Sorry (again) for the dearth of posts - and no, not every post from now on will be preambled by an apology, but I've been neglecting the blog since so much else has been going on. My daughter started kindergarten; I'm teaching a new class for developmental writers that involves a lot of class preparation, my band has been looking for a replacement bass player and just released a new single; oh and I'm leaving tomorrow for Ithaca, New York where I will be delivering a lecture of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on Thursday night at the Tompkins County Library! Any readers out that way? Find more info here if you can attend, or simply read this excerpted blurb about the talk:
"During his Library presentation, Gill will lead a wide-ranging discussion about “Do Androids Dream. . .” which will focus on the notions of identity raised in the novel, examining human interaction with technology as a form of schizophrenia, discussing the critical approaches that can be applied to the book, connecting the novel to the work of pioneering brain surgeon Wilder Penfield and the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Matthew Arnold, and exploring America’s growing fascination with zombie movies."
Who wouldn't want to see that?
I think it's absolutely amazing that they're billing me as a 'Famous Blogger'! In fact, I think the term is oxymoronic but 'Famous Dickhead' would probably be misconstrued by most readers. Anyway, this is all very exciting for me. I'm reading Jeremy Rifkin's new book, The Empathic Civilization, which I think clearly demonstrates how desperately we need to begin implementing PKD's solutions to our growing inhumanity. Ever notice how evolution always makes Dick's characters more bloodthirsty and violent? Or the opposite, that he often portrays early proto-Humans as gentle herbivores?
I'm also reading Alain De Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life which is great and shows how accessible and interesting literary criticism can be when it's done outside the ivory-tower walls of academia.
Anyhoo, I promise I'll get the next few parts of John Fairchild's Sentient Gravity queued up and ready to go while I'm away. But I'll be back home, hopefully in time to play an opening set for Canadian punk legends NoMeansNo Friday night.
1 comment:
I vaguely remember (which is sad because I read the novel last month) that the Germans in TMITHC were portrayed as an evolutionary throwback race of proto-humans. And the Germans in TMITHC are Nazis, i.e. bad.
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