amazing flexibility of the human psyche. There's an interview with Geiger here. The Globe and Mail reviewed the book here.

On a related note, have you seen Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends?

Robots warring (in a flooded world?)

Sometimes I wish science fiction would stay science fiction. I occasionally read or hear a news story that triggers a flashback to a hundred science fiction stories I've read on the same subject; and I have to remind myself that, no, this is here and now in the real world. The imagined future has arrived. It's not just an abstract problem anymore.

The story that did that to me today was about robots. P.W. Singer, an expert on modern warfare, and the author of books on child soldiers and mercenaries, has come out with a new book on the growing use of robots in war. There are thousands already in use, and many more in the design & development stage. You can read some articles about his book here. I heard an interview with him today. He points out some of the troubling new ethical and social issues this kind of technology creates. For example:

So, for example, if you are sending less and less Americans into harm’s way, does it make you more cavalier about the use of force? And one of the people that was fascinating that I interviewed was a former assistant secretary of Defense for Ronald Reagan, who actually had this to say about these systems. He worried that they would create more marketization of war, as he put it. We might have more shock and awe talk to defray discussion of the true costs of war.... I mean, the concern I have is that it takes certain trends that are already in play in our body politic. We don’t have declarations of war anymore. We don’t have a draft. We don’t buy war bonds anymore. We don’t pay higher taxes for war. And now you have the fact that you may be sending more and more machines instead people. And so, you may be taking the already lowering bars to war and dropping them to the ground.

He suggests that in some ways we have a parallel to 1942, when atomic weapons were in development. Wouldn't it have been better to debate the morality of nuclear bombs before they were used, rather than after?

This exchange was particularly interesting:

AMY GOODMAN: What happens if a robot commits a massacre?

P.W. SINGER: It’s a great question. You know, who do you hold responsible? Do you hold responsible the human operator? Do you hold responsible the commander who authorized them there? Do you hold responsible the software engineer who wrote it wrong? And how do you hold them accountable? We don’t have good answers.

And what was funny is, one person that I interviewed was a Pentagon robotic scientist. And he said, “You know what? You’re wrong. There’s no social or ethical or legal dimensions with robotics in war that we have to figure out.” He said, “That is, unless the machine kills the wrong person repeatedly.” Quote, “Then it’s just a product recall issue.” That isn’t the way I think we should be looking at the social, ethical and legal dimensions of all of this. And that’s why we need to launch a discussion about it. Otherwise, we’re going to make the very same mistake that a past generation did with atomic bombs, you know, not talking about them until Pandora’s box is already opened.

You can read the whole interview here.

I also came across this story, about a new study that shows a general warming trend in Antarctica. If the West Antarctic ice sheet were to collapse, the average global sea level would go up by six meters! (I think previously the estimate was five meters.) And apparently we need that ozone hole after all, since it keeps things colder. Anyways, it's not an imminent threat (ie, not in my lifetime) but it would endanger humanity if we keep going the way we have been.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Wow, has it really been more than a month since my last post? Ouch. Sorry about that. [Insert lame but true excuses about the holidays and university workload here.]

If you have been missing my unique blend of... whatever-it-is, please head on over to Holy Heroes!! for a long post I did recently about Crucifixion in the Work of Grant Morrison. It caused Eve Tushnet to say "faboo!!!"

Oh, and there was also this little one about The Beast's God.

My next blog project (blogject?) is to post my "ten favourite books read in 2008" and "ten favourite graphic novels read in 2008." I have the lists worked out, but the trouble is coming up with something more thoughtful to say about each one, other than "Great book!" Sadly, most of the books were non-fiction - the only science fiction-with-spiritual-themes that made the list was (drum roll...) Philip K. Dick's UBIK! Ubik is the miracle product! It gets those stains out! It eliminates the heartbreak of psoriasis! Repairs your car! It walks your dog, and doubles on sax! If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you must read... UBIK!

And Happy Inauguration Day to all my American readers and, well, everyone, really. Hello to the new guy and good riddance to the other fellow!

Oh, and here's an interesting oddity. CBC radio evidently decided that President Obama wouldn't have enough to do already, so they asked their audience for help in compiling a mix of great Canadian music for him to listen to. I doubt he'll get around to it, but there are a lot of good tunes on it. Check it out!

Jamaican Echoes

As they worked, Case gradually became aware of the music that pulsed constantly through the cluster. It was called dub, a sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of digitalized pop; it was worship, Molly said, and a sense of community.

from Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

I want to point out a great new CBC radio documentary about dub music. You can listen to it at the Inside the Music Audio Archive - it's called Jamaican Echoes, and it's about an hour long. It does a good job of explaining what dub is, how it developed, and how it spread around the world. Dub techniques and innovations created by Jamaican artists went on to influence huge swathes of contemporary music, from hip-hop to disco to punk to bhangra, not to mention most any style of electronic music you care to mention.

I would've liked some mention of nyabinghi drumming but I suppose that would involve explaining lots of other facets of reggae music. It's a great introduction nonetheless, and includes excerpts from many classic tracks. Be sure to crank up the bass before you listen to it, or you'll miss the point entirely.

I can't be entirely sure, but I think my first introduction to dub was reading Neuromancer, so I've always been focused on both the mystical and science-fictional elements of the music.

PS: For further exploration of the original dub remixing process, you might want to check out this podcast. It contains 21 different versions of Jackie Mittoo's Drum Song.

Robinson interview

Here's a rewarding interview with Marilynne Robinson, the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist. As the introduction says, she's "a Christian whose faith is not easily reduced to generalities." Indeed. Aside from being a very good writer, I think I would describe her as a philosopher; someone who loves knowledge and is deeply interested in reality in all the ways it comes to us. I'm posting the link here because she talks about both science and religion.

On religion:

Religion is a framing mechanism. It is a language of orientation that presents itself as a series of questions. It talks about the arc of life and the quality of experience in ways that I’ve found fruitful to think about.
Or:
The first obligation of religion is to maintain the sense of the value of human beings. If you had to summarize the Old Testament, the summary would be: stop doing this to yourselves. But it is not in our nature to stop harming ourselves. We don’t behave consistently with our own dignity or with the dignity of other people.

On science:

I read as much as I can of contemporary cosmology because reality itself is profoundly mysterious. Quantum theory and classical physics, for instance, are both lovely within their own limits and yet at present they cannot be reconciled with each other. If different systems don’t merge in a comprehensible way, that’s a flaw in our comprehension and not a flaw in one system or the other.
...Science is amazing. On a mote of celestial dust, we have figured out how to look to the edge of our universe. I feel instructed by everything I have read. Science has a lot of the satisfactions for me that good theology has.

And:

I’m not terribly persuaded by the word supernatural. I don’t like the idea of the world as an encapsulated reality with intrusions made upon it selectively. The reality that we experience is part of the whole fabric of reality. To pretend that the universe is somewhere else doing something is really not true. We’re right in the middle of it. Utterly dependent on it, utterly defined by it. If you read somebody like Wallace Stevens, he’s basically saying the same thing.

She also talks about the relationship between religion and science, about beauty, about Lincoln and Marx, about "puritanical hedonism," and well, lots of other things.