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July 31st, 2013
GIBSON
But the simplest and most radical thing that Ridley Scott did in Blade Runner was to put urban archaeology in every frame. It hadn’t been obvious to mainstream American science fiction that cities are like compost heaps—just layers and layers of stuff. In cities, the past and the present and the future can all be totally adjacent. In Europe, that’s just life—it’s not science fiction, it’s not fantasy. But in American science fiction, the city in the future was always brand-new, every square inch of it.
INTERVIEWER
Cities seem very important to you.
GIBSON
Cities look to me to be our most characteristic technology. We didn’t really get interesting as a species until we became able to do cities—that’s when it all got really diverse, because you can’t do cities without a substrate of other technologies. There’s a mathematics to it—a city can’t get over a certain size unless you can grow, gather, and store a certain amount of food in the vicinity. Then you can’t get any bigger unless you understand how to do sewage. If you don’t have efficient sewage technology the city gets to a certain size and everybody gets cholera.
[emphasis added]
See Also: WordSalad.WilliamGibson
INTERVIEWER
For a while it was often reported, erroneously, that you typed all your books on a typewriter.
GIBSON
I wrote Neuromancer on a manual portable typewriter and about half of Count Zero on the same machine. Then it broke, in a way that was more or less irreparable. Bruce Sterling called me shortly thereafter and said, “This changes everything!” I said, “What?” He said, “My Dad gave me his Apple II. You have to get one of these things!” I said, “Why?” He said, “Automation—it automates the process of writing!” I’ve never gone back.
But I had only been using a typewriter because I’d gotten one for free and I was poor. In 1981, most people were still writing on typewriters. There were five large businesses in Vancouver that did nothing but repair and sell typewriters. Soon there were computers, too, and it was a case of the past and the future mutually coexisting. And then the past just goes away.
See Also: WordSalad.WilliamGibson
42012 : taking the cyber to the streets
WE = EXTREME TRANSMUTATION NATION // 42012 is what happens when cyborgs, mutants, aliens, cyberpunks, space pirates, twisted scientists, gods/cult leaders, evil faeries, and various other post-apocalyptic nutters decide to hit the streets
THE NEXT STEP? WE’VE ALREADY CLIMBED IT. // Our idea is to bridge the gap between the cyber and “real life” resistance kultures. The more of us go public about what we are/what we’re doing (spreading a memetic virus, deprogramming consensual reality, aborting.crashing.deleting “the system,” breaking away from the human race, etc. etc. etc.) the less of us will feel isolated when we go out. Eventually we’ll start appearing everywhere. Are you one of us? If so, start acting and dressing the part! Our hiding period is over.
On the difficulties of displaying poetry on the web, or in eReaders.
Charles Platt was suspicious of Nickled and Dimed, so he decided to work at WalMart.