The Clarion Workshop at UCSD

Research into materials for cloaking visible objects has gotten loads of press recently, with lots and lots of comments about science fiction coming true.  So far, it’s been entirely gibberish, but someone finally has an intelligent discussion of the matter, Peter Cochrane in today’s column at Silicon.com.  Cochrane, the former CTO and head of Research at British Telecom, remembers this youth as a heyday of technology transitioning from fiction to fact:

I soon discovered Jules Verne, HG Wells, and later my now absent friend Arthur C Clarke. There were many more of course. For my young mind it was the magic of dreams: a submarine powered by a force as powerful as the sun, X-ray vision, an invisible man, and machines much smarter than mankind. My constant question was: what if…?

At that time all the adults I consulted either scoffed at such nonsense or went to great lengths to explain all these things were fundamentally impossible.

But little did they know that plans for the first nuclear sub were being hatched the year I was born and an actual Nautilus set sail in 1954 just eight years later, followed by the deployment of the first Polaris boats in the early 1960s.

Cochrane recognizes that the most important step for us — with technology moving as fast as it does — is to help humanity adapt to the coming machine age:

The challenge really is not how the machines are going to adapt to us, or us to them, but how we are going to find a synergy of existence so we can get the maximum benefit for all sides of the equation.

The biggest engineering challenge isn’t how you build such a machine, because it will probably build and configure itself, but how we get mankind to think differently in the same time-frame.

All the evidence to date is that humans and their societies change very slowly, while machines move far faster. The only certainty is this will present the kind of challenge that inspired one small boy a long time ago.

It’s a challenge we’re simply not ready for.  SF as a genre can help us get there, but we have a terribly long way to go.

Liz Ng’ang’a, a university researcher based in Scotland, has a very interesting piece in today’s Business Daily out of Nairobi on African writers getting engaged in science fiction.  Ng’ang’a has previously written on the importance of science and technology teaching for Africa’s future; here it’s a take on the need for science fiction imaginings to help envision that future.

Ng’ang’a contrasts the emergence of African SF writers with Africa’s role in SF from earlier eras:

During the early part of the 20th century, Africa was a popular setting for foreign science fiction writers.  The continent has since lost its edge, as the unexplored home of exotic, strange and previously undiscovered creatures, to the outer space.  A few Africans have since endeavoured to create African-inspired science fiction.

Ng’ang’a focuses on two writers, Kenyan writer John Rugoiyo Gichuki and Ghanian-born British film director John Akomfrah.  Of the latter, for example, she notes:

… [his] work is inspired by Africa’s encounter with modernity. Akomfrah argues that since science-fiction narratives are usually about alienation, abduction and transportation, they provide a powerful understanding of the displacing of African people.

Ng’ang’a’s closing remarks are particularly appropriate in the aftermath of UC Riverside’s 2008 Eaton Conference, Chronicling Mars, which highlighted the symbiotic relationship between science fiction’s race to Mars and that of the 1960s U.S. space program.  Now, she says, maybe it’s Africa’s turn for visions of hope to drive Africans toward hopeful futures:

This view is encouragingly contrary to foreign science fiction works, which used Africa as a setting to show the bleak future that the world might come to… [I]t is time for brave African writers to take on science fiction, and explore other alternative possibilities the future might hold.

The Last Theorem, Arthur C. Clarke’s final book and his only collaboration with Fred Pohl, was released yesterday.  As described on the Random House website,

[When] Ranjit Subramanian, a Sri Lankan with a special gift for mathematics and a passion for [Fermat’s] famous “Last Theorem[,]” … writes a three-page proof of the theorem that relies exclusively on knowledge available to Fermat, his achievement is hailed as a work of genius, bringing him fame and fortune. But it also brings him to the attention of the National Security Agency and a shadowy United Nations outfit called Pax per Fidem, or Peace Through Transparency, whose secretive workings belie its name. Suddenly Ranjit–together with his wife, Myra de Soyza, an expert in artificial intelligence, and their burgeoning family–finds himself swept up in world-shaking events, his genius for abstract mathematical thought put to uses that are both concrete and potentially deadly.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, an alien fleet is approaching the planet at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Their mission: to exterminate the dangerous species of primates known as homo sapiens.

The New York Times carried an odd report today, odd not for the content but for its placement: an article on the imminent dissolution of Belgium carried on page 1 of the Arts section.  Isn’t that news?

Admittedly, the story sounds a lot like The Mouse That Roared or one of its sequels, where the Duchy of Grand Fenwick does things like go to war against the United States in the hopes of securing U.S. foreign aid — at least, that’s what I recall them doing in the Peter Sellers film version.  Here, though, a nation with a per capita GDP higher than Germany’s is arguing over the fact that its French citizens are oh-so-very French and its highly put-upon Flemish citizens are just so tediously Flemish.  Not like a Peter Sellers movie at all, you say?

Still, it’s the odd placement in the Times that intrigues me.  It seems that the story’s author, Michael Kimmelman, is a culture columnist — viewing his recent columns, he’s usually working with a focus on Culture as Culcha, the kind where you go listen to opera and stuff like that.  This time, though, it’s about cultures clashing:

It’s about culture in the end. In its escalating dysfunction Belgium demonstrates the inextricable link between culture and nationhood. As acting mayor Mr. Thiéry presides over tense meetings at which nationalists from out of town listen to hear if he utters a word in French instead of Flemish, as the various Dutch dialects of Flanders are known. If so, he said, all council decisions can be annulled, and he can be replaced as mayor by someone the Flemish choose.

I am reminded of Napoleon, in Woody Allen’s Love and Death, speaking about the critical importance of finishing the recipe for the pastry to be known as the ‘Napoleon’ before his arch-enemy, the Duke of Wellington, can create his own culinary masterpiece, Beef Wellington: “the future of Europe hangs in the balance.”  Yeah, kinda like today with those Flemings, doncha think?  Oy; I should have so much time, energy and money to waste being stupid.

I’m thinking no two Comic-Cons are the same, because none of us walk the same routes or stumble into the same booths and play-things.  But I’m ready to seek the six, got my secret code to play Freaky Creatures, am totally psyched about Twilight, and just so ready for Trick ‘r Treat that I’m planning to ask director Mike Dougherty if they’ll do a benefit screening for Clarion when the movie comes out in October — but as I do a little Googling maybe rethinking that on the fly, omigod, reading about the movie I’m not so sure it’s the kind of thing you want to show donors…  And oh, did I mention My Name is Bruce, the Bruce Campbell movie headed for limited release in the fall and DVD in 2009?  Maybe that would be a good benefit screening; still a horror movie, but not psycho-violent, and I’d bet we could get Bruce to drive on down to San Diego (probably in a 20-year-old Lincoln or some such) to do a panel discussion.  At least, I like to think of him in a 20-year-old Lincoln…

Anyway, to keep track of the Hollywood side of Comic-Con, I’d watch the IMDB Comic-Con page.  Me, I’m in it for the books. 

Two fun sightings today: Nancy Holder, Clarion Board member, giving away free books, and Traci Castleberry, Clarion 2005 alumna, hanging out.  Traci and I walked the floor for a while; I pointed X-Men #10 to her, the first one I could remember reading when it was on the shelves.  It’s a $250 comic these days; 12 cents when I first bought it.  Ah, how time flies.  Back tomorrow, for a lunch with Eric Nylund, yet another Clarion alum of much repute!  It’s so cool walking the floor as the Ambassador of Clarion — wait! do they have a costume for that?

Oh — forgot to mention.  Saw Will Wright’s Spore presentation.  Indescribably spectacular game concept and game space.  Indescribably. 

If you’re interested in tracking what’s going on in the Workshop this summer, or just interested in hearing more from one of your favorite authors, you might want to check out the podcasts that Shaun Farrell over at Adventures in SciFi Publishing is putting up.  Each week, they’re interviewing the Clarion instructor at the end of the week’s programs; so far, two of the podcasts are up:

• Kelly Link, Week 1
• Jim Kelly, Week 2

I’ve heard Kelly’s, but Jim’s just went up so I’ll have to download it for listening over the weekend.  Later on today, they’ll be interviewing Mary Anne Mohanraj, and should have that one up by this time next week.  Nice.

Two interesting and utterly contradictory takes on Wall-E in today’s Los Angeles Times.  One article, in the Entertainment section, reflects on the fact that it’s not “2001: A Space Odyssey” or, as reporter Reed Johnson puts it, “the apes [in “Planet of,” presumably] weren’t cuddly.”  The other, by conservative writer Charlotte Allen, tries to convince fellow conservatives that they shouldn’t be upset about the film just because its dystopic future reminds them of Al Gore.  Seriously.

When was it that every single bit of culture became a reflection of someone’s political views, or that every single movie had to make a statement about society?  Have we lost the chance for a movie to just be a movie?

Somebody seems to have convinced Buzz Aldrin to stop taking his medication … at least that’s what it seems like based on his bizarre interview with SciFi.com, described as follows at TVSquad.com:

In an interesting move by one of the iconic astronauts, Buzz Aldrin blamed science fiction for the lack of space flight in modern society…. According to him, sci-fi fed greater expectations than realistically possible and led to a lack of interest in the general public of promoting space travel.

“I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today,” Aldrin said in an interview at the TCA. “All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It’s not realistic.”

Let’s see, if I remember right, the iconic television show from the height of the 1960s race to the moon was Star Trek, where they, uh, “beam people around and things like that.” 

Meanwhile, Ben Bova has a totally different take in a wonderful “Sunday Perspective” article in tomorrow morning’s Naples [Fla.] Daily News on his time as Science Advisor to a terrible television show, “The Starlost.”  Created by Harlan Ellison, the show was doomed from the start by a writers’ strike that forced it to Toronto and into the hands of a bunch of amateurs.  Ellison left in disgust after a while, but Bova stuck it out:

My task, as science advisor, was to read the scripts (which were pretty awful) and spot technical flaws (which were plentiful), then suggest ways to correct those flaws without having to toss the entire script into the wastebasket (which is where most of them belonged).

I did my job dutifully. I was thanked profusely. I was paid handsomely. And all my advice was ignored. They shot the scripts as written, technical klunkers and all.

But at the end of each episode I got a full screen credit: Ben Bova, Science Advisor. It was like being identified as Adolf Hitler’s personal chaplain. The show’s producers had no interest in technical accuracy; all they wanted was a “name” to show that they had hired a science consultant.

Perhaps if Buzz Aldrin were to read that story, he’d notice one critical detail about science fiction films and television: it’s all about the money, and not about whether some show or film helps support the current, admittedly pitiable space program.  Doh!

Two interesting articles in today’s Los Angeles Times about Wall-E, the latest Pixar creation that’s dominating the box office.

• “A big message in a little robot,” by Patrick Goldstein, asks the pointed question, “what if Pixar released a ferocious charge attacking the American way of life and reviewers didn’t notice?”  It’s Goldstein’s second piece on Wall-E, after this one, and basically a riff off this post at Hitsville about the fact that if Michael Moore had released this kind of attack on America, he would have been pilloried.  Goldstein focuses on the 1956 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” with its sly political commentary that liberals see as anti-McCarthyism and conservatives as anti-communism.  (Ah, to write a movie where every viewer sees their own biases come to life.)
• “The best of people at their worst” is another takeoff from Wall-E, this one a listing of several of the great dystopian visions produced over the years, from “Metropolis” up through “2001″ and “The Terminator.”  A photo spread on the Times website expands on this theme, with great shots from the films.

Speaking of dystopian visions, an entirely unrelated blurb in the “Quick Takes” column (read: things grabbed from AP and others) states that the lost 20-25 minutes of “Metropolis” cut from the film after its first release has been found in Argentina.  Within a few years, they tell us, the film will finally be able to be shown as intended by Fritz Lang.  Now that’s great news for us dystopia fans.

The 2008 Clarion class is settled into their new spaces at UCSD, and has begun this year’s Workshop under the trusted guidance of Kelly Link. Tania Mayer’s been spending lots of time with them, and I had the time to have dinner with them last night over at Canyon Vista, whose website, for reasons I don’t understand, doesn’t show the canyon for whose vista it is named.

Anyway, lots of little things to catch up on, now that they’re settled:

• The new Star Trek exhibit at the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. It’s blogged here at Wired, and written up in the San Diego Union-Tribune here. It’s a little pricy at $24 a head, but for the serious fan, well worth it.
• I’ve been shlepping around a copy of an article in the May 28, 2008 Boston Phoenix article called, “Rage Against the Machines!” It asks the question, “Could robots take over the world?” and decides the answer is probably yes. I mostly like it for the fact that it runs through the gamut of worries about robots, rather than that I agree with its breathless litany of fears. It’s a fun article.
• If you haven’t Twittered, you probably don’t want to Plurk — but if you’ve done either, you may just be seriously addicted to them. Plurk is particularly addictive, in that it puts people’s Twitters into some kind of organization. So you can track the ramblings of your good friend Goomoo, f.x., or switch to tracking Goomoo and his friends. I clicked on one of the friends, and found myself tracking Twitters off the technology blog StartupMeme. At that point, I shut it down, lest I be trapped there all day. Then I went back, set up a Clarion account, and dropped a plurk. I’m such a sucker for a new technology…