Newsletter scheduled to send in a few hours from now. This will be issue #213 and its title is The [Inherent] Evil of Techno-Optimism, and just as it says on the tin, its main feature is a [partial] takedown of Marc Anderseen's horrendous The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.
Inbox 63, RSS 311
A snack and dishes before tending to those. Would like to kick the weekend off with a clean slate. Sumud for Palestine tomorrow.
Genuinely surprised there isn't more reporting on Israel remotely detonating handheld devices across Lebanon, and how news of this is not seeping into tech news. This takes the notion of weaponizing handheld devices against its users to a whole new level. Truly terrifying, and we're only seeing the very early stages of its implementation.
Image via Newsmap.
Comp copies of DEEP DREAM from MIT Press arrived, a handsome collection edited by Indrapramit Das.
From Indra's introduction:
I’m humbled by the stylistic variety and talent on display in these stories, by the generosity of these skilled, award-winning writers from across the world in imagining a future where our self-destructiveness as a species cannot ever entirely win out, because we have the memory of the beauty we made.
Vajra Chandrasekera’s dazzling metatext “The Limner Wrings His Hands” brings the politics of art (and of his home country, Sri Lanka) to the forefront with an intricate hybrid of fiction and essay, testing as he often does the limits of our definitions of genre. Samit Basu brings levity to the proceedings with a nimble, humane satire of, “The Art Crowd,”, exploring the dynamics of artistic power in an authoritarian future India (and a protagonist) shared with his brilliant novel The City Inside (Tordotcom). In “Immortal Beauty,” genre legend and co-progenitor of cyberpunk Bruce Sterling strays from his roots to imagine a post-capitalist future shorn of most tech, in which a Court Gentleman wanders a Europe of city-states and warring aesthetocrats under the eye of distant celestial computers.
In a number of moving stories, there is a recurring theme of art as a framework medium for processing grief—unsurprising in an era of mass trauma from both the unraveling of our tenuous social and ecological stability and one of the most devastating pandemics in history. Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s “Halfway to Hope” takes us into the personal struggle of a VR engineer who helps patients in a near-future Bangalore recover from their pain by visiting virtual worlds, but must contend with a horrific tragedy that forces her to the limits of what her craft can do. Cassandra Khaw’s “Immortal Is the Heart” follows a poetic keeper of memories wandering the American Midwest in a world ravaged by global warming, finding a tenuous hope for, and in, the outcasts of our present society in its ashes. Aliette de Bodard’s beautiful “Autumn’s Red Bird” shows us how a sentient “mindship” might grieve in the wake of unimaginable loss, and share this experience with one of her human passengers, whose art may yet bring them succor. Renowned Egyptian artist Ganzeer gives us a vision of a U.S.A. where the production of art is forbidden in “Unauthorized (Or, The the Liberated Collector’s Commune),”, bringing his vibrantly playful counter-cultural sensibilities to the beloved science-fictional story of robots given to identity crises by the existence of their human creators. Visionary writer and artist Sloane Leong’s “No Future But but Infinity Itself” delivers a mysterious dream of art reflecting humanity’s monstrosity and empathy in a post-apocalyptic future, diving deep into both the intimacy and vastness of its creation and import. The incredibly prolific and creative Lavie Tidhar takes us further into the future with “The Quietude,”, a tale of high high-pulp poetry that imagines art forms never before seen in a human-settled solar system brimming with cultures old and new. And recent Hugo nominee Wole Talabi takes us further still, to distant extrasolar spacetime, in “Encore,” following a sentient AI ship wandering the gulfs between stars while trying to fulfill its purpose as artist to the various life forms in the galaxy.
In these ten stories, our writers both embody and visualize the future of art.
Not quite a collection of short fiction as much as it presents blueprints for approaching fiction, often very grand, interestingly-structured fiction. The reviews of fictitious non-existent books are my favorite in the collection, but there are only a handful of those, and the rest is mostly pretty straight fiction which I didn't get much out of. Not that I didn't like them... Full review of Borges' FICTIONS over at Ganzeer.Reviews.
Day lost to migraine. Will attempt to turn in early tonight and get a fresh start tomorrow.
In other news:
Lionsgate Inks Deal With AI Firm to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library — The Hollywood Reporter: A new age of schlock is upon us.
Society of the Psyop — E-Flux: Wherever there's the smoke of a conspiracy theory, you better believe there's fire.
Michael Chabon on Israel's latest attack on Lebanon:
Pushed myself too hard over the past couple days, so today I have one of those debilitating migraines to contend with. Finished and delivered PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE though. I keep getting tagged in videos from Jesi, so today's playlist is Italian Cafe Jazz to assist with all them fomo feels.
Finished Cesar Aira's THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND which completely lost me midway through. Luckily, it was a short and quick read. Considering a return to Camus with THE PLAGUE which already awaits in my tbr pile.
Inbox 100, RSS 266. Terrible.
Need to get through those and get some TSG pages in, granted if I can overcome this migraine.
Still racing against the clock to finish PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE, so only logging on very briefly today. A few key updates:
Two days until Oltremari opens in the Italian city of Jesi. Not sure I fully realized that the Accademia di Comics, Creativita ed Arti Visive was involved.
The Hudood exhibition at the SOAS Gallery in London (where I have some work showing) is open for only 4 more days before all the work returns to the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.
Dana Omar's STUCK is now 82% funded! Only 4 days left before her campaign ends.
This coming Saturday: I shall be hawking a few of my wares in person at this Palestine-solidarity event in Houston.
Eggs, pancakes, and granola for breakfast. Big day ahead, must complete PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE today, something that might ideally require a week needs getting done in less than 24 hours. Phone on airplane mode, killing the internet connection, relying on record player for music. Drowning out the world, nothing exists aside from the project at hand.
Announcement for Italy exhibition has been posted on social media, where lots of never-before-seen comix process stuff will be on show. Opens first in the city of Jesi, but then will travel on to Pordenone in November where I'll also be in attendance if everything goes to plan.
PROJECT POSSE added to immediate docket. In addition to PROJECT BLOSSOM and PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE, that makes three projects along with THE SOLAR GRID I need to work on this month.
A friend of mine was luring me with an event in Mexico City in October, but I really want to wrap TSG up first, given how much I know travel can be disruptive to my process.
And it looks like I may have to skip Zine Fest Houston this year because of daddy duty, and I really don't have a babysitter I can trust with my child yet for such an extensive number of hours.
Finished Borges' FICTIONS and while I know I just read something great, I'm also not entirely sure how to feel about it. Full review coming to Ganzeer.Reviews soon. Moving on to César Aira's THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND.
This will be my first Aira who I know nothing about. I found the cover-art delightful enough to nab a used ex-library copy off the interwebs though, and sure enough upon a read of the opening paragraph, it seems to fit squarely in the headspace I'm in these days:
These last weeks, since before coming to Paris, I've been looking for a plot for the novel I want to write: a novel of successive adventures, full of anomalies and inventions. Until now nothing occurred to me, except the title, which I've had for years and which I cling to with blank obstinacy: “The Seamstress and the Wind.”
Very Calvino WINTER'S NIGHT in a way.
Coffee after 4:00pm for me is usually a bad idea, guaranteed to keep me up until well after midnight. So I was surprised to find myself crashing immediately after a 7:00pm Americano, only to reemerge among the living at 1:00am. Circadian rhythm officially fucked.
Phase 1 of PROJECT BLOSSOM complete. Now I can put it aside before entering phase 2 later next week. PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE I must dedicate Monday to, do the whole thing start-to-finish in a single day. Hoping to have 3 full days assigned entirely to TSG next week, need to pencil in a minimum of 6 pages, but more if I can manage. This weekend is for my boy.
The second half of the Penguin edition of Borges' FICTIONS seems to be dedicated to more straightforward short fiction, but much of it still flies over my head regardless. Close to 70% into this strainful little book that I had no idea would be so difficult. Late night gyoza to help me power through.
On a completely different note, love this collection of Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund.