Total Dick-Head

New PKD Otaku #23 Now Available!

2012-01-17T12:46:00.001-08:00

I feel as if, as I approach the summit of a cold and treacherous mountain, still a ways from the top, that I have seen a well outfitted group of experienced mountaineers headed towards me, having already made a successful climb. I can see the satisfaction in their eyes, and know that they are headed towards a warm bed and a good meal. And me, with so much mountain still to climb.

I feel this way because the good people over at PKD Otaku have delivered a massive dose of PKD, sixty odd pages of it. All of it, witty and urbane and smartly assembled. There are a few reviews of The Exegesis, easily the most thoughtful ones we've seen thus far. Lord Running Clam has indexed Dick's 1974 volume of letters, and the crew over there is taking names and kicking serious ass. It's a smorgasbord of Dickiana. We are indebted to the crew over there: Patrick Clark, Lord Running Clam, Frank Bertrand, Jami Morgan, and Nich Buchanan.

Their efforts give me great relief, as I have sort of dropped the ball. I mean I spent my winter break working on fiction and reading The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, for the cosmic christ's sake!

Download your giant .pdf here.

2011: Now Read About Last Year

2012-01-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year, dear readers, when every blogger, in order to have something to write about during the slow week after Christmas, looks back and reflects on the year just ending. Most people are talking about what a crummy year it was, and it was, if you were, you know, unemployed, or illegally detained, or swapped out for spare parts.

But for Dick-heads, the year was pretty OK.

Here, in no particular order, are the most awesome Dickian things to happen in 2011 (and some things to look forward to in 2012. I know it's not organized that well... not my problem):

Umberto's Book! - The Twisted Worlds of Philip K Dick, by Italian Scholar, Umberto Rossi, is, I think, the best secondary source yet published on Dick's work. Insightful, articulate, nuanced without being hyperbolic or pedantic, Rossi's work will be a boon to Dick thinkers for a while to come. I'd link to it on amazon, but I can no longer do business with amazon in good conscience, so buy it at whatever Huge Internet Retailer you currently support.

Adjustment Bureau - We got a Dick adaptation in 2011. Not to my tastes, but some people seemed to like it. I just think Dick's stories push the envelope, and these recent adaptations have fallen back on tired movie standards, and all that pushing, the feeling of it, is gone. There is, however, much litigation underway, along with a possible Adjustment Bureau TV show. According to IMDB, Ubik has a 2013 release date.

The Rebirth of PhilipKDickFans.com. Under new management, the fan site is up, running, kicking ass, and taking names. Check it out, and be sure to pick up your free 2012 calender. Also, did you know the entire back catalog of PKD Otaku is now available here?! You could circumnavigate the globe several times by barge and still not have time to read all the amazing PKD commentary in there. Also, House of Ubiquity is underway, but badly needs your support. Make it a New Year's Resolution to share a weird Dick experience with the world.

The Exegesis - The book that many Dick-heads had been waiting for finally arrived last month. Though reviews have been fairly negative, the book has been happily chewed on by Dick-heads for a couple months, and I would hope we will see some interesting study and insight come from this giant volume. Working on the book was, for me, one of the highlights of the year.

Radio Free Albemuth - While RFA continued racking up accolades and wowing audiences at select festivals, few Dick-heads have had a chance to see it. According to director John Simon, Radio Free Albemuth will see some kind of theatrical release in 2012. That's huge, as the movie is now vying with Barjo for the 'Best PKD Adaptation Nobody Has Seen' award. Stay tuned for details on when and where RFA will be.

Philip K Dick and Philosophy - a cool book that examines Dick's work (and the cinematic adaptations based thereupon). In response to every review that fails to account for Dick's philosophy in The Exegesis, there is now a book dedicated to the study of that very unity.

Image courtesy of Driftglass

We also have the opportunity to enjoy the most Dickian presidential election in history, which has so far pitted a womanizing African American pizza tycoon, against a theocratic foster mother to some 28 children, against The Three Stigmata of Newton Gingrich, against a pro-life Libertarian, all vying for the chance to challenge the first African American president, who's up for re-election.

Two, count 'em, two, big PKD conferences in 2012, one in Germany, and the one I'm working on in San Francisco. 2012 is going to be a big year for Dick-dom. I don't think we have yet reached the end of the Phil Dick novel we all seem to be stuck inside.

Thanks for reading in 2011, let's hope we all survive 2012. It's a bit Dickian, this whole thing about a Mayan doomsday prediction for this year, right?

All I Wanted For Christmas Were Links, Links, Links!

2011-12-24T16:06:00.001-08:00

I've been away; now I'm back. Before we look back on the year that was, let's stroll through the internets for a moment to see what people are saying about the world of Dickiana.

I know a lot of you have had weird Phil Dick-style, pink-beam-esque mystical experiences of your own. I know this because you write me emails about them. Well, now we all have a place to share our inexplicable Dickian synchronicities: a new blog called The House of Ubiquity dedicated to "Mystical and Mysterious Encounters in the World of Philip K. Dick." Someone has already posted a super interesting entry about a dream involving the drugstore in Ubik. That site's not going to work without your input, so get on there and start talking about how weird you are.

That was the one really cool thing I had to blog about. Sigh.

Did you see that Adjustment Team was one of the best SF movies of 2011 according to ScienceFiction.com? Go here and you can learn that and other fascinating things. For my money Moon was the best SF movie 2011. You're probably saying to yourself, 'but that movie came out a long time ago!" But it, in my opinion, so far outshines any of the entries in this year's list (*admittedly I haven't seen a whole lot of these), that it deserves to win every year until something better comes out.

I found this weird site where people ask and answer questions, and they have some weird questions, like this one:

I have just finished reading VALIS, and I remain puzzled by something. It seems to be made clear that Horselover Fat is, in essence, an alter ego of Philip Dick - a separate personality of someone experiencing multiple personality problems, or just a literary device to cover talking to himself. Anyhow, Horse clearly does not have an existence of his own.

Admittedly, it's not exactly a question, and if it were, it wouldn't be a good one, but answer is pretty insightful. Read it here.

Reader Mr Hand turned me on to this crazy blog where PKD gets compared to Ken Wilbur, who I looked up, and is not really anything like PKD, except they both had esoteric ideas. And the blog entry is really weird because it's super reverential about Wilbur and kinda snarky about PKD, but the whole thing is set on a background composed of Dick's book covers. Sample sentence:

"Philip K. Dick, on the other hand, was a sprawling disaster of a man, who wrote bizarre science fiction stories."

Never gets old, does it guys?

Anyhoo, there's this piece about Lethem and Vonnegut and Dick's Exegesis... Sample sentence:

It's a shame then that the book is more or less a flood of babble. Dick's religious experience—some have called it an undiagnosed stroke—may have filled his head with concepts, but it surely didn't bless him with coherence.

Oy.

Ever wonder about Portuguese States of America from Radio Free Albemuth? Well it's not without historical precedent, at least in the world of weird, esoteric maps, as Big Think explains:

In one of those parallel universes, there exists a country called the Portuguese States of Africa, spanning southern Africa from its Atlantic coast all the way to the Indian Ocean. This country, a transcontinental Lusophone giant perhaps one day to rival Brazil, is based on more evidence in this world than PKD’s possibly merely psychotic visions. It was envisaged in this Mapa Cor-de-rosa (the ‘Pink Map’).

"The Pink Map," huh? Read more here.

Tessa Dick sold an autographed copy of Flash Gordon from Art Spiegleman. It went for what I consider to be a pretty good price.

SFF Audio is contending (with a fair amount of corroborating evidence) that PKD's short story "Upon the Dull Earth" is now in public domain.

That's it for now. Stop reading! Get some fresh air. Maybe tell your loved ones that you appreciate them.

Happy Birthday, Philip K Dick

2011-12-16T18:59:00.001-08:00

Can you imagine what Dick himself would make of today's review of The Exegesis of Philip K Dick in the New York Times appearing on what would have been his 83rd birthday? First, what would he think about its publication? I can't help but imagine that he'd be pretty pleased with himself. What would he think about the review? Well, it's impossible to say, but it is - I think - really important to notice that this review (done by none other than Charles Platt, a writer intimately familiar with Dick's work and weirdness) fails to say anything concrete about WHAT IT IS DICK IS THEORIZING ABOUT IN THE EXEGESIS! Sorry, but it kinda bugs me. Sure Dick is wondering what the heck happened during 2-3-74, but I would argue the Exegesis is much more concerned with fairly conventional theological questions: 1) If God is real, why is there so much suffering in the world? 2) Are our minds accurately perceiving the world around us, or are our instruments of perception faulty? Are our minds clouded by the seemingly important stuff like, you know, rationality, and all of that? 3) Does God exert direct control over our lives or is he a detached, uninterested observer?

I think the review I'm waiting for will at least acknowledge that the 'endless theorizing' is broadly addressing these questions. And that Dick is taking part in what I consider almost conventional theology. Once you set these parameters, the book (and Dick's exegetical work) make a lot more sense. Charles Platt calls Dick's philosophizing 'tiresome.' I guess I would agree to the extent that it is exhausting to think about this serious stuff, and the diary-like entries make sussing out the outlines of Dick's theories all the more difficult, but you wouldn't call Spinoza's or Hume's work tiresome, or if you did, you would hedge the complaint by saying 'for the average reader' or whatever.

I, for one, am enjoying watching Dick's 900 page meditation on the nature of the Universe collide with our society's predilection for ease and convenience. I enjoy watching real religious faith, in all its complications and doubt, set against the easy faith of modern, mega-church Christianity with all its feel-good intolerance. And I really appreciate Dick's hardbound reminder that the tough questions you ask yourself are the most important, and if reading Dick's Exegesis prompts others to ask these questions, the way it has for me, the endeavor is an obvious success. Even if it wears us all out and exhausts us.

A Tale of Two Conferences

2011-12-11T09:51:00.001-08:00

I have been, lately, working pretty hard to get a Philip K Dick Conference scheduled for Sept 2012. I've laid lots of ground work, lining up a few of the bigger names, putting together a committee at SFSU, talking to my department heads, scheduling meetings and putting the infrastructure in place. This Wednesday will be a major day, as I am scheduled to meet with the dean of Humanities and I need him to get excited about this project.

In a somewhat Dickian twist (*say appearing at the very end of a chapter three and ensuring the reader turns the page and begins reading chapter four) I have been informed of another Dickian conference to take place in Dortmund, Germany in November of 2012. While this new circumstance was met by a cold, hard spot deep in my stomach, I have learned to revel in this pair of conferences, one on each side of the Atlantic, and can now see that these conferences will be fairly different and I'm excited about each now.

First of all, the Dortmund conference appears, from their call for papers, to be a fairly conventional academic conference with heavyweights like Norman Spinrad, Roger Luckhurst, and Umberto Rossi scheduled to appear. Their call to papers offers a nod to the scholarly contributions of Jameson and Darko Suvin. The organizers will even be collecting several of the presented papers to be published in a book. I am glad to see this kind of event taking place for two reasons: 1) this is long overdue and will be an awesome contribution to Dickian studies, and 2) because the conference I am organizing no longer has to aspire to such lofty goals.

Instead, I am hoping that our California conference will attract a broad spectrum of fans and scholars, while having a slightly less formal, more fun tone. Additionally, being in the Bay Area will allow some sightseeing of Dickian touchstones, Art Music, the Francisco Street house, etc.

We are still in the midst of the early stages of planning and though there has been an initial call for papers (which you can read, for the time being, over at the PhilipKDickFans site), we are still working on sending out more formal invitations and creating a dedicated website for our American fest. Additionally, for interested parties, I am pasting the Dortmund call for papers below.

2012 is going to be one hell of a Dickian year. Stay tuned for a Kickstarter link and a chance to buy some cool stuff, and raise funds for the conference.

Dortmumd Call For Papers (click to enlarge)

Now Wait For The Next Adaptation

2011-12-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

Word leaked in Variety today that Now Wait For Last Year has been called up out of cold-pack to become the next hot PKD-product in Hollywood (Here's the Cinemablend story). On the one hand, cool! Wait For Last Year is a good novel with lots of neat stuff to recommend it as a Hollywood blockbuster: it's got war, action sequences (I remember someone almost gets thrown out of a helicopter), it's got a love story, and the most substantive moral statement ever made by an autonomic cab in any Dick work (and that's saying something!). On the other hand, I mean, wow! Is there anything they're not going to make into a PKD vehicle? Is there an option on the story of Dick's typewriter yet? Is this just Autofac-style commodification for commodity's sake?

One thing's for sure; the lawyers have, no doubt, double checked that the novel is still under copyright.

Exegeting the Exegesis

2011-12-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

I've been itching to dig into something a little deeper, dear readers, even as the end of the semester does its usual number on my brain. Articles about the Exegesis are starting to appear now that people have had a couple weeks to digest it (by the way, I'm not sure that's even possible in two weeks, but that's not stopping people). Anyway, the article that got me thinking was in the Spectator by Andrew Mckie, one of our regular readers from beyond the pond. In Did Philip K Dick Dream a Message From God? Mckie writes:

"Judging by these journals, however, what Dick thought was much more dangerous. He maintained that, in 1974, he had received a message from God telling him the modern world was a fraud, a simulacrum laid over a reality that had not changed since the first century AD. He understood, or came to understand as he wrote about his experience, that this might be a delusion, and that it might be understood as a metaphor – but, uncomfortably for modern sensibilities, only in the way that St Paul or St John the Divine might have been regarded as deluded, or that the Gospels should be read only metaphorically."

Yep. Here we go. As one of my friends said, pretty soon they're gonna have to stop saying Dick was 'casting endless theories' and they'll have to start talking about what those theories consist of. And when they do, hang on, because it's going to be a wild ride. Mckie contextualizes for us:

"But in one respect, PKD is out of step with the times. The Baudrillardians are happy to have him point out that time is an illusion; that the authorities are out to get us; that God can talk through cheesy television advertisements; and that, with the endless refractions of different media playing the same message back and forth, nothing is quite as it seems. But they are happy for him to do so just as long as it is a fun metaphor making an important point but not to be taken seriously."

It's the G-word folks - God, a relic that science fiction has been devoutly wishing to extinguish since the genre's inception. Indeed, Dick's religiosity later in life put him at odds with any number of science fiction writers including Ursula K LeGuin, Norman Spinrad, Kevin Jeter, Thomas Disch, and many others. While the highbrow literary atheists can tolerate Eliot, and the Fantastics put up with Tolkien and CS Lewis, Science Fiction has, as a genre, remained at odds with the theological, in fact this opposition is, in many ways, a science fictional religion in its own right. The Kids in the Hall have an amazing skit about this (watch it here and click to the 2:30 mark).

I can remember as like a twelve-year-old reading Asimov's Foundation Series in which characters say the word "Galaxy" in place of the word "God" and understanding, almost immediately, what was going on.

So the other day on Facebook, I saw that Radio Free Albemuth posted a link to Mckie's piece and almost immediately someone commented: "Wow that's such crap. Dick was incredible, but his having a stroke doesn't mean that god exists." When you think about that statement, it becomes clear, pretty quickly, that it's believing in God at all that's 'crap.' And here's where the rubber's gonna meet the road: the Exegesis is hardcore theological speculation, an endeavor that many in our current milieu feel to be pointless, and what's worse, the sign of a degraded mind.

But to take the God out of the PKD, is kinda like listening to punk rock quietly: what's the point? I'm not getting all deist on you. I actually am pretty open minded about the whole thing. Recently, I asked a class of students to raise their hands if they thought Wilbur Mercer, the savior character in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was real, and I was amazed when not a single hand went up.

PKD always gives you an out. Deities in Dick's work are almost always made manifest by the characters, rather than appearing in burning bushes or whatever. I mean there's always the chance that Horselover Fat is just a deluded idiot, a fool on a fool's errand, and so you can dismiss his devoutness as misguided. But then, like the commenter on Facebook, you have to invent some kind of physiological explanation for 2-3-74: temporal lobe epilepsy, a series of small strokes, amphetamine psychosis, etc. Sure those are possible, perhaps they are even more likely than the notion that Dick really did see God, and God really did talk to Phil Dick, but you cannot explain away Dick's enthusiasm for belief.

My impression of The Exegesis is that it signals a shift in Dick's interests as a writer. In fact, it may be the earlier composition of the novel Ubik that marks this change. Before Ubik, Dick's central pre-occupation as a writer seemed to be entropy and withdrawal, but with Ubik there is suddenly a focus on redemption and renewal, and, in The Exegesis, Ubik becomes short hand for this kind of salvation. In this way, Dick's career then comes to resemble the layout of TS Eliot's modernist masterpiece, The Waste Land, wherein Eliot first catalogs the numerous ways the landscape has been made lifeless, dull, and dead, before ending with a meditation on rejuvenation through love and empathy (yeah, it matches that closely!).

So here's my prediction: watch for a lot more reviews to focus on Dick's "endless theorizing" in part because the theories are difficult to understand, and in part because Dick's religious attitude is so thoroughly at odds with our secular reality.

Amalgamated Links Brought To You By Autoblogger

2011-11-28T15:06:00.000-08:00

Pictured, Radio Free Albemuth, Where are you?

While we wait for that big-time review of The Exegesis (New York Review of Books, please) we must content ourselves with the banal traffic of Dickian ephemera.

Here's an LA Times article about The Adjustment Bureau lawsuit. Since Philip K Dick really did write Adjustment Team I think there's no real question but that the estate is owed money. Furthermore it is my understanding that many big studios try to get of big post-production payments like this, either through legal wrangling or creative bookkeeping. It's obvious to me that Hollywood is nothing more than a sausage-making factory with lips and assholes in control. There's also this io9 article about a possible TV show. Here's my plot summary of the first episode: "Mr Chairwoman, we've re-arranged the ordering of events in reality again to result in several unwatched TVs being tuned to our show. That should give us the ratings we need!"

Here's Barnes and Noble's review of The Exegesis as written by Paul Di Filippo. Believe it or not the review is pretty positive and even encourages people to go out and buy the book, but there may be a conflict of interest there. I like this paragraph:

Beside all the multiplex, circuitous philosophizing, the book is full of mini-narratives pertaining to Dick's own life; insightful, critical examinations of what his oeuvre is all about; stoner aphorisms ("It is just as easy to think of the future pushing the present into the past as to think of the past generating the present and moving toward the future…"); Jungian dream adventures like Lovecraft's The Quest of Unknown Kadath; and plaintive cries from the heart, a voice echoing in the spiritual wilderness, longing for one true companion and guide. Arriving, exhausted and drenched in cosmological flop sweat, on page 827, written not long before Dick's premature death from stroke in 1982, we encounter his temporary elation, and it cuts like a knife. "Why am I so joyful? I am celebrating a victory and can now stop work -- finally -- and relax. Why? Because I did my job and I know it." But of course more hard work followed, and only death stopped him.

Lastly the PhilipKDickFans website is really firing on all cylinders. Good to know that if I wink out of reality like a distant supernova, there will still be quality Dickian web-content!

About Last Night

2011-11-23T17:06:00.000-08:00

From the left: Pamela Jackson, Me, Jonathan Lethem (I kinda feel like we're all so famous I shouldn't even have to tell you who's who!)

Well gentle readers, I went and had another magical Dick experience last night (oh, the Google hits I will get for that). Regular reader Ted Hand and I met a few other Dick-heads for dinner before heading to Moe's Books in Berkeley for a big Exegesis event.

It was a pretty big deal with at least 100 people in the store. It was standing room only and I heard they sold something like 80 copies of the book!

Pictured left to right: Erik Davis, Laura Leslie, Pam Jackson, Jonathan Lethem, Isa Dick-Hackett

The guests of honor were: Jonathan Lethem, Pamela Jackson, Erik Davis, and Dick's daughters Laura and Isa. There were people filming there last night and I have their email so I think I'll wait on providing in-depth coverage. Lethem did a great job of explaining the origins and significance of The Exegesis and Pamela Jackson filled us in on the process itself. For me, there wasn't a whole lot of new info. But stay tuned for the video, I figure you'll enjoy it. For now, you can listen to a podcast of the LA Event here.

Incredibly poorly composed picture that does little to convey the size of the crowd. But check out dude's shades.

Afterwords, we went to a smaller party and had a really good time. Like that line from Parsifal, time was turning into space all around us. Lethem had worked at this exact bookstore for years, and now he was returning with success he probably couldn't even imagine back then. I know I have lots of fantasies where I go back to some crummy record store where I used to work, but now I'm rich and powerful. It sure seems like it would feel good, but who knows? And of course we were only a couple blocks from Herb Hollis' record store where Phil used to work and first came into his own.

Anytime you get that many Dick-heads together it's almost like the collective energy somehow substantiates the man. You certainly couldn't look around that room of people and have any doubt that Dick's work has touched people and changed their lives. And when you get us serious folks together, those of us who have dedicated decades to our obsession, it's just really inspiring, almost magical. Our private worlds, the spaces in our minds inhabited by the things we covet, suddenly finding a shared interest, open up in a really beautiful way. I mean, my wife is pretty sick of hearing me talk about Phil Dick, and she hasn't read all the books and doesn't know the mythos. Anyway, my hyperbole is starting to ramble.

What I'm trying to say is that it sure is fun talking to people who find the same value in Dick's life and work. It makes me feel like dedicating two decades to the study of his life was a good thing. And for a while I hadn't really been feeling like that. So, good to know.

Now, quickly on to other topics:

1) We made boingboing!
2) The Guardian reviewed The Exegesis
3) Amazon says The Exegesis is "under review" -- WTF?
4) You can now get the Prophets of SF episode about PKD on Amazon
5) All the cool Dick-heads are tripping on this really amazing PKD interview!

Well Today's Not a Total Waste

2011-11-21T15:34:00.001-08:00

I haven't got many papers graded, or even much housecleaning done today. But with the help of Jason Nathan Miller and Luc Valentine, I hope to enter the pantheon of viral Internet memes.

Picture of the Day

2011-11-13T21:32:00.000-08:00

From reader and Dick-head Giovanni Esposito who visited Italy recently, comes this picture of a bookstore in Naples, Italy. This Ubik stuff is popping up everywhere!

Another Weekly Amalgamation of PKD Reading (This week with Listening!)

2011-11-11T19:10:00.001-08:00

We have yet to hear even the rickety ignition sequence of Philip K Dick Article Machine, but I imagine it's coming out of mothballs this weekend with the release of The Exegesis last Tuesday. There are two reviews of the book at Amazon already, both of which are positive. Slate published a nice excerpt here. It's from earlier on in the text and is part of a letter.

Our own Mr Hand has already received his copy and is digging in over at his Philip K Dick and Religion blog.

Jonathan Lethem is out on tour in support of his pair of books released last week. Here's the New York Time's review of his collection of essays The Ecstasy of Influence. And here's Lethem on video talking about the Exegesis on video.

And here's a cool entry on PKD written by fellow Exegesis Annotator Gabriel Mckee over at freq.uenci.es... "a collaborative genealogy of spirituality."

Doug Mackey contacted me by email to say he's written up and posted a review of Ganymede Takeover on his book review blog Orbis Biblios.

Here's a blogger digging into some of the later stuff in the Exegesis, a very interesting set of themes about a dead king and a usurper that ties in Hamlet and the end of Flow My Tears.

I read here that they printed 100,000 copies of The Exegesis, whoa.

Annotator and Afterword author of The Exegesis, Rich Doyle posted his talk, Stairway to Eleusis, about PKD here.

The Science Channel is premiering a new series, Prophets of Science of Fiction, and one of the upcoming episodes is about Philip K Dick, and it looks, from the screengrab they are providing as a publicity still that Philip K Dick will be played by a re-purposed, animatronic Abraham Lincoln, with a cheap, fake beard. Don't believe me?:

The Dick episode is this Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

Reader and blogger MDK is raising money via Kickstarter for a memoir. Check that out here.

Speaking of PKD coinkydinks (MDK has had a few) check out this blog entry I stumbled on about Dick's apartment in Wash - 35.

That ought to keep you busy for a couple of days. If you've got your copy (or even if you don't), head to the comments section to talk about it.

The Lethem/Exegesis Juggernaut

2011-11-07T09:20:00.001-08:00

In our continuing coverage of all things Exegetical, today we learn about the nationwide tour being mounted by Mr Jonathan Lethem as he promotes two new book projects due out tomorrow. If you're in NYC tonight, get thee to Lethem's appearance at Barnes and Nobles in Union Square at 7pm. The rest of the dates are as follows:

Mon 11/7: Manhattan, 7:00 pm

PKD Exegesis

Barnes & Noble Union Square, with PKD’s daughters, Isa Dick Hackett and Laura Leslie.

http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/72218

Tues 11/8: Brooklyn, 7:00 pm

The Ecstasy of Influence

Book Court, 163 Court St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

http://www.bookcourt.org/category/events/

Wed 11/9: Boston/Cambridge, 6:00 pm

The Ecstasy of Influence

Harvard Bookstore, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge, MA

http://brattlefilm.org/2011/11/09/harvard-book-store-presents-jonathan-lethem/

Monday 11/14: Los Angeles, 7:00 pm

PKD Exegesis

Central Library, LA Library ALOUD SERIES: Panel discussion with co-editors Jonathan Lethem and Pamela Jackson, and PKD’s daughters, Isa Dick Hackett and Laura Leslie. Moderated by David L. Ulin, book critic, Los Angeles Times.

http://www.lfla.org/event-detail/664/The-Exegesis-of-Philip-K-Dick

Tues 11/15: Pasadena, 7:00 pm

The Ecstasy of Influence

Vromans, 695 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA

http://www.vromansbookstore.com/jonathan-lethem

Mon 11/21: Corte Madera, CA, 7:00 pm

The Ecstasy of Influence

Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd

http://www.bookpassage.com/event/jonathan-lethem-ecstasy-influence-nonfictions-etc

Tues 11/22: Berkeley, 7:30 pm

PKD Exegesis

Moe's Books, with Laura Leslie, PKD’s daughter

http://www.moesbooks.com/pages/Store-Events-.html

Exciting stuff! I hope you can make it. Lethem really made the Exegesis happens and it is a beautiful book that is going to get people talking.

Look What Came in the Mail: This Week's Edition

2011-11-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

My copy got a little dinged up in the mail, but it arrived last week. The book is awesome, though I'm totally biased, because I wrote a bunch of footnotes and annotations. Get yours on Tuesday. More later!

Interview with Marc Haefele

2011-11-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

What follows is an email interview with Marc Haefele, an assistant editor at Doubleday and perhaps the only surviving editor of Dick’s work from the late 1960s and early 1970s conducted on 10/15/11. Haefele’s tenure at Doubleday coincided with Dick’s second great fertile period of the late 60s - imagine the manuscript for Ubik arriving on the set of Mad Men. Haefele also worked on Dick’s most famous novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

How did you discover PKD's writing as a fan?

I read a lot of sf as an early teener. I first singled him out in a story he wrote for a briefly lived sf magazine called "Satellite" in mid 1955 (I was visiting in Grand Haven Michigan at the time). Oddly, I can't recall which story it was. Maybe "The Father Thing." The first book of his I bought was Eye in the Sky, a couple years later.

Such a book. Then I went after everything he wrote. I may have missed a couple of Ace double novels along the way.

Could you provide a short paragraph about yourself, summarizing your career, at least the aspect critical to your work with PKD?

In my last undergrad year at NYU--1965--I talked my way into a low -level PR-type job at Random House. A year later I was able (marvelous were those years) to ante this into a start-up editor job at Doubleday’s. Mostly on the basis of 15 years of devoted sf-reading, I was soon awarded the lion’s share of Doubleday’s sf list to handle. I was titled Assistant Editor. I worked for a guy called Larry Ashmead, who at that time was mostly devoting his time to Isaac Asimov and non-sf projects.

Can you explain your professional connection to PKD?

I started editing sf at Doubleday in 1967. Do Androids Dream was the first PKD I worked on. I was a bit obsessed with its quality and wanted it out of the genre. So I suggested a less sf-fy title The Electric Sheep. The result was the awkward title it now bears. It is of course a wonderful story, wonderfully told. Cutting Wilbur Mercer out of the movie was like cutting the whale out of Moby Dick. But I digress. I made a scant handful of suggestions, which Phil took to instantly.
(I ought to say here that as an sf editor, I experienced a kind of inverse square law of interaction with authors. The mediocrities never wanted your suggestions. The really good ones took them well, even if they didn’t quite agree with them. Phil always agreed with mine).

Then I worked on A Maze of Death. I’m glad Lethem has rediscovered this one for the world. It was so taut and sinister that I barely touched it. In some ways it is barely sf. I think of it as Phil’s Harold Pinter book. He came along about that time too, but I doubt Phil knew of him.

There are manuscripts that, when you take the top off the box and read the first paragraph (it has been said), you want to get up and put on your tux before you read the rest. So it was with Ubik. As soon as I read that first Ubik ad “spot”, I knew I was in for something tremendous. It was this book of his that most involved me as an editor. I still read with a bit of pride bits that I helped him with. Or with shame those I didn’t, to my chagrin. I’ll try to give you more detail on this another time. The book still lives in me, and I try to reread it every few years. I think it is Phil’s very best, but I am prejudiced.

The last book of his I had anything to do with was Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. I signed off on the acquisition and passed it on to a younger colleague. The Wikipedia biblio says Phil finished it in 1970, but that’s not right. What we went for that year was about a 4-page outline and a memorable anecdote--the one about the rabbit that thought it was a cat. I believe we plunked down half up front, at least, for this--$5,000 would have been the total.

But here something changed about Phil and us. Previously, as I recall, Phil sent us perfectly typed complete ms., which we approved and bought for the full amount (I have only suggested here the total professionalism I experienced working with Phil). “Flow” was slow in getting to us--around 4 years. I was long gone by then. In the 1970 pb Our Friends From Frolix 8, there is toward the end of the book (which I didn't read until the `80s) a character called General Hefele (sic). I assume that was Phil’s wave goodbye to me. We both were moving on to other realms, to more troubled parts of our lives.

What kind of suggestions did you make? I know it's been a long time but anything you can remember would be interesting to my readers.

Ubik and Androids, as I recall, got the most work from me. I’d have to reread them to recall all of them. Ubik I still recall best. I encouraged Phil to get deeper (and more accurately) into the world of the 1930s. Corrected a few inconsistencies and details. Worked with him on the atmosphere. Polished details on what is (a) most complicated story. On Androids, of course, I wanted a different title. And got one that I then thought was even worse. I urged him to extend Mercerism a bit, and of course that’s what got left out of the movie, but I think it was the point of the book. By the time I speak on this I’ll have done my best to refresh my memory on these.On Maze as well.

The first 90 pages of Ubik are notoriously slow going. Was that an issue when you got the manuscript?

-- Huh? If this is a consensus, include me out of it. I recall reading all those same initial 90 pages, at home, in about 60 minutes, probably accompanied by half of a $1.29 bottle of red Vina Underraga and perhaps both sides of the Rolling Stones’ “Between the Buttons.” Swept me off my feet. Seemed screenplay fast to me then and every time I’ve read it since. Is that just me (and my equally enthused colleagues, the late Ashmead and also late Diane Cleaver)? Or is it the Twitter-era attention span? As I recall, Ubik also sold fairly well for an sf hardcover with zero promo and advertising. At least 5,000, maybe 10,000 copies? Got a good reprint sale too, which never happened with slow books. The attention span of the average paperback sf editor having then been about a hundredth of the duration of a Mayfly’s infancy.

What can you tell me about PKD's writing process?

On my watch, he was turning out two-three novels a year, one per year for us, one or two for the paperback houses. Plus a lot of stories. I don't know just how he accomplished this, but the results speak for themselves. I had the impression he was quite a disciplined writer. His total average annual income must have been around $10,000 (same as mine then). Anywhere but in NYC, that was a tidy income then.

What was it like working with PKD?

AS I said, he was both receptive and totally professional. We never met, we corresponded considerably and had a very few phone conversations. Which I think we both enjoyed a lot. (I hope someday someone will unearth the Doubleday editorial letter files which might help us more here).

Could you list your five favorite PKD novels? Maybe a brief couple of sentence reasoning for some of the picks:

Ubik: In which Phil does something unique at that time in sf--he engages the American experiential past, with evocations that must have come from his Berkeley childhood (I once figured out he must have been there for the evacuation of the Japanese community in 1942, by the way). Joe Chip is the most perfectly fashioned version, to me, of the mid-period Dickian hero. Is Do Androids Dream his first seriously eschatological novel? Well, there is Ubik. But Mercerism is such a tremendous trope. And lovely high-lit apercus abound--take that scene in the art gallery.
Eye in the Sky: The first novel, as I recall it, that brought Phil’s vision into (then) contemporary society.
Man in the High Castle: I rate this as one of the three mad breakaway novels of the early 1960s. The other two being Pynchon’s V and Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.
A Maze of Death: I haven’t read this in a long time.But it shook me for years. A really bleak parable of human relationships, as, it would appear, Phil experienced them in his own life.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about Phil?

That I loved him through his work and still do. That one of my life’s deepest disappointments is that I never met him.

Marc has signaled his enthusiasm for attending the Philip K Dick Conference planned for September of 2012. I can’t wait to learn more about his work... Thanks to Marc for his time, and to Jonathan Lethem for putting us in touch...

You Can Read The Lawsuit

2011-10-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

This article from The Hollywood Reporter has some new details about the lawsuit filed by PKD's Estate. You can even read the lawsuit here. Aside from some bad "adjustment" puns, the real news I found digging around in there involves the possibility of an Adjustment Bureau TV show. I still can't figure out why nobody is suing Isaac Asimov's Foundation series where this whole planning-the-future trope comes from. Or more to the point, I can't figure out why Isaac Asimov's trust isn't suing everybody. But I suppose that's neither here nor there.

Anyhoo, did I tell you PhilipkDickfans.com is back up and running? It is!

And the Exegesis is coming out soon! Holy Mackeral I've kind of been putting it out of my mind, but it's really going to happen.

How Can It Be Copywrong When It Feels So Copyright?

2011-10-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

From Oct 2, New York Times:

Philip K. Dick Estate Files Suit

"In a lawsuit filed here Thursday, Mr. Dick’s estate charged Media Rights Capital and others involved with “The Adjustment Bureau,” which starred Matt Damon, with trying to avoid at least $500,000 in bonus payments by declaring Mr. Dick’s original story, “Adjustment Team,” to have been in the public domain. But, the suit says, they did so only after having repeatedly paid fees under purchase agreements for the story, and after tapping the Dick estate for promotional help."

Look What Arrived in the Mail!

2011-10-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

What do I think of it? Take a look at my blurb:

Stay tuned for an interview with the volume's editor D.E. Wittkower!

How It All Started

2011-09-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as I was searching for a form I use to write letters of recommendation for my students, I stumbled on this letter I wrote to Jason Koornick, then the webmaster of PhilipKDick.com. The year was 2006 (probably) and the world was still reeling from the Star Wars Prequels; your humble blogger was looking to break into the PKD web community. Kind of a funny letter in hindsight:

Hi Jason,

The site is great. It's amazing how much is happening in PKD-world these days! I wanted to introduce myself to you as a fellow Dick-head. My name is David Gill and I have been a PKD fan for 20 years. I just completed my masters degree at San Francisco State University and wrote my thesis on PKD (specifically an alternate (Freudian) reading of Time Out of Joint ((totally underrated novel!) and a study of Dick's legacy focusing on his meta-fiction appearances (Carrere, Bishop, Lethem, et al)). I am presenting a chapter from the thesis at the National Association of the Humanities in San Francisco in February and hope to present the second chapter at the Eldon conference in Riverside. I teach English at SFSU and regularly assign Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – coincidentally, grading papers last night, I caught a student copying from your Blade Runner page. LOL!

Just wanted to say hi. I’d really like to get more involved in the Dick community -- this is one of those times I wish Dick had been named Dickenson or something slightly less suggestive ;) With all that’s going on I think the fanbase could really get more active and organized. Did you know there has never been an academic conference dedicated to Dick in the Bay Area? The last conference dedicated to PKD was in the early nineties in England. One of my longer term goals is to put on a conference here.

I would be interested in talking to you about the Owl in Daylight (congrats on the executive producer credit – that’s amazing!) and all things Dickian. I read all the academic papers on PKD I can l find and try to stay up-to-date on them. The Library of America release, Voice From The Street, 25^th anniversary BR DVD, bio-pics… It’s too much!!! And it’s his birthday today!

Keep up the great work,

Who knows what would have happened if Jason had written back. But he didn't, and this blog was born. In Jason Koornick news, he's penned a script for Dean Cain TV movie called A Mile in His Shoes currently showing on GMC.

The World Sucks, and My Lack of Posting Isn't Helping

2011-09-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find the time to post here. Now I've got a second band, a side-project that I'm involved with, and I've been slaving away late at night working on this story, which if all goes according to plan, should get submitted tomorrow. At that point my attention will turn towards the Philip K Dick Conference planned for next year. Time to get going selling t-shirts, raising funds, maybe even getting a Kickstarter project going. Our list of notable attendees includes: Jonathan Lethem, John Simon (director Radio Free Albemuth), Tommy Pallotta (producer A Scanner Darkly), Erik Davis, Ted Hand, and me. That list is sure to grow as I begin the process of tracking folks down in earnest.

The amazing thing is, while I've been away from this blog, the world has gone full Black Iron Prison:

First, Pat Robertson fails to have even the heart of the robot taxi cab at the end of Now Wait For Last Year, as he recently suggested a husband could leave his wife suffering from Alzheimer's, Nice work, Mr Robertson:

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her,” Robertson said.

To quote another famous android, "That's the spirit."

But a quote in this article about Amazon seemed to sum up best the way our world now resembles the apathetic futures in PKD's books:

"People who run companies like Amazon operate as though it never occurred to them that it could have been them crawling through the aisles. And the people who run labor unions possess little empathy for how difficult and risky and remarkable it is to build something like Amazon."

And it's starting to really bum me out.

If you've been pining for more Phil Dick content, cursing my name and blog for my seeming indifference, you need to head over to Mr Hand's PKD and Religion blog where our friend has been a very busy little Phil Dick scholar and has all kinds of good posts. Talks are underway to bring Mr Hand's content to us directly here at TDH. So don't give up on us yet.

Semi-Weekly Amalgamation of PKD Links

2011-09-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

It's been too long, dear readers. This blog has been at the back of my mind, while I've been busy with the first weeks of the Fall semester, getting the band's album done, and working on my own fiction. I dare say, I was feeling a little burned out on PKD, friends! That is, until this morning when I picked up Rickman's To The High Castle, a biography of PKD I haven't read in awhile, and I was struck by all the great info in there. It's a much rawer bio than Sutin's, and it leaves you with a distinct impression of PKD that somehow the Sutin bio flattens a bit. Like any totalizing lens, the stuff about molestation gets old, but again, the interviews, particularly with Vince Lusby, impart a fuller sense of PKD. We really must do something to recognize all of Rickman's many contributions - hopefully at the PKD Conference next year.

So, without further ado (if, in fact, that is ado above which I have already written) let's get to the link round up. Radio Free Albemuth continues to be the big PKD subject the Internetz are tubing about these days, as the film continues to blow minds at festival showings here and abroad.

The Australian Arts Portal tosses another shrimp on the barbie, writing, "What finally distinguishes Radio Free Albemuth from all previous adaptations is that this film has soul, and I am pretty sure that Philip K. Dick would agree. You don’t have to be a fan of Philip K. Dick or science fiction to enjoy this film. Radio Free Albemuth should be mandatory viewing for anyone who is interested in vital, independent cinema. If you get the chance to see it, don’t miss it."

Former Los Angeles Weekly film critic Michael Dare writes: "The lack of chase scenes and pumped-up CGI lunacy is actually one of the charms of the film. It's low budget because this is all it takes to tell the story, which is intellectual, political, musical, and scientific, in fact, everything good science fiction should be. The fact the SyFy channel has degenerated into one cheesy monster flick after another, as though nothing has changed in the science fiction world since Creature from the Black Lagoon, instead of featuring films like this that stretch the human imagination, is just appalling. No wonder they changed their name. They're to science fiction what Sunny Delight is to Orange Juice."

The other big news is RFA won the Best Feature Film at the Renovation Film Fest, following the Hugos a few weeks ago. I talked a big game about going, but, of course, wussed out at the last minute, opting instead to stay home and slave over a short story. Regular reader Mr Hand went, however, and wrote up some short impressions of the film - all of which I agree with.

With all this hoopla we should be seeing RFA in wider circulation soon.

You may have noticed the old Palm Tree Garden website has left the internet realm. While this is a loss, one of the principals has started PKDTV.net - which makes this blog look like a clunky old webpage from the 1990s with all its fancy links and so forth.

There's also this really cool PKD aggregator site. Sorry to keep you in the stone age over here on the Dick-Head folks.

Archives of the old PhilipKDickFans.com site are now available for perusal. Just one glance and it will become clear how much we lost (or almost lost). There's a treasure trove of old stuff waiting to be rediscovered there.

Also, Norman Spinrad has made his essay "The Transmogrification of Philip K Dick" available at scribd.com.

Like I said, I've been hard at work on my band's new album, which you can check out online here.

Just a bit of fair warning. I am still working on the same short story, preparing it for submission (while I have tried to mimic many of PKD's writing strategies, I cannot match his pace), so posting will be a bit light here until I send the story off.

Ridley Scott to Re-Visit Blade Runner

2011-08-19T00:04:00.001-07:00

Pictured above: biting visual mockery from io9 commenter.

Just got back from vacation, this was on io9.com. If you haven't read it, I guess you have a life or something, but go read it now, we'll wait...

Can you believe that? Pointing out that Hollywood isn't doing anything original is only slightly less original than all the remakes, but, c'mon. Really?! I vote for a sequel where Deckard is in an old folks home being cared for androids, like an old Daryl Hannah model?! And he's all weirded out because he has PTSD from fighting them, but humans and andys have made peace.... OR HAVE THEY?! And also Clint Eastwood, old android, Oscar ROLE! Don't talk about four-year lifespans, we can write around that. They see an egg in a pool and feel young again, like Cocoon! Note to Ridley Scott: I'm available.

Radio Free, on the other hand is kicking some serious ass. I'm off on a gnostic journey to the Reno screening this Saturday night. If you're at the Worldcon or the Hugos or whatever hit me up. I got bluetooth in my Yoda ears!

RFA to Show at Renovation Film Fest Aug 20

2011-08-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

In another blow against the Empire, Radio Free Albemuth will be screened at Renovation Film Festival on August 20 right after the Hugo Awards, and there will even be a Q&A with director John Simon! Read more about it here. I'm just wrapping up my vacation in Hawaii and so I'll keep this brief. But I am thinking about making the drive to Reno myself for this. If you're in the area, well first of all I'm sorry, but second, make sure you get to the screening.

PKD's Bible For Sale on Ebay

2011-08-07T11:18:00.001-07:00

Not pictured: actual Bible

OK, all you rich folks out there, we all know you don't pay enough in taxes, so how's about shelling out $6500 for PKD's old Bible currently listed on ebay?! It appears that Dick made several notes on the flyleaf of the front cover about "the resurrection, gnosticism, and the casting out of devils." Of course this would be amazing to own. As far as I know there has been no effort to catalog or reproduce PKD's marginalia (reading Darwin's marginalia was great fun for me in college). The seller seems legit and I can tell you that's definitely PKD's handwriting. So, who's in?

William Gibson has been tweeting some snark on the sale:

He begins:

GreatDismal William Gibson

"Honey! I just pulled the trigger on Phil Dick's speedfreak Bible, on eBay! Just a little over six grand!" #phildicksspeedfreakbibleonebay

then:

I'll write some really crazy shit in your Bible for *five* grand. Paypal.

then, in response to another tweeter:

@saddet Valis is either crazy or a crock, if you ask me. My money's on temporal lobe epilepsy, on my kinder days.

then:

@saddet The romance of literary madness is something that's gotten radically less interesting to me as I've gotten older.

then, presumably when people start asking him why he's being such a jerk, he writes:

When they published PKD's letters, they suppressed the ones where he told the FBI that people he didn't like were Soviet spies.

then:

I got to read them [Dick's letters] because I was writing the intro. So I wrote an intro protesting their suppression. Cowardly hagiography.

And finally this one:

@saddet And they were really *sucky* ratting-out letters, too.

As a fan of one of Gibson's short stories, I'm not shocked by his reaction, which seems consistent with lots of so-called skeptics who poo-poo Dick's religious experiences, most likely because they rub uncomfortably against the smugness of the 'non-believer.' My mom won't listen to heavy rock music, for basically the same reason, she's happy in her niche. However, my mom is not a novelist and so the act of shielding herself from stuff that might change her viewpoint is not quite so offensive to me, as it is when Gibson does it.

But then again, I used to kind of feel the same way - like the 2-3-74 stuff must be fake or BS simply because it did not fit with my materialist world view. Yay for me for evolving! Wag of the Finger to Gibson, who should be bigger than all this.

RFA Reviewed by Variety

2011-08-02T16:54:00.001-07:00

The Logos cannot express how good it is to see this film starting to get some momentum! Hollywood Bible, Variety's got the write up and they say good things, among them, Simon's screenplay is "consistently absorbing," and "Gritty HD lensing and imaginative, old-fashioned-in-a-good-way effects showing the alternate world surrounding Nick and Sylvia. A terrific score by Canadian composer Ralph Grierson and British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is the jewel in a first-class tech package."

Here's what else they're saying:

"Engrossing adaptation"

"Should connect strongly with Dick's fanbase and attract upscale auds seeking sci-fi with political and philosophical substance"

"Delivers satisfying intrigue and suspense"

"Pic operates successfully as a study of enlightenment and a straight-ahead conspiracy thriller."

This is Variety folks, not Harvey Stolkes of the Des Moines Wheatseeder, ferVALIS'sake! Or some Dick-head blogger for that matter. What they say carries a fair amount of weight in Tinseltown.

It's making me think the empire may have ended. But then it's pure Black Iron Prison out there. Maybe RFA is the redeeming entity we need at exactly this moment - or at least until we see what Gondry can do with Ubik.

Remember, like the movie's Facebook page, put it in your queue on Netflix (site search engine is down, sorry, no linky). The signal has arrived. Now we must broadcast it.

Here's A Contest! PKD and the Beauty of Nature

2011-07-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

Currently vacationing in Kauai with the family. Of course it's lush and beautiful here, and it reminds me of an observation of Erik Davis: Dick does not describe natural beauty in his books. So, since I'm on vacation I will turn it over to you gentle readers... Find me an example of a vivid description of nature, and you may win a plastic dark-haired hula girl for your car's dashboard. I suggest you look in Confessions of a Crap Artist. Leave your best quoted description in the comments section. A-LOOOOOO-HA!

Update: Some great entries. Currently in first place is a quote from the beginning of "Upon the Dull Earth." But there's still time. I think we can do better.

Umberto on Androids

2011-07-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Umberto's chapter on We Can Build You and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. It's a great chapter with lots of insight, and Rossi gets a lot of mileage by comparing the two novels. I also know it's one of Umberto's favorite chapters. Anyway, it got me thinking.

Rossi writes:

"[In Do Androids] Dick had to contrast [wife] Nancy (the authentic human being) with people like his parents, his distant father and his cold mother (metaphorically androids, reflex machines). This often leads to those analyses which, like Robinson's short but effective discussion, show that in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? beside the Humane Humans (such as John R. Isidore) there are Cruel Androids (Roy Baty, his wife Irmagard, Pris Stratton), but also Cruel Humans" (162)

I'm not sure I agree that Roy and Irmagard are "cruel" or, more precisely, I think they are more than just cruel. For example when Irmagard is killed, Roy lets out a "cry of anguish." To these catagories laid out above, I would like to add that of the Empathetic Android. Now, this is not to say Humane Android, or anything like that, but in it's clear that for Dick androids are a grey area. For my money, the most striking bit of empathy in all of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is Rachel's decision to kill Deckard's goat, because she knows that will wound him the most, and she derives this knowledge from putting herself in Deckard's shoes. Rickels points that the Nazis put sirens on their bombers in order to scare the bejeezus out of their victims, again they gained this information by imagining themselves in that position, therefore empathy is not necessarily an altruistic trait, but can be used for good or ill.

Give me a moment to set up my second thought. Did you know the only coordinating conjunction used in the biblical book of Genesis is "and"? Can you imagine the bible saying something like, "And God said, let there be light, BUT...."? The entire book is put together in paratactic metonymies, long clauses joined by 'and,' because everything that happens is simply an addition to God's creation. Likewise, "and" is a grammatical unit that means in only one direction in a sentence. For example in the sentence - "I like coffee and my wife likes tea" - the word 'and' does nothing to change the meaning of the words preceeding it; it merely adds to them. Words like "however" and "although" cause the reader to reassess the words that precede them. They change the meaning of the sentence by altering the relationships between the words.

Consciousness which has been programmed can only react to reality, it cannot change the way it perceives reality, and because of this every action is taken as a kind of addition. If each action undertaken is reflective in the sense that it was triggered by a specific event in reality then it is really a reaction, a reflex. The doctor hits you with that mallet in the knee and your legs kick. These kinds of unthinking reactions can never allow the programmed consciousness a chance to decide how to react. They can only act in reaction. Their decisions and choices are additional to their situations, not transformational. Hence, their names, "andys."

PKD's Postmodern Thoughts About Genre

2011-07-23T19:28:00.001-07:00

My progress through Umberto's book has slowed a bit as I prepare to take the family to Kauai on vacation later this week. Nevertheless, like any good book, it's got me thinking. Additionally, we've created a new closed group of Dick-heads on Facebook and I've been spending a lot of time there. This time-suck is primarily to account for the recent dearth of posts.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will take something I have been thinking about from Umberto's book and relate it to a discussion from said Facebook group. Can you believe nobody is paying me for this?

It all started when, like the Trotskities and Lenninites at Berkeley, the Pomos and Anti-Pomos got into it. By this I mean that the folks who think Dick was basically a postmodern writer (pomos) disagreed with those who perceive postmodernism as a kind of academic chicanery, smoke and mirrors, pretentious bullshit (Anti-Pomos). As I have previously noted, postmodernism is a nebulous streak in an impossible sky, a loose collection of (sometimes contradictory) ideas that can hardly be seen to form a cohesive ideology, or worse, can be seen as giving rise to any number of ideologies, each more ridiculous than the last. Google can only offer that postmodernism is "A late 20th-century style in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism." Hardly edifying, is it?

So it's sort of an endless series of straw men: "Postmodernists believe in nothing!" "radical cultural relativism, non-judgmentalism, and a postmodern conviction that there are no moral norms or truths worth defending." "Dogs and cats living together..."

So, in an attempt to move the conversation forward, our good pal Cal came up with a few criteria for Postmodernism:

1. Historically, he occurs long after the decline of Modernism as a significant influence in literature. That movement did however inform PKD's education and early work. His publication timeline clearly places him in the postmodern period.

2. Postmodernism tends to blend elements of various genres kept separate by modernism. The eradication of critical divisions such as "high" and "low" art are a central feature of postmodernism. In his tightrope walk between 'serious" and "pulp" literature, PKD exemplifies a common tension of postmodernism.

3. The question of objective truth is a central concern of postmodernist thinking; the question of objective reality is a central concern in much of PKD's work.

4. The nature of power and authority are of central concern to postmodern political thinking. The relationship of the individual to the authoritarian power structures of society is the central focus of more than one PKD novel.

These are four very good reasons why PKD should be considered a postmodern writer *(keeping in mind that any adjective we throw in front of writer is by nature reductive and can only go so far in explaining anything).

Umberto's book breaks new ground in the way that it examines criteria number two, about the mixed genres. Part of Dick's genre mash stems from his frustrated ambitions as a mainstream writer, his pursuit of two parallel careers: a desire to make high-art, literature of significant merit, and to make a living as a science fiction writer. Notice the ideological holdovers from Modernism - especially the notions of high and low art - that Dick transcends, partly because his twin ambitions contaminated one another, and partly because those distinctions didn't matter as much any more. Just look at how he blurred the line between science fiction and fantasy with an early work like The Cosmic Puppets! Umberto's got a great quote where PKD espouses an incredibly postmodern view of the very idea of Genre, suggesting the divisions are not external, depending on the content of the narratives, but that instead the distinction is internal and subjective to each individual depending on their world view:

"... to separate science fiction from fantasy... is impossible to do... Take Psionics; take mutants as we find in Ted Sturgeon's wonderful MORE THAN HUMAN. If the reader believes that such mutants could exist, then he will view Sturgeon's novel as science fiction. If, however, he believes that such mutants are, like wizards and dragons, not possible, nor will ever be possible, then he is reading a fantasy novel."

Here Dick is questioning how genre operates, and his conclusion is not that the distinction between fantasy and SF is made based on authority, or even on the contents of the story. Dick recognizes that two readers reading the same book with different belief sets will be reading, essentially, two different books. The text provides no real stable linchpin which makes identical the experience of the text for different people. That's postmodern in that it lays bare the lack of objective truth, the impossibility of knowing what is objectively real.

Now I know I won't convince the Anti-Pomos here. I could simply be choosing to define postmodernism as a kind of genre-mash then merely supporting that one simple idea, rather than the ideology. But I am convinced that examining PKD through the lenses offered up in Cal's summary of postmodernism can pay off big time.

If you're interested in joining the Facebook group, you'll have to find me in that world.

Quote of the Day

2011-07-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm really digging Umberto's book and this sentence I read today jumped out at me. I thought it might spark a discussion:

"I cannot see why the proliferating imagination of a novelist like Thomas Pynchon is praised by interpreters as an impressive example of postmodernist complexity, while it should be a fault in Dick's novels."

My initial thought is that this disparity in reaction has something to do with genre-related expectations, but I hope others will have more to say in the comments section.

The Twisted Worlds of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty Ontologically Uncertain Novels
by Umberto Rossi

First Look At Total Recall: Haven't We Seen This Before?

2011-07-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

blastr.com has the first picture of Colin Farrell as Doug Quad in the remake of Total Recall which has been described as 'less-tongue-in-cheek.' So there he is, ladies and gentlemen, our Dickian hero, being caught by a guy out of that Tom Clancy video game:

*Also, according to the picture, in the future there are Buddha heads right on the fronts of buildings!

On Criticism: Umberto's Book

2011-07-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying Umberto Rossi's new book of PKD criticism. Having finished the introduction, I'm now almost through the opening chapter on The Cosmic Puppets and The Game Players of Titan. The book is well written, readable, insightful, and compelling - four adjectives seldom used to describe academic writing.

It was great to read a serious investigation of The Cosmic Puppets as this early novel of Dick's often gets short shrift. Umberto runs through the Jungian, Marxist, and religious readings of the book, developing an absolutely brilliant connection to It's A Wonderful Life and displaying for us the literary pyrotechnics Dick shoehorned into one of his earliest novels.

My reading of Umberto's plan in the book was overly simple. Rather than positing that ontological uncertainty is a product solely of Dick's tendency to dance back and forth between object and subjective value systems, Rossi catalogs the various sources of ontological uncertainty: schizophrenia, amnesia, implanted memories et al.

I'm noticing that these academic books often sell literary criticism as and end in and of itself. This is, of course, an illusion as the article or book of criticism usually results in remuneration of the critic or a similar rise in stature. So there is a hidden end toward which the critic is working. But seriously, these books on criticism skip over entirely the point of criticism, which, when you think about it, is kind of amazing. In this regard, Alain DeBotton's How Proust Can Change Your Life stands heads and shoulders above other books which purport to explore an author's oeuvre.

Do you want to know why I think PKD's work is important? Because I think his writing has the power to help us be better people undertaking difficult task of living in the 21st century. The payoff for reading Dick's books isn't some dorm-room 'aha-moment' of grokking exactly how bizarre the world is when you're stoned. Although that's what initially drew me to his work. The payoff is the realization that reality is subjective and plastic, and that changing your reality is as easy as changing your mindset. This is how most of Dick's characters ultimately make their peace with the world. Once you can learn to see a problem as a blessing, or at least a challenge, you've got it made in the shade. Well, at least it's made my life easier.

The fact that you can see the cosmic forces battling outside Millgate in The Cosmic Puppets as Freud's Eros and Thanatos or Zoroastrianism's dueling Ahriman and Ormazd is far less important than the subtler way the protagonist Ted Barton revitalizes his own life by returning Millgate to the interconnected community he remembers, from than the Pottersville-like malevolence of the town's more sinister incarnation.

I'm not slamming Umberto's book, just coming to realize what I see as missing from criticism in general.

The Twisted Worlds of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty Ontologically Uncertain Novels
by Umberto Rossi

How Proust Can Change Your Life
by Alain de Botton

Video Round Up

2011-07-10T13:47:00.001-07:00

Just starting to see my schedule clear up now that summer school is over. Time to finish the band's second album, review Umberto's book, write some fiction, and score a film. Wait, what was I saying about having a clear schedule? Regardless, here are two pieces of Dick-head video, grist for the mill.

The first is the long-lost and much storied French TV special with PKD spinning in the teacups with Norman Spinrad and others. Ever since reading about this in the letters I've been wanting to see it, and now French Dick-head Etienne Barillier has located and posted the video along with the translation and some links to Elizabeth Antebi's, the woman who did made the video's website where she tells the story of meeting PKD. Video of PKD is rare and always kind of a mind effer. Here's this guy who as fans we're used to spending time with, but in the strange vacuum-like realm of the white page. There's something strange about seeing this barrel-chested guy posing and talking for the camera. It doesn't help that the video is in French. Apparently PKD's Metz speech was recorded in its entirety; you can see clips in The Penultimate Truth documentary. I think the video of the speech is for sale from the French government's TV channel, but it's pricey. What we need is a fan to track down the video and then we could raise funds and purchase the footage to post on the Intertoobz - I'm dying to do something on Kickstarter. Somebody with less on their plate needs to get on this!

Secondly, there is this piece of video from Alex Jones' show wherein he mentions PKD. The posting of this video is in no way an endorsement of the man's show or views. I worry about anybody that takes this stuff too seriously, but then perhaps I am in cahoots with the DMT elves.

Enjoy! Hopefully I can write some more on Umberto's awesome book soon!

Otaku #22 and Umberto's Book

2011-07-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm left with insufficient time to do more than blast you with some links and quick thoughts, as I finish up summer school. Luckily you can enjoy reading through the latest issue of PKD Otaku #22 out this week which includes much to be savored (download .pdf file here). I've only skimmed it a bit but was impressed by Frank C Bertrand's column on "The Magic Flute" allusion in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which I found quite interesting as I've thought about the relevance, but don't really know enough about the opera to make any connections. Frank does some heavy lifting for us yet again.

There's also a great interview with Tessa Dick, and others with Scott Apel and Jami Morgan (whose book I very much hope to have time to read someday)... Near the end John Fairchild says this of Christopher Palmer's "Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern":

"I started to read Chapter 1, “Philip K. Dick and the Postmodern” and just couldn’t finish it. He makes statements like “Today we live in the epoch of the postmodern, and are subject to the condition of postmodernity.” Really? I don’t think we’d get much agreement on that one. At least in the circles in which I travel."

I know and like John very much. I also think we are living in the 'epoch of the postmodern.' Postmodernism is to blame for this communication breakdown insofar as it has never really developed an efficient way to define itself. Let's use, as a starting point, a sentence provided by the Keeblers over at wikipedia:

"Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy."

Much of Dick's work is a critique of rationalist philosophy grounded in the trite neatness of Descarte's Cogito Ergo Sum. For Dick, Descartes is like Deckard, futilely searching out differences without distinction, an operation that, because of the complexity of the problem and the subjective bias of the observer, is irresolvable. We are at the epoch of postmodernism because much of our reality has become a subjective bubble - that is to say a Fox News viewer is, to some extent, existing in another parallel reality to a listener of NPR. Advertisers warp reality to try to get you to buy stuff, and now they want to do it without you noticing. Because of this we can't really know if they've already gotten to us, so we are at the epoch of postmodernism, it's just up to us postmodernists to explain why better.

Which brings us to this pretty good read on Dick's Posthumanism (but, I hope the author, Alex Lyras, knows that had he called Dick a posthumanist to his face, PKD would have given him a fat lip). I actually think Dick's focus was on the importance of retaining our human-ness in a world of artificiality. Regardless, it's a good read. Lyras writes:

"In the world of Blade Runner, replicants and humans suffer from the same existential crisis. Both seek answers to same elemental questions. Where do I come from? Where am I going? How much time do I have left? Mid-century language philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein would answer that our ability to formulate questions like these doesn't necessarily mean intelligible answers exist. Language isn't a tool for unearthing deeper meaning. It's a tool for connecting on the surface. That we endeavor to ask the big questions is far more useful than endlessly confabulating over some metaphysical conundrum. If we're able to find meaning or get relief from an insightful exchange with another being, does it matter if their insides are circuitry?"

Which reminds me, I heard this radio show on NPR which analyzed classical music in great detail. I think it was hosted by Susanne Vega. Now I can't find anything about it. I hope readers can help me identify this show, because there was a half hour on a piece by Beethoven that made it sound like Ludwig was innovating in much the same way as Dick: using unexpected dynamic and key changes, playing in odd registers. So this may be an additional foothold to be further explored, if we can figure out what the show is called and where it's archived on the net.

I got Umberto's book. 10 pages in I can say it's both insightful and readable - two circles who have yet to touch on the "Academic Books About PKD" Venn diagram. I look forward to reading more and reporting back to you, but I can already tell you that the book's premise seems to center on the ontological uncertainty in Dick's work which is a product of Dick's slipping back and forth between subjective and objective value systems. In fact, Umberto, in his intro, quotes this, our recent quote of the day. Citing this key interplay between empirical systems and individual experience as the basis for the ontological instability in Dick's fiction (I'm sure Umberto will correct me if I'm reading it wrong).

The book is a bit pricey. You may want to urge your local library to get it, or you can get a kindle version, but I think you're gonna wanna read it.

The Twisted Worlds of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty Ontologically Uncertain Novels
by Umberto Rossi

Things and Stuff About Amazon and an Article About PKD's Writing

2011-06-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers, as you no doubt have already heard, amazon canceled all of their associate accounts in California last night. So, I am switching over to Powell books, where I should have been in the first place. My feelings on the subject are well voiced by this dood.

So, let's do this. Go buy Umberto's book over there:

Pre-order your copy of The Exegesis over there:

The Exegesis of Philip K Dick

I just noticed there's a video for the book!

In case none of this interests you, check out this article examining PKD's prose style.

Check this out:

A long silence, then. Then, “Oof.” She leaped, galvanized as if lost to the shock of a formal experiment. His pale, dignified, unclothed possession: become a tall and very thin greenless nervous system of a frog; probed to life by outside means. Victim of a current not her own but not protested, in any way. Lucid and real, accepting. Ready this long time.

"Take a minute to read this passage closely. You may not have noticed, but Dick has just compared a naked woman in the throes of orgasm to an electrified frog. Yet the description is so out-of-nowhere unexpected and ambiguously communicated that the first time I read it I thought Dick was comparing a penis to a jolted frog leg (“become tall and thin…”). There’s also the weird, dehumanizing way that the woman here is labeled a “possession,” a description given some obvious counterweight—one can sense Dick hoping—by the word “dignified.” And the adjective “greenless” is stupefyingly strange in this instance (and would be in a lot of other instances)."

Did that guy just completely misread the excerpt he's analyzing? The woman is galvanized; the penis is like the frog of a nervous system. I'm not defending it, I'm just looking at the syntax! But I think I like point the guy's making, if I understand it correctly. The other cool thing, the guy quotes Lethem:

"What does it mean when a great writer like Philip K. Dick is considered to have an occasionally terrible prose style? Even so brilliant and well-regarded a defender of Dick’s novels as author Jonathan Lethem has referred, in a 2007 interview with the online journal Article for example, to Dick’s “howlingly bad” patches of prose."

That's my interview! Nice thing about the internet is sometimes you send something out through a tube, it comes back to you through another!

Up top that's a picture of the new Mariner Books editions of PKD's VALIS. Here's a forum where you can look at some of the others... I kinda like this one...

Weekly News Roundup

2011-06-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here I am with a bit of a Sunday respite and plenty of recent Dick news to recount.

There was a minor media blitz by Isa Dick-Hackett last week, talking about PKD adaptations at both io9.com and then later in an article in The Wall Street Journal. The interviews were both done to promote Adjustment Bureau which went to DVD recently. Gondry is still set to direct Ubik which is being scripted as we speak. I have high hopes for this one.

Radio Free Albemuth was screened at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on Friday. In a surprise bit of promotion there was a pretty good article on msnbc.com's Cosmiclog about the movie. I liked this line: "The movie seems certain to win over the sci-fi master's hard-core fans, who call themselves 'Dick-heads.'" I like this because I was careful, when I started this blog, to hyphenate Dick-head to see if I could affect the way the term is written. Before the blog (and with Deadhead) Dickhead was not, traditionally, hyphenated. In other words, kneel before the semantic power of Zod! My ripple is a mighty hyphen!

The future of Philipkdickfans.com is in doubt as the site has become a prime target of spam bots and requires extensive upkeep and monitoring. If you're interested in changing the name of the site and transferring it to another server let me know in the comments section. It's a good site, with, I think, more traffic than I get, and just needs a dedicated webmaster.

I skyped in a short talk to the fourth annual PKD Day at Nottingham Trent University. It was a very Dickian experience for me as it was 7:30 in the morning and I found myself connected to a small classroom full of Dick-heads. I had no idea how well they could see or hear me; indeed, I had very little connection to the room, and yet I had to speak off the cuff about PKD for about a half an hour. I felt like I was communicating from space. I should have recorded it.

Umberto Rossi's new book of PKD criticism is now available on Amazon:

Buy it from here so I can get a cut. I'm gonna need it to buy my own copy.

Radio Free Albemuth Screening in Seattle

2011-06-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hi, welcome back. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. But that's just about over now and I'm getting back to the real world after an extended foray into the e. More on that when I can talk about it. For now, it's important to know that Radio Free Albemuth, the little movie that could, will be screened at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame June 21 at 7:30. Get all the necessary info here and buy tickets here. If you're a reader local to that area what say you take some pics at the premiere and tell us about the event? Harlan Ellison is being inducted so there's bound to be some antics related with that. Hopefully no award presenter's boobs get honked, but if I were the Science Fiction Hall of Fame people, I'd be preparing for that eventuality.

VALIS knows it's difficult to get a decent movie made, and RFA is the real deal. Tell your friends, get them to the premiere. We need to demonstrate the desire among PKD fans is to see uncompromising adaptations of Dick work, rather than vanilla-ized big budget fiascoes.

Did you guys read the io9.com interview with Isa Dick Hackett? There's more about the Gondry adaptation of Ubik. I wonder if they'll graft a romance into that adaptation? Something with Pat Conley? Seems like the danger with Ubik is that it becomes a 'love is the real redeemer' cliche. Cause that's not really what redeems them. The key to that movie is the entropy-banishing goodness of Ella Runciter. Sean Young in 1982 would have been perfect for the role.

Some More Thoughts on Ubik

2011-06-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've got one more week working on the e, so posting here will be minimal. I do, however, want to write a bit more about Ubik. I've been reading as much secondary source material about the novel as I can. I even read Rickels' chapter on Ubik, Three Stigmata, and Do Androids; though I could follow his interest in the three different types of 'merging' described in these books, the rest was incoherent. Sample:

"This disruption on the inside of the perfectly functioning establishment of Spiritualism is the flaw in the appointment the survivor tries to keep according to a schedule of one and a half lives" (344).

It's a bummer because one of Rickels' key interests is what happens to the dead in text and I would have thought he'd have something a little deeper to get into. But he does notice one thing: both Deckard and Joe Chip are 'testers'; Deckard detecting androids with his VK set-up and Joe Chip checking potential psychic operatives. I can't help but think of Ubik and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as being connected.

Next up was Darko Suvin's "Artifice as Refuge and World View: Philip K Dick's Foci." Suvin is a legend and his pronouncements about SF in the 1970s came from on high. Suvin says Ubik is deeply flawed and this seems to represent one whole school of thought on the novel: the 'incomprehensible' ending, when coupled with the plot holes/problems are insurmountable flaws. Guys like Suvin are willing to acknowledge there's much that's good about Ubik but, Suvin at least, concludes his appraisal thusly:

"The net result [of Ubik] seems to me to be one of great strengths balanced by equally great weaknesses in narrative responsibility reminiscent of the rabbits-from-the-hat carelessness associated with the rankest van Vogt if not "Doc" Smith..." (92).

Ouch. Also, that's not exactly accurate. I hope to have time to tell you why.

Next up is Peter Fitting's "Ubik: The Deconstruction of Bourgeois SF." This is another important essay, one which Dick had read. Remember PKD wrote to the FBI about Fitting and Jameson and the other dangerous Marxist literary critics. Not Dick's finest hour. Regardless, here's Fitting's claim:

"In this novel Dick has explored and transcended the science-fiction genre and the "representational novel" of which it is a part."

Here's his (cough, Marxist) take: "[Ubik's] "commercial messages" provide a restatement of Karl Marx's description of value, for Ubik is a universal equivalent (the embodiment of of exchange value), which can replace any other commodity: under capitalism everything has its price; while the presentation of Ubik through these ads stresses the obligation of capitalism to produce needs (use-values) in the consumer" (154).

Then, with quite an elaborate argument, Fitting attempts to convince readers that because Ubik fails to satisfy as a representational novel, it undermines capitalism. Or something. Fitting continues:

"There is no single, satisfactory interpretation of Ubik, my own included; and the reader's traditional goal -- the discovery of that interpretation -- is frustrated" (156).

I'm not sure I agree. Anyway, last, but certainly not least, I read Michael Bishop (of Philip K Dick is Dead, Alas) fame's "In Pursuit of Ubik." I wish Bishop had something more to say as his writing is absolutely brilliant. Using an extended metaphor of the pinned butterfly, Bishop argues that to analyze Ubik is to destroy it. Kinda like that line in Seinfeld about how a cartoon in the New Yorker was 'like gossamer' and "one doesn't dissect gossamer." But the article is very well written and praises PKD's efforts

"Whatever our attitude toward it, Ubik -- in ragged, beautiful gyrations confounding our ability to follow -- keeps flying. It invites our continued pursuit by its very elusiveness" (138).

None of these authors offers much in the way of insight about the wardrobes, the emergence of Ubik from ad culture, or the ubiquity of coin-operated appliances. I want to tackle those issues. But I will have to wait for another day.

I found all of the above essays in JD Olander and MH Greenberg's Writers of the 21st Century Series (pictured above).

Some Thoughts On Ubik

2011-05-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

So I just finished Ubik. I hate to say this, but I think it's been more than a decade since I read it last. I remember reading it when I lived in Hawaii in the mid-90s. It was probably one of the first five PKD novels I read. I know I've tried to re-read it a few times, but I couldn't ever get through the first 90 pages, which are a little slow going. Well, don't I feel stupid. As those of you who have read it recently will attest, it's a tour de force. I mean I knew the plot and everything, but what a fun book to read. I don't have time to make this very long, but I wanted to get some thoughts out before returning to my work on the e (as those of us working on it have come to refer to it).

I have always referred to Ubik, the substance, as the 'anti-kipple' - that is to say its effect is restorative; it counteracts entropy. I still think that's right on, but we can get more specific. If kipple pulls towards chaos and disorder and death, Ubik is redemptive; its energies have religious overtones rather than the physical laws that seem at play with kipple. That is another way in which Ubik is the opposite of kipple. Ubik is the antidote.

PKD wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik, back to back, in 1966. They are very much connected. But Ubik marks an even larger shift in Dick's writing. In the middle of chapter eight the characters zero in on the forces at work:

"You know what? I think these processes are going in opposite directions. One is a going-away, so to speak. A going-out-of-existence. That's process one. The second process is a coming-into-existence. But of something that's never existed before."

It's this process of redemption that becomes the focus of Dick's writing after authoring Ubik. Those of you that have read earlier Exegesis excerpts in In Pursuit of VALIS already know this is one of the central themes in the e.

Here are some discussion question to answer in the comments section:

Why is everything coin operated?

Dick spends significant time describing characters' crazy wardrobes. Is there some point to this?

Is it significant that Ubik arises seemingly out of the vapid and mundane world of advertisements?

Over the next week I will endeavor to explore the academic work that has been written about Ubik so that we can bring that to bare one our examination of the text. The novel is a central preoccupation of PKD's in the Exegesis, so more research is necessary.

In a letter to someone (can anyone help with the citation?) Dick speculates that instead of titling the book Ubik by Philip K Dick, it could be titled, Philip K Dick by Ubik. Interestingly, it was this idea that inspired Pamela Jackson's doctoral dissertation at UC Berkeley, and she's the main editor on the current project, so this all works out well. Let's not forget Jonathan Lethem has a Ubik tattoo. Ubik is everywhere.

A Polaroid is Worth 276 Words

2011-05-28T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sean Young apparently took a bunch of Polaroids during the shooting of Blade Runner and they've made their way onto the her site. I can't stop looking at them. Especially these:

It's cliche to talk about how primitive cultures often believe being photographed steals one's soul. But that's obviously true sometimes too, and it demonstrates how simple the underlying assumptions are. There's something about these pics. The Dickian angle is to think about how, for us, Blade Runner is a seamless reality that we enter and exit as we please; its borders are solid, and reside on your remote control. But these images reveal that seemingly seamless reality to be nested inside another, larger reality. It's not just that Sean Young is preternaturally beautiful. It's that the way we've known her, as Rachel Rosen; I mean we know the movie's not real, but we've read enough Phil Dick books to know that the movie does have a realness to it, as it exists consensually in our society's collective consciousness. So to see the curtain pulled back on that world - it doesn't exactly freak me out - but it does make these pictures entirely too difficult to stop looking at.

Also the polaroid pics look so cool and retro and yet they're pictures of this future setting and fashion, only as it was conceived of in the late 70s/early 80s. Oh, and the importance of photograph as memory (and voyeuristic tool) in Blade Runner. Oh man! Can't stop looking.

Also, Sean Young is a 2012er. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Orthogonal Weekly Round Up

2011-05-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Too big to be just a weekly wrap-up, what you are about to encounter is an orthogonal week's worth of Internet PKD stuffery.

First off, check out the pic above. My guess is that that's the cover for the first volume of Exegesis excerpts due out November 11, 2011. I can't say a whole lot right now on this subject, but I am involved with this, actively working on it this week, and it's going to be really cool. You can pre-order the book already on Amazon.

Second, well this sounds like self-promotion, but I did an interview for a zine called Reglar Wiglar (turbo attaboy to anyone who can identify the reference of the zine's title) with an old friend and solid Dick-head, Nick Sondy, about being a scholarly Dick-head and the blog and stuff, a weird experience since it was an actual phone interview (with a guy I've shot the shit with for two decades) and then they transcribed the whole thing. Weird to see what you sound like just talking, which apparently is how Frederic Jameson composes his essays. But I got some good lines in, including this one:

"It’s like [Dick]’s given us a guidebook on how to operate in this century and how to stay sane and how to stay centered and how to stay positive, even though those aren’t characteristics that are used to describe his work or him."

I think it's a pretty good interview. I know Nick really well and we can talk about stuff like this for hours so I was comfortable. We mostly talk about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner. Read the whole thing here.

Speaking of interviews, here's yet another with director John Simon talking about Radio Free Albemuth. I know he needs to keep the movie's name out there. I also know that the economy has taken its toll on the indie film biz. Instead of asking when we'll get a chance to see this in theaters, you must first like the film on facebook, and tell all of your friends to do the same. We need to help make this happen. Ask not what Radio Free Albemuth can do for you, and so forth.

Tessa Dick has published a memoir, now available on Amazon. If enough of you order it through this blog I may earn enough Amazon credit to get a copy for myself.

Regular reader Jacen Kemp has a new blog, The Clockworm, devoted to Psychological SF Esoterica. I'm especially taken with this post about PKD.

Last but not least, I'm re-reading Ubik in the short break between grading and summer school and hope we can have some discussion about it in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

The Desperate Recreation of Place

2011-05-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

Above: Portrait of PKD by "Objective"

I have discovered what I believe to be a genuine insight into PKD's work in Frederic Jameson's essay "History and Salvation in Philip K Dick." It's not something he spends a lot of time on, and he provides scant examples, but he's onto something, writing:

"Yet something more than the standard psychology (or psychopathology) of the collector seems at stake here: for objects would seem to set in place what Kenneth Burke might have called the category of the 'scene' as such: places lovingly devised and composed for a human activity which has disappeared, as living hosts disappear in course of the generational process, leaving their empty shells and housing behind them. Collecting in this sense then suggests a desperate repetition, which, by reconstructing the scene, struggles to restore the human acts and interpersonal events it once housed. But such an analysis immediately clarifies our earlier thematic material as well, for the [Perky Pat] layout is just such a scene, and fusion with Mercer in some sense replaces the novelty of fresh action and eventfulness with a kind of eternal return of the televisual image. In this particular semic cluster, then, a historically marked object-world joins hands with the phenomenon of 1950s media to make up the space and category of empty scene as such; and this is something like a pure form, which can be inflected in either a negative or a positive way, and accommodate either malign or redemptive content" (372).

There are tons of examples of this: Wash-35, Perky Pat layouts, Christ, the whole town of Millgate in The Cosmic Puppets. I'm rereading Ubik and just the weird way they bring the half-lifers in this weird routine/ritual seems to fit. List some more in comments please.

One interesting thing about this motif is that it mirrors the act of creating fiction. An author toils in isolation in hopes of connecting with some other person. Fiction uses language, inanimate words on the page, to affect change and spur action in our larger reality. The construction of wholly artificial worlds in hopes of sparking something real in a reader seems roughly akin to these Potemkin-villages that exist to evoke authenticity among the people that commune with them.

But likewise, the motif suggests a rough allegory in our late capitalist existence, in which nostalgia and kitsch are used to conjure feelings of patriotism, loyalty, and a perverse desire for stuff. Our nostalgia is exploited for profit, and as a result, the objects of our nostalgia are tainted. Seems like so much of Dick's work revolves around again making sacred what we made profane through sale and commodification .

Tagged

2011-05-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

Pictured above is a graffito tag captured by the lens of regular reader Mr Hand somewhere near El Cerritos on the 80. I captured a similar pair of tags on a dumpster behind Guitar Center in the same neighborhood (pictured below). I would like to see the Venn Diagram of graffiti artists who read Phil Dick books - they sound like good people. Do I even have to mention how cool it is that there's someone out there tagging 'Ubik'? Can you not see how this is evidence of Ubik itself? This graffiti is text that has broken free from the bounds of its book and is now loose in the world. So much of Dick's work chronicles decay and entropy, but here new information springs forth from Dick's work, words giving birth to words. Literature as virus.

Here's the dumpster behind Guitar Center...

Here's a close up...

A Thought About A Dream Within A Dream

2011-05-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

I'm up to my eyeballs in essays to grade, and yeah, there's that PKD Weekly Roundup I want to write. But today I'd like to riff on an idea that occurred to me while watching Cronenberg's eXistenZ (now on Netflix instant watch). The movie uses the Dickian notion of the "dream within a dream" (a phrase coined by Poe, so exactly how Dickian the notion really is can be debated). Anyhoo, in the movie the main characters awaken into a number of wholly new realities, and we as the audience learn that the previous, seemingly stable realities were in fact some sort of illusion. Dick's use of this motif generates quite a list:
Time Out of Joint
Maze of Death
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Ubik
Feel free to name some more in the comments section.

Likewise, Hollywood has become enamored with this motif and films that use this style hard reverse are in no shortage:
Dark City
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Thirteenth Floor
The Matrix
Inception
The list goes on....

One way to think about this motif's popularity is to relate it to the way our own reality is basically a bubble. I mean go someplace else, someplace totally different, go far enough away so that the beliefs and worldview you hold become alien to the people around you. If you encounter a group of people who see the world in a fundamentally different way from you, you'll soon realize how subjective everything is. You'll see the way people travel within their presuppositions like a fish in water that's invisible to them. And you'll see that you do it too. It can be a powerful experience. Think about Barney Mayerson and how the alien-ness of Mars re-calibrates his priorities and allows him to regain some semblance of human dignity and humility.

But the idea that got me more excited was how these hard reverses reconstruct what Heidegger called our 'thrown-ness.' Check this:

"Heidegger proclaimed that we are ‘thrown’ into the world and that our Being-in-the-world is a ‘thrownness’ [Geworfenheit]. To Heidegger this concept is a primordial banality which had long been overlooked by metaphysical conjecture. Humans beings are thrown with neither prior knowledge nor individual option into a world that was there before and will remain there after they are gone (Steiner 1978). Heidegger wrote;

“This characteristic of Dasein’s Being – this ‘that it is’ – is veiled in its ‘whence’ and ‘whither’, yet disclosed in itself all the more unveiledly; we call it the ‘thrownness’ of this entity into its ‘there’; indeed, it is thrown in such a way that, as Being-in-the-world, it is the ‘there’. The expression ‘thrownness’ is meant to suggest the facticity of its being delivered over.”

No biology of parentage can answer the question of whence we came into Being. Neither do we know toward what end our existence has been projected, apart from our position in relation to death. Yet for Heidegger, it is this twofold mystery that makes the ‘thrown’ state of human life the more absolute and tangible. Human kind is ‘delivered over’ to a total, all-encompassing ‘thereness’ and Dasein must occupy this presentness and take it up into its own existence. Heidegger wished to emphasize the unmistakable ‘thereness’ of the world into which we are thrown (Steiner 1978)"

So when these characters are thrown into utterly new realities, they replay for us, in abrupt drama, our own sense of alienation we all feel because we can't really know our ultimate origins. Why are we here? Who made us? What is our purpose? We can't ever really answer these questions.

The revealing of a new level of reality is both stabilizing and destabilizing for us. The possibility that we could be hoodwinked into thinking this is the real world undermines lots of traditional philosophy and it even creeps some people out. On the other hand, once reality is shown to be an illusion and the character remains relatively unchanged, that speaks to the strength of the individual, and the personality's independence from the world around it.

But let's not forget that in every one of these hard reverse narratives the artificial reality has been produced for profit or other material gain. This speaks to the way our own surroundings are a capitalist tapestry of advertisements and hard-sold lifestyles. We are surrounded by an illusion otherwise known as 'The American Dream.' But any reality that dream once had is dissolving and so our experience under late capitalism is but a dream within a dream.

Quote of the Day

2011-05-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

I copied this behemoth into blogger yesterday. When I hit 'publish' it was gone. So, here it is again...

"In such moments, Dick's work transcends the opposition between the subjective and the objective, and thereby confronts the dilemma which in one way or another characterizes all literature of any consequence: the intolerable and yet unavoidable choice between a literature of the self and a language of some impersonal exteriority, between the subjectivism of private languages and case histories and that nostalgia for the objective that leads outside the realm of the individual or existential experiences into some reassuringly stable place of common sense and statistics. Dick's force lies in the effort to retain possession and use of apparently contradictory, mutually exclusive subjective and objective explanation systems all at once. The casual attribution, then, of the hallucinatory experiences to drugs, to schizophrenia or to the half-life, is not so much a concession to the demands of the older kind of reading or explanation as it is a refusal of that first, now archaic solution of symbolism and modernism: the sheer fantasy and dream narrative. To attribute his nightmares to drugs, schizophrenia, or half-life is thus a way of affirming their reality and rescuing their intolerable experiences from being defused as an unthreatening surrealism; a way of preserving the resistance and the density of the subjective moment, of emphasizing the commitment of his work to this very alternation itself as its basic content. And this discontinuity is at one with our fragmented existence under capitalism; it dramatizes our simultaneous presence in separate compartments of private and public worlds, our twin condemnation to both history and psychology in scandalous concurrence." - Frederic Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future (350-351)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can read the quote in context here.

About That "Empathy Test" Of Yours

2011-05-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

There's been some PKD activity on the Intertoobz lately, and I really need to write up a news roundup article, but not today; I want to share something cool a student hipped me to in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Yes, it's that time of the semester again, when I read literally about a hundred essay about DADOES?. Most are pretty simplistic and usually go over one of the topics I suggest during our class lectures. Last week, a student approached me and said she wanted to write about the Voight-Kampff test in the novel; specifically, she found it ironic that the questions were not the least bit empathetic. I was stunned by the power of her discovery, and a little amazed that I had missed it.

Indeed, if you read the test questions Rick asks Rachel for instance, it's clear that there is nothing empathetic about the test itself. Rick describes a situation to Rachel: "In a magazine you come across a full-page color picture of a nude girl" (49). This is when Rachel gets the great line about testing to see if she's an android or lesbian - a line so great it even made it into the movie. But then it gets weird; Deckard continues: "Your husband likes the picture."

Uh, Rick... she doesn't have a husband. The questions are impersonal and in many cases seem totally unrelated to the expression of empathy someone might make in their day-to-day lives. So, this test and its administrators, which seek to detect empathy, make no attempt to tailor the questions to the subject. Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his letter from a Birmingham Jail that the ends are preexistant in the means. And here I can't help but think that the apathetic and clinical attitude of the test and its administrators creates a situation in which the androids' apathetic outlook has spread like a virus to the very people who are charged with eliminating this apathy.

This is yet another layer of irony in a deeply ironic book. Look, all of the characters transcend their identity in one way or other: the androids are empathetic, the humans are apathetic, the supposedly Chickenheaded John Isidore shows an appropriate reverance for life; Deckard, who keeps talking about how much he wants a real animal, can't take proper care of the animals once he acquires them.

It reminded me of this interview I did way back in the day with Lethem, where he said:

"On the other hand “Do Androids…” has “Blade Runner” attached to it. I think in terms of the role that Dick has taken in terms of the popular imagination it’s an important connection… I reread [each of the four novels] carefully and “DADoES” is the one book I’ve been underrating. It struck me as totally controlled and emotionally precise..."

I'm, once again, appreciating the care with which Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I have a new theory, that perhaps it is DADOES that marks a transition in Dick's writing career from his second-draft masterpieces written in the early 60s to the multiple drafts and Herculean efforts he put into his later books. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said went through how many editions and drafts?

Anyway, all that effort pays off brilliantly in DADOES?, a book that continues to open up to deeper and deeper analysis and interpretation. Even after teaching the novel to thousands of students, I'm still amazed by what I find inside.

(Thanks for the insight, Lisa Casale!)

Joanna Russ - RIP

2011-05-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Unless you follow the world of feminist science fiction academia closely, you may not have already heard that author and critic Joanna Russ passed away last week after suffering a series of strokes (sound familiar?). Her relevance to the life and work of PKD is limited (at least here in this post) to her absolute hatred of Dick's anti-abortion story "The Pre-Persons." Dick writes in the story's notes:

"In this ... I incurred the absolute hate of Joanna Russ who wrote me the nastiest letter I've ever received; at one point she said she usually offered to beat up people (she didn't use the word 'people') who expressed opinions such as this. I admit that this story amounts to special pleading, and I'm sorry to offend those who disagree with me about abortion on demand. I also got some unsigned hate mail, some of it not from individuals but from organizations promoting abortion on demand. Well, I have always managed to offend people by what I write. Drugs, communism, and now an anti-abortion stand; I really know how to get myself in hot water. Sorry, people. But for the pre-persons' sake I am not sorry. I stand where I stand: "Hier steh Ich; Ich kann nicht anders," ["Here I stand, I can do no other"] as Martin Luther is supposed to have said."

Recently a commenter asked if we've ever discussed "The Pre-Persons" here. Nope. But the story, PKD's response to the Roe v Wade verdict, certainly caused some controversy. I don't have time to get too in depth about this right now as I'm finishing the semester buried under a mountain of papers. But I will say that Dick's pro-life attitude in his fiction is perhaps as consistent a theme as his oft-repeated interest in "what is real" and "what is human."

One of the more interesting references to abortion is in The Crack in Space. Protag Tito Cravelli's ex-wife is an abortion consultant (or something - this aspect of the plot is missing from all the online novel summaries) and she is pretty cold-hearted.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that PKD's reverence for the unborn comes from his grief and guilt relating to the death of his twin-sister, Jane. But, as I was saying earlier, the emphasis in his fiction on the sacredness of all life makes this aspect of his belief system pretty fitting - even if it's not the most progressive or politically correct view to hold nowadays. Additionally, I've always felt that Anne Dick's abortion (which she is remarkably honest about in her memoir) proved to be a turning point in their marriage. This fits with The Crack in Space which was written in 1964 in the middle of their difficult separation.

It was, in part, criticism of Dick's treatment of women in his fiction from women like Russ and Ursula LeGuin that prompted Dick to write in a letter to his agent Russ Galen, "My depiction of females has been inadequate and even somewhat vicious." (June 29, 1981).

In fact, it is this realization that may have spurred PKD to create the wonderful character of Angel Archer in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. I think this helps show that Dick was, even in his later years, empathetic, and open to criticism, but more importantly, that he was willing to try to change aspects of his worldview as well as his writing. While you might disagree with Dick's opinion, you gotta admire the hell out of willingness to evolve.

We Can Monetize Your Legacy, Wholesale

2011-04-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

Just got word from reader Chris that there are some Total Recall sequel comics due out in May. See the pics? Here's the problem: why is Quaid still yoked out like Ahnold? My hope was that in revisiting this adaptation that they (the Yance men or whatever) would try to stay faithful to the story. Quaid should be a nebbish weakling.. I'm guessing this comic is actually more closely aligned with the original Total Recall. Bummer. If I remember correctly (insert implanted memory joke here) PKD sold all merchandising rights for "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" lock, stock, and barrel, so basically, the option holder can do whatever they want with the narrative contents of the story. Read this:

"Inspired by the hit 1990 science fiction movie, Total Recall. Read the story of what happens next! Having killed Cohaagen and given Mars an atmosphere, Douglas Quaid (the man who was Hauser) simply wants to live happily ever after with the woman of his dreams, Melina. How can Quaid have his happily ever after with Mars in chaos, new enemies coming to the red planet, and a mysterious stranger walking about? Check out issue Total Recall #1 to find out!"

I kinda like that this appears to be the most boring comic ever created. My hope is that Quaid gets a manager position at the Mars Starbucks and becomes a civil war buff.

So, I expect one of you readers with an interest in comics will review this series for us. That way I won't have to buy these...

A Runcible Spoon

2011-04-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

John Fairchild sent me a letter recently with a fun little connection he'd discovered. In The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike, protag Leo Runcible's surname is more than likely derived from 'runcible spoon' which first appears in 1871 Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat. Here is the relevant stanza:

'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Given PKD's familiarity with children's literature this seems like a very likely source. So when I asked The Great Google about runcible spoons, I was directed to a 15-year-old column from The Straight Dope (god I used to love this column in the Reader in Chicago). Cecil sez,

"In subsequent years Lear applied the principles of runcibility in other fields:

"He has gone to fish, for Aunt Jobiska's Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!" (1877). "His body is perfectly spherical, / He weareth a runcible hat" (1888). "What a runcible goose you are!" (1895). "We shall presently all be dead, / On this ancient runcible wall" (1895).

Satisfaction with the early results of runcilation led Lear and his admirers to overlook the fact that there were many unanswered questions about the runciatory process, e.g., what it was. Lear's contemporaries recognized that runcility was one of those conditions partaking of the ineffable, meaning it had the same connection to reality as scroobius pips and Gromboolian plains and about a thousand other Learisms--namely none."

A runcible spoon is an impossibility, but I like how Cecil says it, 'one of those conditions partaking of the ineffable' as that seems like such a Dickian idea, this crossing of the profound and the ridiculous, the sacred and the crass, the mundane and the transcendent.

I feel weird admitting this but, reading the synopsis of this novel, it rings no bells and I'm not sure I've read it. Now that there are nice new editions of the book, I have no excuse.

Radio Free Albemuth Wins Special Jury Award!

2011-04-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

I got word a few days ago that Radio Free Albemuth won the Grand Prize - Special Jury Award for Science Fiction at The WorldFest Houston International Film Festival (boy, that's a lot of nouns!). Congratulations to John Alan Simon (pictured above doing director stuff) who has been working tirelessly for years on this project! It really is a great film with a hell of a script and a ton of heart.

Those of you in the Dallas area will have the opportunity to see RFA next Friday April 29 at the Angelika Film Center. Have you 'liked' the film on Facebook? Have you ever seen Swimming with Sharks? Hollywood strikes me as a brutal place, and here's John Simon carrying this movie, this great piece of art, like a flickering flame in the wind. It's a Dickian, not to mention Herculean, struggle. Nice to see the film get some recognition. I really hope it gets a broader release soon.

An Obscure Interview With PKD

2011-04-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Caption courtesy of Dangerous Minds: Philip K. Dick, Germs-manager Nicole Panter, author KW Jeter, and artist Gary Panter, at Philip K. Dick’s Santa Ana condo. The photo was taken from Nicole Panter's flickr account.

My Facebook friend Henry Baum hepped me to this interview from Slash Magazine 1980. Check out that photo! (I may have posted it here before, who knows?). There's A LOT of talent on that couch. It's like a tiny slice of the 80s cultural revolution on one couch. Anyway, this interview is so awesome. It's got something for everyone: PKD calls himself 'a religious anarchist'; K W Jeter is a total badass and this interview makes me sad that he hasn't gotten nearly his due... yet; Gary Panter is a badass who came up with his Rozz-tox manifesto - which is also rad - and you all know the shirt... (that's the shirt PKD was wearing when he had his stroke... btw); we learn that a 'conapt' is a condominium style situation where the tenant co-owns the building (more on this in a second); and we see the dead cat as refutation of God which figures so prominently in VALIS. I love that Dick says 'effete intellectuals' and if he had said it in my presence I can guarantee you orange soda would come out of my nose I'd be laughing so hard. Also, PKD's political thoughts are surprising... If you don't read the entire interview here, well, I can't help you.

I like the idea that the characters in Dick's books are owners rather than renters. That fact alone locks them into a society in a much more intense way, one of the many reasons I'm shying away from home ownership even as the prices fall. So refreshing to see something new, though Patrick Clark informs me this interview has been known to Dick-heads for many moons and was reprinted in Simulacrum Meltdown # 3 (October 2001).

Special thanks to Henry Baum!

Wow, when I was looking for a picture of the shirt, I found this article about PKD, looks long...

Mark Your Calendars!

2011-04-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

I would apologize for the recent blog silence but for two facts:

1) I promised at some point that I wouldn't begin blog posts with an apology for a dearth of posts.

and

2) I've been working behind the scenes laying the groundwork for a Philip K Dick Conference to be held September 22-23, 2012 at San Francisco State University.

Of course you knew that already from seeing the wonderful logo at the top, produced by Sebastien Berruyer!

The big news is that our first confirmed guest, the guest of honor for the conference, will be none other than Jonathan Lethem (or a simulacrum thereof)! No seriously, Lethem's in!

In the coming weeks I will be looking to do some fundraising. I think the first step will be to print up some t-shirts with Sebastien's logo to sell. If you have any ideas for raising money or know of a good online silkscreen service let me hear it in the comments.

Additional information about the substance of the conference as well as details about potential lodging will be forthcoming. I'm very excited.

Weekly Round Up

2011-03-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

That chug-chugging sound you have been hearing in the distance is the gentle whine of The Philip K Dick Article Machine 2.0 churning out a couple of, dare I say, interesting articles about PKD.

There was this story in the Guardian about how we're all living in a Philip K Dick future, examining both Sucker Punch and Source Code as Dickian flicks. I'm quite excited to see Source Code as I thought Moon was one of the better Dickian films of late. While this story shows that the Philip K Dick Article Machine is still learning, it's got a ways to go. Favorite line:

"The first great Phil Dick movie was, of course, Blade Runner, in which enslaved androids seem human, and some "humans" don't know that they themselves are androids."

At least they threw in the 'of course' - I mean it was THE FIRST adaptation.

The article I liked even better was from Cracked.com, provacatively titled "5 Ways Philip K Dick's Insanity Changed The World of Movies." The reason I like this article is that instead of trying to convince a bunch of stuffed shirts reading literati zines (New Yorker et al) that they should lower themselves to read this pulp writer whose prose isn't very good, Cracked can suggest to their target demographic, dormroom stoner bros, that Philip K Dick's writing will blow their minds.

Instead of crap like this from Gopnik's New Yorker hit-piece from way back:

"The trouble is that, much as one would like to place Dick above or alongside Pynchon and Vonnegut—or, for that matter, Chesterton or Tolkien—as a poet of the fantastic parable he was a pretty bad writer."

You get:

"You don't have to be crazy to write mind-bending science fiction, but it apparently helps. Many of Dick's stories revolve around questions about the nature of reality, schizophrenia, paranoia, drug use, religion and hallucinogenic imagery. Whether any of these are related to the fact that all his pre 1970 stories were written while high on amphetamines we'll leave for you to decide, but they totally were. The man would mix offworld colonies, cold war politics, Tibetan theology, corny advertising jingles, psionic powers, sentient jellies and small scale domestic drama. Not just in the same book -- all those elements could easily appear in the same paragraph."

Now, as for the article's charges of Dick's 'schizophrenia' I'd simply like to quote Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia who brilliantly proclaimed: "Interior Decorating is a rock hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs." I can't believe I just quoted Scalia approvingly. Let's move on.

Actually, if you're interested, and I did this once, take out your copy of Sutin's PKD biography, Divine Invasions, look up 'schizophrenia' in the index and then skim each page listed. It's interesting to see the contexts in which the term crops up again and again in Dick's life. But, to get back to Scalia's point for just a sec, the term 'schizophrenia' is a fairly loose one (any of several psychotic disorders characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances of thought and language and withdrawal from social contact), akin, I learned recently, to 'meltdown' - a term that has no quanitative basis; there is no lab test, no failing score on the inkblot tests, that confirm a diagnosis of schizophrenia (though Dick loved to write about exactly such tests, not to mention his uncanny ability to intentionally mimic symptoms of various disorders to the delight and dismay of his friends and family). But whatever. Point being, it's a complicated subject and we should take Dick's clinical diagnosis from the writers of Cracked with a grain of salt.

But also we should read this letter that Dick wrote to the FBI, advising them of the Marxist tendencies of several notable critics. The fact that several of these critics were rather open with their Marxist readings of SF makes Dick look more naive than crazy in my mind. I mean it's sort of silly to suggest that Marxist literary theorists may be undermining the capitalist system with the way they read books, but then again, Dick grew up during a time when any open allegiance to communism was serious business, of the same order as treason. Update: Going back and reading the letter again PKD seems more concerned with Lem's influence over the these critics. I wish I had time to go through the volume of 1974 letters and try to find more context for this. If I remember correctly, there were several weird and wild letters from the same period.

What's the point of discussing his sanity? There's no point in trying to diagnose him. But there is merit in discussing the boundaries of 'sanity.' We should examine the distinction we make between sanity and 'insanity.' PKD's books and novels examine this theme over and over again. The jarring aspect of this letter is the coldness of the tone with which he wields some pretty serious accusations. But there's no way anyone would read Dick's fiction if it read with the same clinical detachment. We certainly wouldn't be talking about his influence a quarter century after his death if there wasn't some kind of sustaining warmth emanating from the pages of his fiction. I guess this post is turning into an attempt to develop the dialog beyond whether or not he was crazy, perhaps towards the goal of understanding PKD's appeal, the nature of his insight, the source of his prescience. And I think we should study PKD's life to try to understand the suffering he experienced. That's the uncool thing about the Cracked article. There's no empathy towards PKD's suffering. It's all just grist for the mill.

The Philip K Dick Article Machine is still a long way from passing the Voight Kampff.

It's only now, in hindsight, that I see I've just opened a great big can of worms. Don't go too crazy in the comments section (see what I did there?).

My Future Has Been Adjusted

2011-03-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

I would like to start this post (which will ultimately be a review of Adjustment Bureau) with a small confession. Even before I started this blog almost four years ago, my dream was to find work in Hollywood as a Dickian dramaturge, a PKD expert who helps movie producers keep their adaptations of his work true to the source material. It's a fairly common job among scholars of Shakespeare.

It was 2007 - a heady time. I was still riding high on the release of A Scanner Darkly (which my buddy Erik Davis consulted on) and as I started my job as an English teacher with my newly acquired Master's Degree, the idea of flying off to Cannes and hobnobbing with Brad Pitt as I explained the importance off looking defeated when he played the role of Jason Taverner was a nice fantasy. Admittedly, this was more than a bit naive, but, if we're being honest here, it was a dream I was trying to achieve with this blog.

And it was a dream that died about 18 minutes into The Adjustment Bureau on Friday night. The death of my dream was no surprise, as it had been on life support for a long time. And it wasn't a bummer or anything. I simply realized the dream job of keeping big-money PKD adaptations faithful to his source material is like warm ice or dry water, an oxymoronic impossibility. So, don't be sad. As Kris Kristofferson once wrote, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" and now I'm free.

First things first. The Adjustment Bureau is not a PKD adaptation. As I noted before, the central premise of a secret organization dedicated to keeping mankind on a preferred timeline is at the crux of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series, which were pretty much the first SF books I ever read. After reading PKD's short story (which as previously noted appeared a year or so after the first book in the Foundation series) I feel like PKD lifted the concept from Asimov and employed it brilliantly to create on of his greatest 'gubble' moments, when reality appears to dissolve before a character's very eyes - they suffer the symptoms of schizophrenia, the withdrawal and subsequent 'tomb world' imagery, while in full control of their mental faculties.

As was done in Next, Dick's original short story was strip-mined for its science fictional idea and then discarded. Producers took that nice little idea and transplanted it into a feature length film, but the end result is about as Dickian as a spring wedding (a prize will be awarded if anybody can find me a marriage scene in Dick's irv). The fact is, no big-money Hollywood adaptation can ever be truly faithful to the source material, mostly because Hollywood is a place where illusions are constructed, a place that is itself an illusion, a place that frankly wouldn't know 'reality' if it were to bite it in the ass -a place so hopelessly dedicated to creating high-priced and profit-driven fantasies that it has no ability to tell us what is real. Hollywood, by its very makeup, is too inauthentic to capture the great humanism that marks authenticity in Dick's books.

Matt Damon's character, David Norris, is running for a senate seat when we first meet him. In Dick's story Ed Fletcher is a real estate agent. The protagonist's elevation in stature is important - at least to me. You see if he were just an everyday guy, then the story's paranoiac elements become more pronounced. Paranoia involves an exaggerated sense of self-importance. If they're all out to get you, it is logical to assume that you are very powerful and important. If the main character is already a famous, super-scientist or running for senate with presidential aspirations, then he's already self-important. To make Damon's character a big shot, is to tweak the fundamental formula at the core of Dick's work. His characters are always everyday people, put upon by the world. Any two paragraph summary of Dick's significance in Science Fiction should include his use of average Joes and Joans. So while I understand the change, the filmmakers should have been warned they were meddling with the forces of nature.

Oh man, this is getting too long. Nobody's gonna read it and if they do they'll think I'm ranting.

I kind of liked watching the movie and imagining the action was entirely internal to Norris' psyche. Regular reader, Mr Hand, who saw the film with me, thinks this is what Rickels means by endopsychic allegory, but who the hell knows what Rickels means. Anyway, I liked the idea that the bureau was Norris' super-ego and his love for whatshername was his id. Then you have this nice internal struggle. And actually, this interpretation is plausible for like three seconds near the end of the movie, but then they go in a different direction (I'm going to write up a separate post with spoilers to talk more specifically about the ending).

I liked my idea; that the story should have been entirely solipsistic, existing in Norris' mind. And here's where my really important realization arrived. My desire to work as a dramaturge was, at its heart, an artistic aspiration. I'm realizing I should be writing my own stuff, which I have been doing, a bit. It's one of the reasons my posts here are have tapered off. I need to do more of that. Not that I'd turn him down if Gondry offered me a gig advising on the upcoming Ubik adaptation. And this blog isn't going anywhere either. I'm even more dedicated to studying Dick's life and work as he's my biggest influence.

Before you go, here's some chart-based evidence supporting the assertion that no good PKD adaption will be liked and no well-liked adaptation will be good:

Required Reading

2011-03-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

Gary Wesfahl's review of The Adjustment Bureau, "Philip K, Diminished" over at Locus.com is the review to read. I couldn't have said it better myself -and I've been trying for years. Go now and read it. Oh, you want some evidence it's a good article? Here:

"Indeed, if professors of film studies want to enlighten their students about what Hollywood wants to be, and what Hollywood really is, I can imagine no better lesson than to have them read stories and novels by Philip K. Dick, then having them watch the films that they inspired. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) / Blade Runner (1982), “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) / Total Recall (1990), and “The Minority Report” (1956) / Minority Report (2002) would all be obvious items for the syllabus, but “Adjustment Team” / The Adjustment Bureau might actually be the most illuminating assignment. This would be the theme of the class: today, everyone in Hollywood wants to be different, to be innovative, even to be strange; hence, they are inexorably drawn to the works of Philip K. Dick, because perhaps more so than any other science fiction writer in the business, Dick is consistently different, consistently innovative, consistently strange."

The Adjustment Bureau: The Reviews Are In!

2011-03-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

I should have anticipated the PKD media frenzy that accompanies a major cinematic adaptation of his work. I've written about the short story the film is based on, "The Adjustment Team," previously here. After all, this blog weathered the Next typhoon, but I was younger and hungrier, and somehow withstood the withering onslaught. The combination of film reviews and articles summarizing Philip K Dick's life and work, as well as 'Hollywood's Obsession with Philip K Dick' are arriving fast and furious, too fast, in fact, to keep up with. Any serious Dick-head knows about these 'Philip K Dick Article Machine' articles, specifically that these articles barely scratch the surface of PKD's strange life and career. Rather than ponder the paper-thin commentary that is the stock and trade of American journalism today, let's get into the reviews.

The first review of The Adjustment Bureau I read was from io9.com who did not inspire great confidence:

"'That Philip K. Dick guy is pretty good. But what would really make his work awesome is if it was turned into a romantic dramedy.'

If you've ever said those words, or something along those lines, then you — and only you — are the target audience for The Adjustment Bureau, the new movie opening today."

Beware, this review contains spoilers.

I found my spirits buoyed, however, by this review at The Palm Tree Garden:

"It’s not easy adapting Philip K. Dick, but George Nolfi, who wrote and directed, pulled it off. This is no mere matter of having serendipitous casting and competent post-production help. Not with Philip K. Dick. With Philip K. Dick, it is the story that counts, not the special effects, the excellent Blade Runner notwithstanding. But The Adjustment Bureau is no Paycheck, which starred Mr. Damon’s friend, Ben Affleck, and co-starred Uma Thurman as his love interest. Again, I’m disqualified. I’m one of the few people who actually thought Paycheck wasn’t all that bad. But Paycheck is a two and a half star where Bureau is, oh, at least four and a half."

Regular reader Jon, wrote this short review on my Facebook page:

"So Adjustment Bureau wasn't bad, but it was given the same "action/love story" treatment that was done to Paycheck. They actually added more vague religious suggestions, which is nice and Dickian. It's worth a watch, with no real surprises."

Things are looking up!

The bottom line seems to be that if you can handle the fore-fronting of a love story in a PKD movie you may like this. My local reviewer in the SF Gate had this to say:

""The Adjustment Bureau" can be praised as an action movie and as an imaginative fantasy, but the main thing that keeps audiences glued throughout its running time is that it's a love story, easily one of the best American love stories of the past year.

In retrospect, it almost feels like a miracle: "The Adjustment Bureau" gets an audience caring intently and personally whether two people will get together, and it does this with a single five-minute conversation. A failed senatorial candidate, rehearsing his concession speech, meets a woman and they talk. Their ease, their immediate interest, their amusement and instantaneous delight in each other's company are so apparent that we know we're witnessing one of those things. That is, the kind of connection that feels so natural that you think it should happen every day but instead happens just once or twice in a lifetime."

So, until I see this movie sometime in the next couple days I can only speculate, but this sounds like a pretty good date movie.

The release of The Adjustment Bureau also spawned several articles that survey the PKD adaptations that have already hit the market.

Quiet Earth grades every adaptation here with this caveat:

"I've put the films in order of my own personal preference. Obviously many of you will probably disagree with my order, but I think because I tend to enjoy Dick's earlier writing which tends to lean towards high concept, fast paced scifi weirdness I tend to go for the more hard scifi, or action oriented films."

As I try to explain to my students, grading is very often a subjective enterprise, and obviously there is room for debate here.

I really liked this article on io0.com, The Ten Greatest Philip K Dick Stories Hollywood Hasn't Filmed Yet, primarily because it suggests some fairly obscure short stories and under-appreciated novels (The Crack in Space!).

I'll leave you here on that upbeat note. As I say, I hope to see it in the next couple of days and will post a review.

Oh, I almost forgot this review - which I also really like. Money paragraph:

"So, despite the dark and visionary sci-fi pedigree behind the source material and a $50 million budget, is this just a glorified update of It's a Wonderful Life? After all, wasn’t Clarence the Angel a sort of a benevolent “adjustor”, a case worker assigned by the “boss” to nudge Jimmy Stewart back onto his Pre-Ordained Path? Although the “G” word is never mentioned in Nolfi’s film, it’s pretty clear that the “Chairman” represents You-Know-Who (although every time the Chairman was mentioned, I kept visualizing Ralph Richardson’s marvelously droll Supreme Being in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits)."

Please post links to additional reviews in the comments section. I can't keep up!

In Defense of Art

2011-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

As you probably already know the Internet can be a very frustrating place. On the average day, after reading about how teachers unions are destroying the foundation of America, I try to cruise io9.com and see what's up with our SF community. A couple days ago, io9 posted the trailer for John Simon's adaptation of Radio Free Albemuth, and, well, believe it or not, commenters said some stupid stuff. Among the complaints:

"No one can complain about the production values in the upcoming Atlas Shrugged release after seeing this...."

"This looks like something the guys in IT threw together on their lunch breaks."

"Is this from the SyFy channel? I keep expecting a Dogosaurs or Pigeonraptor to swoop in an kill indiscriminately."

I will now address these concerns specifically. Dear Geeks, Radio Free Albemuth is an independent film done on the cheap so as to avoid the most common Hollywood pitfalls. You know, like when they take a PKD book and slice the science fiction idea out of it, and then get some guy like Tom Cruise to play a protagonist that has only a name in common with Dick's original. Gone are all the characters, the layers of doubt and resolve, the depth of vision, and in their place is a long scene during which the audience worries that Tom Cruise may drink THE MILK THAT'S ALREADY GONE BAD!!!1! Remember, Phil Dick said his stories don't just ask 'what if?' - they ask "MY GOD! What if?!" I mean, that milk looked really gross, but WTF?

Just today as we are hearing reports about a Total Recall remake, and Blade Runner prequels, sequels, and mini-series, you people have the gall to pan a movie that dares to be slightly original? Guys, you're ruining it for the rest of us, those of us that want to see people take Dick's literary vision in new and interesting directions. I mean you guys are right: this doesn't look like a slick Hollywood production, but how have those worked out for you? Can you even remember the name of the main character in Paycheck or Next (no the answer is not Ben Affleck and Nic Cage)?

Remember the Washington Post article from last week? The one that said this:

"Dick's fiction also is highly regarded because it tends to avoid the typical elements found in Hollywood science fiction - alien invasions, battles in outer space, time travel, etc. - and is more character-driven, featuring a small group of people in confined settings and environments."

And yet, with the notable exceptions of Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly, the typical adaption of Dick's work avoids characterization like the plague, instead we get an extended chase scene.

I guess I can't really fault the commenters over at io9. I don't really think they're Dick fans per se; they get pretty turned on by special effects and the like over at that site. But I know my readers and Dick's fans in general will give this film a chance. Please. PLEASE!Head over to that comments section and let these guys know they just don't know.. Help reawaken my trust in the Internet...

Radio Free Albemuth Trailer Online

2011-03-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

Events on the ground are moving rapidly as we approach the Friday release of The Adjustment Bureau. Personally, I'm more excited about John Simon's adaptation of RFA. The trailer showed up on the Internet today...

Radio Free Albemuth movie trailer
Uploaded by blankytwo. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

From All Over the Internetz...

2011-02-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

Pictured: Matt Damon, in what appears to be a non-dodgy chair, in The Adjustment Bureau...

Here I am again, with just enough time for a quick stroll through the weird world of Dickian effluvia. The Philip K Dick Article Machine can be heard chug-chugging to life amid the dying wreckage of print journalism as the world prepares for yet another PKD adaptation to hit the screen this Friday - which is no good for me because I've got a thing that night. Saturday too. Maybe I could do a midnight show on Friday, but so far it's not looking like it's gonna be a whole lotta theaters. Maybe a Sunday matinee? Any Bay Area Dick-heads up for something like this?

As promised is a quick tour of the PKD article machine's latest sputterings:

My least favorite (that's the polite way of saying it's the worst right?) of the pile was this Washington Post article written by the mysterious Beale... This article's greatest sin is that it's just long enough to include all of the information previously written about Philip K Dick in similar articles. Paranoid? Check. Drug-addled? Check. Bad writer? Check. I have to admit that's the one that gets me. Isn't it kind of like talking about a terrific painter is no good with paints? Cuz that's one of those self-negating statements Horselover liked so much...

1) God does not exist
2) And anyhow he's stupid.

On the plus side, this article has got quotes from a wide variety of sources. I'm not sure if I think more or less of them for not consulting me...

The most annoying thing is that they don't mention Radio Free Albemuth while listing all the upcoming PKD adaptations. Write a little something (keep it respectable) in the comments section, let's see if we can get them to take notice...

I guess that's the only PKD machine article, now that I think about it...

There's this temporal lobe epilepsy article that mentions PKD (hat-tip to Frank Bertrand)

A reader emails: "if you want to see the Philip K. Dick robot in action, this week's ep of Nova ScienceNOW called "What's the next big thing?" has a segment on it. I don't pretend to understand PBS scheduling, but in my neck of the woods (Vancouver), it's on again on Friday and on Sunday." er, uh, sorry, that might be last week, but nothing digital ever really dies so if you find it, point us to it in the comments section please.

PKD Otaku number 21 (!) is now available here. Of course it's chock full of the good PKD-stuff!

Gondry To Direct Ubik Adaptation

2011-02-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

It's all over the Internetz folks. I've been scooped by freakin' third-rate movie blogs.

Tell us about it:

"Director Michel Gondry, whose Green Hornet movie is currently in theaters, is developing a screen adaptation of the acclaimed Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel Ubik as a future project.

According to The Playlist and Deadline, Gondry is attached to adapt and direct Ubik for Film Rites (run by Oscar winner Steven Zaillian) and Anonymous Content. The project isn't set-up at a studio yet."

I delved a bit into my archives and located this post from three years ago:

""Celluloid Dreams has optioned the rights to Philip K. Dick's 1969 novel Ubik.

A metaphysical comic nightmare on death and salvation, Ubik was heralded as one of the 100 greatest English-language novels by Time magazine.

The film will be produced by Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams and Isa Dick Hackett, the author's daughter, of Electric Shepherd Prods. It is skedded to go into production in early 2009."

So there is something of a long, strange trip with this film. And perhaps this is not the last word. I honestly feel a little ambivalent about Gondry. I would have been incredibly enthusiastic if he had just finished Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, but he's made two movies in the interim I was lukewarm about (to put it kindly). I am a little concerned about the cutesy-poo element in his work. Write in caps at me in the comments if you must.

Perhaps most annoying is the fact that none of these articles about Ubik mention Radio Free Albemuth, further convincing me that Hollywood really is just a cliquey grade school playground.

Radio Free Cairo

2011-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

Well gentle readers, Life is happening again, and I am once more struggling to find the time to keep the blog updated. I finished We Can Build You and need to post some thoughts on that, but I wanted to write a bit this morning about John Simon's awesome adaptation of Radio Free Albemuth - as you know I saw a final cut of it recently. What you may not know is that you can now add the film to your Netflix queue. Not that the the movie's available now; it won't actually be out until after it gets some kind of theatrical release later this year, but adding the film to your Netflix queue lets potential distributors know there is interest and may help in finding a deal for theatrical release. So, obviously, add the film to your queue.

But I really wanted to talk about the movie in relation to the recent protests in Egypt. Readers of Radio Free Albemuth already know the novels deals with the autocratic and oppressive regime of Ferris F Fremont (renamed Richard Fremont in the film). When the Egyptian government started rounding up journalists last week, in my mind I kept going back to the movie, which does an amazing job of capturing the maddening injustice of a government working against its people. I think it's Rickman (correct me in the comments section if I'm wrong) who talked about seeing wounds on PKD's arms, and that PKD had told him he'd cut himself with a crushed soda can after learning of Anwar Sadat's assassination - of course Sadat was Mubarak's predecessor so this is not so totally removed from the Dickian Universe.

What I'm trying to get at is that Dick felt - in a physical sense - the injustice of the world; it abraded him, and saddened him in a way that's easy to underestimate given our own all-too-common detachment. At its best, Radio Free Albemuth evokes this physical, gut reaction to the ease and efficiency with which oppressive bureaucracies make the immoral moral, simply by substituting the inhuman needs of The State above the needs of the people. A day after some of the worst violence in Cairo, the government called the attacks on innocent protesters a mistake. They promised they would look into it. I got the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as I did at the climax of John Simon's cinematic adaptation.

One of the reasons the film evokes this feeling is the painstaking work Simon undertakes in building up Nick and Phil as characters. There's a scene in the movie where the two friends are shooting hoops in the gym. At first it struck me as an utterly un-Dickian scene. I can't, off the top of my head, think of any sports-related scene in PKD's irv (except of course isn't there a Dodger game near the end of Radio Free Albemuth, the novel?). As un-PKD as this scene first appears, it actually works, because it helps round out the characters. And this is a movie about characters. This is a movie about what happens to a friendship when one friend starts talking about crazy experiences. What happens to a marriage when one partner becomes convinced he's in communication with extra-terrestrials? How do loyalty and compassion work when it looks as if your friend has become un-moored from reality? These are important questions, and our answers to them tell us something about our own nature.

While VALIS is touted as the better novel - RFA is often just seen as a rough-draft of VALIS - RFA succeeds in focusing on the human elements of Dick's 2-3-74 experiences. While the human elements in VALIS are sometimes subsumed by the endless ontological riffing, Simon is able to forefront the human drama in RFA by building the narrative around Nick and Phil's friendship. As a result, the plot develops out of the characters rather than a science-fictional idea. This is one of the most interesting things that separates RFA from other adaptations of PKD's work: while Hollywood most often simply lifts one of PKD's SF concepts and grafts it into Keanu-Cruise computer-generated green-screen action flick with car chases, RFA eschews all of that in favor of the rich interpersonal drama of this friendship.

Amid all the high-stakes drama of the Egyptian protests and their foreign policy ramifications, it's easy to forget that what you are seeing on TV is a human drama, that the protests are made up not of demands but of people who want justice. Those aren't actors on your screen, and it isn't fake blood. It's an important thing to remember and Simon's adaptation of RFA in both form and content reminds us that this overarching concern with the human element in any situation is often at the core of Dick's fiction. I'm excited that one way or another, Dick-heads are going to get a chance to see this movie.

My 'Eureka' Moment

2011-01-26T21:57:00.001-08:00

Regular readers will remember the whole Did-PKD-See-It's-A-Wonderful-Life debate that's been simmering for the last couple of years. Read this post where I lay out the significance of the film in relation to PKD's irv.. Other scholars have taken note - and this certainly wasn't my idea - but there have also been doubters. Commenters on my various IAWL-related posts have said things like:

"Without looking it up I'd suggest that the theatrical showings of IAWL were during a period when Phil would have generally avoided going to public places such as movie theaters (the Sutin and Rickman biographies should have info concerning this) and I seem to recall that he was essentially a TV non-watcher at least until 1958 or so which would certainly decrease the probability that he saw IAWL on TV before writing "A Glass Of Darkness" or very early in his writing career. As far as I know, IAWL was never cited by Phil as an influence."

and this:

"What proof or evidence is there that he saw the movie, read the story, listened to the radio play or even read or heard about it?"

Readers were naturally skeptical. Both Kleo Mini and Anne Dick said the movie was far too schmaltzy for PKD's taste. It began to look like we'd never be able to prove that Dick was familiar with the film. Maybe you don't care if the story and Dick's work are connected, but, for me, the film offers a unique and useful lens through which we can view PKD's work.

So, today, while reading the final pages of We Can Build You I was rather blown away by the following passage:

Soon we were in a 'copter, the property of the Kasanin Clinic, flying above the rooftops of Kansas City. The air was cool and crisp and below us a million lights glowed in countless patterns and aimless constellations which were not patterns at all, only clusters.
"Do you think," I said, "that every time someone dies, a new light winks on in Kansas City?"

I immediately seized on this as a rather obvious reworking of the famous like in It's A Wonderful Life, "Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings." Interestingly, Louis Rosen is talking to members of the mental health corps, people who Louis seems to feel have saved him from suicide. Remember an angel stopped George Bailey from committing suicide in the film. Louis continues:

"Do you two know what would have happened to me," I said, "if there was no compulsory mental health program? I'd be dead by now. This all saved my life, literally."

Suffice it to say, I was pretty proud of myself. I thought I had found the proverbial missing link, and so I was eager to share my findings with some folks on the PKD litserv. British PKD scholar Andrew Butler, whose work I respect tremendously, responded quickly, pointing out that the line also seems to resonate with this line in Peter Pan:

"Every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

Could this be the end of our humble blogger's pet theory?

I think Butler's observation is quite astute. Let's look at the passage again:

"Do you think," I said, "that every time someone dies, a new light winks on in Kansas City?"

This 'witticism' (as Rosen terms it) seems to be suggesting that Kansas City is a kind of afterlife. If this is related to the bell ringing/angel winging notion of IAWL then Rosen seems to be suggesting that a person's death (like the ringing of the bell) results in something positive happening in heaven (AKA Kansas City) but this is ass-backwards, in other words Kansas City thrives on death. Its angels (the mental health corp) benefit not from saving people but by failing to save them. To me, this seems consistent with Dick's critique of the soulless psychiatric industry in the novel.

If the witticism is a reference to Peter Pan, Rosen seems to be suggesting a different kind of reversal. Here, instead of a fairy dying as the result of unbelief, death causes a light to come on. In other words, Kansas City thrives on death and faithlessness rather than on life and faith. Both interpretations capture the nihilistic despair Rosen seems to be feeling.

So, I'd say it's time to put It's a Wonderful Life back on my Netflix cue. And if you haven't seen it, you really should. Again, whether Dick is actually referencing the movie here is a lot less important than the insight the movie can provide into PKD's irv.

Commence to skepticizing in the comments.

But let's not forget that TV series pitch in Shifting Realities:

"TV Series Idea" (1967)

Location: The gray, foggy landscape of Heaven. "We Are Watching You, Inc.," a small guardian angel organization consisting of Anastasia Kelp, the owner, a Paul Douglas type; Miss Theola Feather, the phone operator, receptionist, and secretary; Morris Nimbleman, the research director; the protagonist, Herb DeWinter, in charge of field operations; Ludlow Orlawsky, sales manager; Fred Engstrom, repairman for the field equipment that Herb uses on his trips back and forth between Earth and Heaven. "We Are Watching You, Inc.," is a small outfit among several giants, but its record of bailing Earthlings out of jams is virtually 100 percent; it's a small but proud, fine old "handcrafted" firm, beset with worries

Stories From The Road

2011-01-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Well gentle readers, it's been quite a week. I spent a good portion of it in a recently-acquired 15-person Dodge van, on a short SoCal tour with my band. Needless to say, my current connection to reality - just two days post-trip - is tenuous at best. Therefore, I don't quite have the time or wherewithal to continue posting about We Can Build You, though I'm almost done with the book and furiously consulting a ouija-board and hyperbolic translators trying to figure out what Rickels has to say about the book. Here's a hint: while he agrees with my observation that Pris seems to resemble Binswanger's famous patient Ellen West, he also writes this sentence which basically takes the English language back behind the barn and shoots it:

"For the cybernetical technologist the creation of a robot brain unfolds as the progressive modulation of classical non-reflexive lawfulness of being through the transclassical lawfulness of reflection of his own ego, which is set up on the former as an overdetermination"

(cough, cough) Balzac says what?

Anyway, more on that later. Here's some cool stuff for the those of us still waiting for our neurons to return our calls:

Things are starting to happen over at PhilipKDickFans.com! Under the gentle webmasterage of Cal Godot, the site site has expanded and has a couple really cool offerings right now. First, you can download a pretty cool 2011 PKD-themed calendar prepared by David Hyde and Perry Kinman. Check it here. Even better, in my opinion is a newly-revised list of all the musical references in PKD's irv (download here). Perhaps we can use this to create the ultimate PKD Pandora station. But seriously, this is an amazing resource, one available to Dick-heads only because there are a bunch of hardcore fans out there without girlfriends. I kid.

Please note you have to be logged in as a regular user if you want to download this stuff from the philipkdickfans website.

Regular readers will no doubt recognize the handle Mr. Hand, a frequent commenter and good friend to this blog, who's smart as a whip and knows stuff about stuff I have never even heard of. Now Mr. Hand has got his own blog, PKD and Religion and he dominates! Perhaps when the neurons return my call I'll spend some more time over there.

I haven't even mentioned screening a blue-ray final cut of Radio Free Albemuth with director John Simon when I was down in LA (bloggership has its privileges). I will. But let me just say this about that: I am now a believer in this film and I will do everything in my power to get this film a distribution deal. Become the film's friend on Facebook (hit me and the band up while you're at it), write your congressmen, or local theater house, or your ultra-rich uncle. Tell people about this. Let's get the lamestream media involved!

And so, having reached my Palin-allusion-limit of the day, I am signing off.

Who Is Marjorie Morningstar?

2011-01-15T12:38:00.000-08:00

Returning to posts about We Can Build You, I just have a couple minutes today to talk about Marjorie Morningstar. I, for one, had never heard of the book, but it appears it was quite a hit when it was published in 1955. Dick writes:

"But Maury did not care about Bundy; he was still thinking only about his daughter. "I'll tell you what wrecked her," he said. "That goddam book Marjorie Morningstar."
"Why?" I said. It was terrible to see Maury slipping away like this, into these random, pointless expostulations. It resembled senility. The shock had been that great.
"That book," Maury said, "gave Pris the idea she could meet someone rich and famous and handsome. Like you know who. Like Sam K. Barrows. It's an old-country idea about marriage. Cold-blooded, marrying because it's to your advantage. The kids in this country marry for love, and maybe that's sappy, but at least it's not calculating. When she read that book she began to get calculating about love. The only thing that could have saved Pris--if she had fallen head over heels in love with some boy. And now she's gone." His voice broke. "Let's face it; this isn't a business only. I mean, it's a business all right. But not the simulacrum business. She wants to sell herself to him and get something back; you know what I mean, Louis." He shook his head, gazing at me hopelessly. "And he can give her what she wants. And she knows it."

So who is this Marjorie Morningstar? Slate magazine ran a story in 2005 called Marjorie Morningstar: The Conservative Novel That Liberal Feminists Love. Check out the whole thing, it's a good read. Here's a telling paragraph:

"She starts off as Marjorie Morgenstern, the beautiful, energetic, spoiled 19-year-old daughter of a Jewish family barely bourgeois enough to keep up with her. Through 556 of the book's 565 pages, Wouk successfully evokes her inner life as she rebels against expectations. Marjorie outgrows everything from her past—her Bronx boyfriend, her Jewish surname, even her mother's traditionalist messages about sex: "the strongest assault on her old convictions came from a most unexpected quarter: her own body." As she matures, she shakes off emotional and intellectual baby fat, finding in their place the muscles to interact with the world on her own terms."

Apparently, you can also see the film Marjorie Morningstar with Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood, and the Salon article talks about a Pacino remake with Scarlett Johanssen as Marjorie - let's not hold our breath.

I think a far more insightful paragraph comes from some random internet column on reliving the past. They suggest reading some classic 50's literature:

"'Marjorie Morningstar,' 'Peyton Place,' 'No Time for Sergeants.' You've heard of these books, all best sellers during the 1950s, maybe seen the movies. But have you read them?

Nothing captures the '50s better than curling up with a Scotch and water and a good book. Something like Sloan Wilson's 'The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,' a best seller in 1955, a film starring Gregory Peck in 1956, then forgotten -- until it was reissued in 2002.

"I must keep my suit neatly pressed like anyone else," the hero avers, "for I am a very respectable young man."

The novel is not, despite what its title might suggest, a mere cri de coeur against corporate conformity. It's about love, marriage, and the effect of World War II on a troubled veteran and on a troubled marriage. And it's about how husband and wife try to develop their own little suburban tract, with houses that are "modern, very low to preserve the view, with big windows overlooking the sound..."

Perhaps nothing in the book evokes the '50s more, however, than Wilson's slightly cynical yet almost paradisiacal portrait of a small Connecticut town whose residents know each other all too well""

Kleo Mini told me that The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was a big influence on PKD. Others have suggested Dick was inspired to the write the multi-foci plot of The Man in the High Castle by the similar structure of Peyton Place. It's becoming clear to me that Dick read widely from his contemporary mainstream fiction of his time, and this is just more evidence of the literary stuff Dick was trying in the early 60s: combining elements from contemporary fiction with science fictional settings. It's good to know that both Marjorie Morningstar and The Man in the Gray Flannal Suit are available on video. I think I'll add them to my Netflix queue.

Crosshairs Over VALIS

2011-01-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

Sadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that Jared Loughner, the mentally disturbed man who shot Congresswomen Giffords and a whole bunch of other people in Tucson last week, was a Philip K Dick fan (Though he does not list any PKD books in his favorite books section of a profile page) In yesterday's Washington Post a story recounts Loughner's contact with fringe culture. The money quote:

"Loughner's favorite writer was Philip K. Dick, whose science-fiction tales travel a mystical path in which omnipotent governments and businesses are the bad guys and the average man is often lost in an identity-shattering swirl of paranoia, schizophrenia and questions about whether the universe and the individual are real or part of some vast conspiracy."

The day before, conservative pachyderm John Podhoretz wrote this:

"[Loughner] may, in other words, have found his intellectual solace not in political ideology of any sort but rather in the false-reality fantasies of writers like Philip K. Dick, who all but invented a science-fiction genre about how the powerful have the rest of us living in a dream world in which we are manipulated. The most commercially popular version of this worldview is The Matrix, the 1999 film with Keanu Reeves as a computer hacker who discovers that he and all of humanity are actually trapped in a gigantic machine in which they are serving as energy sources for other machines.

The Dick view was, it turns out, quite literally out of the brain of a paranoid schizophrenic, as biographies of the writer himself reveal. But given that tens of millions have read Dick’s work and probably hundreds of millions of people have seen The Matrix and its sequels, not one frame of The Matrix nor one word in Dick’s hand can be blamed for the fact that they may have deepened one singular individual’s madness. As was true Saturday and as is true today, the villain is not “violent rhetoric” but the diseased and evil brain of Jared Loughner."

Max Fisher at the Atlantic called Podhoretz's theory one of the '5 Strangest Explanations for Jared Loughner's Attack'

In his own defense, or rather trumpeting some sort of vindication after the WaPo article, today Podhoretz writes:

"The point I was making is not that readers of Philip K. Dick, of whom there are many millions, are going to go out and shoot people. It’s that people who live in a disordered reality would be especially susceptible to a portrait of the world that suggests disordered realities are real and actual realities are false. That this notion seemed less plausible to many than that Loughner was driven to a murder spree by talk radio says a great deal about the reality distortions that grabbed hold of the minds of eager liberals over the past six days."

Ironically, while everybody was convinced that violent political rhetoric made Loughner snap - turns out he likes Phil Dick books. Will the angry villagers now hunt down the literary legacy of Phil Dick with pitchforks and torches because one of his fans lost it? I doubt it. But this makes me sad. This line in the WaPo story really hit me:

"He had friends, but then all of a sudden . . . he had nobody, and that's not a nice place to be."

Our community of Dick-heads is really pretty small. This guy certainly could have been part of it. The WaPo article concludes:

"Over the past two years, Loughner "was desperate to hang out with people," Montanaro said. "He'd just show up at our houses, call us constantly and would even pay for us just to get us to chill with him. It was rather annoying."

By last summer, evidence of Loughner's increasingly deteriorating mental state was littered across the electronic worlds he inhabited.

On one site, Above Top Secret, Loughner left dozens of posts with bizarre theories about U.S. currency, the Constitution and grammar. Finally, another regular on the site wrote back that "I think you're frankly schizophrenic, and no that's not an amateur opinion and not intended as an uninformed or insulting remark. I really do care. Seek help before you hurt yourself or others or start taking your medications again, please."

Loughner, known on the site as "erad3," responded, "Thank you for the concern.""

Dick was so incredibly prescient in seeing moments like these: real connections between people in 'artificial' realities. Dick is able to make it clear exactly how 'fake' consumerist culture can be. Dick's ultimate conclusion, in my opinion, is that these connections forge and ground our realities, rendering 'false' realities real. Our digital interactions are limited by our lack of physicality, but they are not rendered completely powerless either.

Reality, like home, is where the heart is. Sadly, for Loughner, there was no 'there' there. Loughner's rampage shows the effect of long-term isolation and alienation, the toll mental illness takes on the psyche, and the desperate, existential need we all have for connection.

We Can Re-Build You

2011-01-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Snapped from the Interaether by devoted Dick-head Laura, this twitpic, captioned "Phil hanging out, having a chat," was posted on January 5th 2011 by @hansonrobotics, an outfit that most recently made headlines when they misplaced the head of the their last PKD-bot on a transcontinental flight (Hanson Robotics subsequently sued the airlines and lost).

So, new head, I'm guessing.

Further research lead to the discovery of this tweet posted Jan. 4:

"We are excited to welcome the new Philip K. Dick robot to the Hanson family."

Then I discovered this video on YouTube, supposedly of the new PKD-bot. I wouldn't know; the video wasn't working when I visited. The caption reads:

"Hanson Robotics just rebuilt the Philip K. Dick Android! To replace the android that we lost in 2005, Dutch public broadcasting corporation VPRO sponsored this new robotic Phil. The robot is smarter and more sophisticated than ever, and is growing smarter all the time. Phil lives!!"

Hanson Robotics' website is not particularly helpful and I was unable to find any further info. But I did find this quote:

"This robot [I think they're talking about the Albert Einstein one] tracks faces and sound, percieves [sic] facial expressions, and mimics the user’s facial expressions. Our belief is that understanding human expressions can help to model human empathy and enable machine empathy."

Straight out of a Phil Dick book, man! Now I'm no cyberneticist, but that sounds like BS to me. Notice how that word 'understanding' suddenly pops up in the second sentence. 'Recognizing' and 'understanding' are not the same thing. Similarly, these machines demonstrate the difference between 'being alive' and 'being on.' Obviously we are a ways away from the technology depicted in We Can Build You, which, ironically, is set in the 1980s.

Here's some video of the PKD-machine 1.0.

But more to the point, now that Hanson Robotics has rebuilt their Philip K Dick automaton, I have to admit that this brings me no joy. I have no desire to meet it, to hear its canned responses to inane questions. The joy people seem to enjoy from these pale homo-imitations, whether they're at Disney Land, Chuck E Cheese, or pretending to be a quirky science fiction writer, comes not from the fact that these automatons mimic our behavior accurately, but that they mimic it at all. In other words, these robots get laughs whether their responses are uncannily human, or idiotically out of place.

These machines don't get any closer to consciousness than my answering machine, but I think we tend to see consciousness in something shaped like us. And that's weird and fascinating to me, but I'm not going to lose sleep imagining that sentient beings are being constructed and exploited against their will by Hanson Robotics. I prefer to imagine Hanson Robotics as a harmless, blooper-prone operation toiling away at the impossible while foolishly insisting it is almost within its grasp.

This new PKD-bot has a sort of Michael Savage-separated-birth-thing happening.

Diving Into We Can Build You

2011-01-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

I'm about a hundred pages into We Can Build You and am just loving it. This is a book I've read a number of times - even wrote pretty extensively on it in grad school (I'm looking for the file and hope to post it) - but, for some reason, I'm getting a lot more out of it during this read.

First off, pictured above and below is a mural Anne Dick made in the bathroom of her Point Reyes home during her marriage to PKD. I took the photo during one of my visits to Anne a year or so ago. This is the never-before-seen thing I mentioned in the last post.

This is how PKD describes the mural in WCBY:

"[Pris] was seated on the floor in the living room wearing pink pedal pushers. Her hair was cut short and in the years since I had seen her she had lost weight. Spread around her lay colored tile; she was in the process of cracking the tile into irregular pits with a huge pair of long-handled cutting pliers.
"Come look at the bathroom," she said, hopping up. I followed warily after her.
On the bathroom walls she had sketched all sorts of sea monsters and fish, even a mermaid; she had already partially tiled them with every color imaginable. The mermaid had red tiles for tits, one bright tile in the center of each breast" (23).

Apparently the tile mural was damaged a few years ago when a full-figured maid slipped in the tub while cleaning it and fell through one of the walls, but this has been repaired. One of the things that interests me about this book is the character Pris and how closely she has been associated with Anne, which of course makes sense, but when looking a little closer, I see the biographical origins of her character as more complex.

I think it's interesting that at one point, Dick ascribes his own psychological history to Pris. Louis narrates:

While he ate his breakfast Maury told me about her development. Originally she had been a withdrawn child, what they call encapsulated or introverted. She kept to herself, had all sorts of secrets, such as a diary and private spots in the garden. Then, when she was about nine years old she started having fears at night, fears so great that by ten she was up a good deal of the night roaming about the house. When she was eleven she had gotten interested in science; she owned a chemistry set and did nothing after school but fiddle with that--she had few or no friends, and didn't seem to want any.
It was in high school that real trouble had begun. She had become afraid to enter large public buildings, such as classrooms, and even feared the bus. When the doors of the bus closed she thought she was being suffocated. And she couldn't eat in public. Even if one single person was watching her, that was enough, and she had to drag her food off by herself, like a wild animal. And at the same time she had become compulsively neat. Everything had to be in its exact spot. She'd wander about the house all day, restlessly, making certain everything was clean--she'd wash her hands ten to fifteen times in a row" (32).

So, at this point I think it's an oversimplification to say that Pris is a depiction of Anne.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing what Rickels has to say about WCBY. As difficult as his prose is, I think he may be able to offer some insight. Specifically, I am intrigued by Louis Rosen's reaction to meeting the Stanton simulacrum: Louis begins to suspect he, himself, might be a simulacrum, a mechanical replacement of a man no longer living. This is odd to me. Many people with mental illness, especially paranoia and schizophrenia, see others as possible simulacra - this is actually quite common, and I think related to Viktor Tausk's notion of the "Influencing Machine" in schizophrenia. But Rosen's preoccupation with his own inauthenticity is different and I hope Rickels can point to a specific case study that features this idee fixe (as he does with Richard Kongrosian's phobic body odor in The Simulacra). Perhaps this may shed some light on Rosen's preoccupation. Rollo May wrote:

"I have described the human dilemma as the capacity of man to view himself as object and as subject. My point is that both are necessary -- necessary for psychological science, for effective therapy, and for meaningful living. I am also proposing that in the dialectical process between these two poles lies the development, and the deepening and widening, of human consciousness."

I think Pris shares a lot in common with Ellen West, one of Ludwig Binswanger's more famous patients. The problem is most of Binswanger's work is written in German so it's hard to study (interested parties should consult Rollo May's anthology on Existential Psychology Existence). You can read a very short account of West's life here. West was an anorexic who battled depression, but as a gifted poet she provided her analysts with incredibly vivid depictions of her mental illness and elements of these accounts appear almost verbatim in some of Dick's books. West talked extensively of a 'tomb world.' Boeree writes:

"Ellen, somewhere in her childhood, has split her life into two opposing camps: On the one hand there is the "tomb world," which includes her physical and social existence. Her body, with its low needs, distracts her from her purposes. It gets older every day. Her society is bourgeois and corrupt. The people around her seem oblivious to all the evil and all the suffering. In the tomb world, everything is degenerate and degenerating, everything is being pulled down, into the grave, into a hole.

On the other hand there is the "ethereal world," the world of the soul, pure and clean, a world where what needs to be done is done, where acts are effortless because unencumbered by the weight of matter. In the ethereal world, we can be free and fly.

There are some people who try to ignore the "ethereal world." They don't like the anxieties and responsibilities that come with freedom. Some would rather be told what to do, and so join a cult or a gang or a multinational corporation. But they are still frightened, because they know this isn't right. They are not living their life, and so they can never be happy" (read the rest here).

Like West, Pris battles weight loss and despair. Louis describes Pris:

"...the skinniness of her body put the capper on the effect: she looked to me like a dance of death creation animated in some weird way, probably not through the usual assimilation of solid and liquid foods . . . perhaps she chewed only walnut shells. But anyhow, from one standpoint she looked good, although unusual to say the least. For my money, however, she looked less normal than the Stanton" (23)

I'm going to stop here. Not that I don't have a lot more to say, but the first rule in blogging is 'Don't write too much because people won't read it'

Stay tuned for more, including the hidden double meaning in the title....

Now Read About Last Year (2010)

2011-01-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

I wish I could find this scene from the blooper reel to the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, during which Roy Scheider tries over and over again to get a ball-point pen to sit suspended in the air in a harness made of fishing line to try to depict the zero-g environment of space travel. Try as he might, the stupid thing will not stay. It's a nice metaphor for 2010, which felt at times like an endless blooper reel.

I thought we'd have seen both the Adjustment Bureau and Radio Free Albemuth adaptations in 2010, but neither materialized - though RFA made a strong showing at NYC's Gotham Screen Film Fest. Adjustment Bureau is now due out in Spring of 2011. So Inception was the closest we got to a PKD adaptation in 2010 - and it apparently was inspired by Scrooge McDuck. I actually plan on seeing the film this week and hope I can write something up about it.

Highlights of 2010 included:

The Philip K Dick festival was held in August 2010 in Colorado. Definitely my funnest vacation of the year. A great time was had by all of the dozen or so who showed up. (Does this mean we're only a year and a half away from the next PKD Fest scheduled for the Bay Area 2012?! Yikes!)

Word arrived that two new Exegesis volumes are headed our way.

The arrival Laurence Rickels's nearly-indecipherable book I Think I Am: Philip K Dick - a long-awaited examination of Dick's irv made by a shining star in the academic community which, like many things in life, straddles the line between clever literary analysis and opaque, post-Freudian academic wankery.

A new edition of Anne Dick's memoir Search for Philip K Dick, was released by Tachyon publications (with a new Introduction written by yours truly). A fun read, an important resource, and now... even easier to get...

Scott Timberg's pair of great articles about PKD: one about his time in Southern California and one about Anne and her memoir. The ratio between good, insightful articles about PKD and the glorified press releases we've read about PKD in the past is headed in the right direction.

Cornell University selected Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as their incoming freshmen read for 2010 and I made a fun trip to Ithaca to talk about the book at the local public library.

It was a great year for me personally. The New York Times article and my Introduction of Anne Dick's memoir are accomplishments I'm quite proud of, and I hope to be able to build on these in 2011.

What else is there to look forward to?

Another academic book about PKD! This one by Italian Dick-head Umberto Rossi who has been kind enough to share some of his work right here on this blog. I have high hopes for Rossi's book.

I can't think of anything else to look forward to... besides burritos and stuff. Oh and maybe this year we'll see Radio Free Albemuth in theaters in addition to Adjustment Bureau. That would be cool. If two PKD movies hit theaters this year, well, you know what that means: prepare yourself for the onslaught articles examining 'Hollywood's Fascination with the Unlikely King of Sci-Fiʼ...

This may sound insincere coming from a Total Dick-Head, but I couldn't do this without you, gentle readers, so keep those insightful comments and gossipy emails coming this year. In fact there's gonna be some really cool never-before-seen stuff.... in the very next post!

I almost forgot to mention that this blog has received the coveted Top Kidney Disease Blog award of 2010 from the prestigious Certified Nursing Assistant website, based (I'm guessing here) upon the number of times the word PKD appears (which for many, sadly, does not stand for Philip K Dick but Poly-cystic Kidney Disease). And this is like the most Dickian thing ever, right?! I mean this weird, grammatically-awkward operation, Certified Nursing Assistant is giving away awards based on a computer's misreading of subtle linguistic quirks! Oooh, and a banner!

CertifiedNursingAssistant.org

I heard a numerologist on right-wing radio (WTF?! Right?!) and she was saying that the eleven in 2011 is a door, and we can be whoever we want to be when we go through that door - and this is our year to do that. Phil Dick reminded us in his novels that time is door we can pass through in only one direction, no matter how hard we may try to do otherwise. So choose your two-thousand-and-eleven-door wisely dear readers.

We Can't Read It For You

2010-12-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

Other projects have kept me from my reading and, to be honest, I'm just a few pages into We Can Build You. I haven't delved into secondary sources yet either. Just want to kind of read the book with an open mind. I noticed a couple things right off the bat:

WCBY is written in the first person! I've never made a serious survey of the different perspectives Dick used and when, but stories of his written with the 'I' voice are not particularly common - especially during this period in Dick's career. According to most of the bibliographic studies, Dick wrote Man in the High Castle, then Martian Time Slip, then We Can Build You (Dick characteristically mis-remembers this ordering in his most famous interview with Paul Williams) - and of course WCBY hiked a long, painful road to publication. But PKD's blending of high-brow literary techniques and science fiction settings makes his writing particularly interesting to me.

Much like Galactic Pot-Healer (and many of Dick's other books) lots of PKD fans have mixed feelings about WCBY - the most common criticism being the slow pacing which makes the book boring for some. I have a new pet theory that the first-person narration may not allow the novel to switch perspectives, a technique Dick uses to keep his early books moving. Question for the comment section: Are there any other early novels written say after Man in the High Castle but before Ubik that are in the first person? Dick's most famous use of first person is in the remarkable personage of Angel Archer in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. What we may be seeing in WCBY is an early stab at the immediacy of the first person voice lifted from mainstream or high-brow literature and spliced into pulp-sf. This experiment may be boring for some, but I think the mundane aspects of the novel are precisely the place where it gets interesting.

We Can Build You is very autobiographical - from the very first organ ad seen in the paper which was inspired by PKD and Anne Dick's search for a piano in the house. And of course, there's the Jaguar:

"The Mark VII Saloon Model Jaguar is an ancient huge white car, a collector's item, with fog lights, a grill like the Rolls, and naturally hand-rubbed walnut, leather seats, and many interior lights. Maury kept his priceless old 1954 Mark VII in mint condition and tuned perfectly, but we were able to go no faster than ninety miles an hour on the freeway which connects Ontario with Boise."

Sutin writes: "For Phil, one of the greatest joys of his new "good life" was sports cars. [Phil and Anne] bought a used Peugot then traded it for a '53 white Jaguar Mark VII Saloon with a mahogany dashboard, gray leather upholstery, and a sunroof. Phil cranked it out to 96 MPH on the freeway."

Anne Dick writes a lot about the connection the autobiographical connections in We Can Build You and I'll get into those soon enough. For now, I just wanted to let you know I'm reading the book and should have more to say about it over the weekend.

Isn't One Remembering Enough?

2010-12-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

Word arrived today that production for the remake of Total Recall (which I've mentioned before) is kicking into high gear, in Canada! From Joblo.com:

"In an article over at The Toronto Star [they must mean this one, the one they didn't link to], it's revealed that Columbia Pictures' TOTAL RECALL remake is moving forward in earnest now, with production set to begin in March 2011. Shooting will take place at Pinewood Toronto Studios, a massive facility which was recently home to SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD and THE THING.

Len Wiseman is signed to direct, while the screenplay was penned by SALT scribe Kurt Wimmer. According to the article, the production will cost somewhere in the $200 million range. We still don't know if Colin Farrell will tackle the lead role; he's reportedly been offered the part, but we haven't heard much on that front since.

Also no word on whether or not the producers are going back to TOTAL RECALL's inspiration, Philip K. Dick's book "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", or if will more or less take its cue from Paul Verhoeven's film. Usually in a situation like this the studio always tries to con us with a "We're referencing the original source material more so than the movie" line; that's usually horseshit."

So, for me, the faithfulness of this adaptation boils down to whom they cast in the leading role. The Governator (though I'm glad to have his signature on my Masters Degree) was a terrible choice for the original role since it's written for a nebbish, pocket calculator operator like Richard Drefus, Dustin Hoffman, or the kid who played Screech on Saved By The Bell. Hey, maybe they could get one of the Degrassi kids to play Douglas Quail!

My guts says this film's going to be no truer to PKD's short story than the original film. That's my two cents, and I'm prepared to be spectacularly wrong. Electric Shepard Productions has nothing to do with this remake, so don't bother complaining about them in the comments section. Please reserve your wrath for Hollywood's current zero-risk strategy for making vapid crap that nobody likes, but lots of people still flock to see. No Tron disses - I haven't seen it yet!

I won't waste your time with an all-too-ubiquitous 'Why are there so many remakes" rants, but one does wonder - why are there so many remakes? I can only imagine that the film's producers are glued to this blog, so - please - suggest your leading actor in the comments section...

We Can Build You It Is!

2010-12-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

The results are in! I've just one last stack of essays to grade before diving into We Can Build You. A cursory search reveals there's been more written about WCBY than I would have first expected. So I will begin reading the book and gathering secondary sources for our upcoming discussion as soon as I get these essays out of the way.

Obviously, Ubik was a close second. Let's plan on getting to to that over the summer!

Happy 82nd Birthday PKD!

2010-12-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

Our favorite author would be 82 today. Kind of bittersweet, but I think we can all admit that Phil would never have lived to be 82, and if he had, a quick look at any number of today's news stories would probably kill him where he stood.

Winter Break Reading Project

2010-12-13T17:53:00.000-08:00

As I sit in my office with only one class remaining this semester, I can't help but start thinking about my Winter break. The plan is to write up a review of Rickels's book I Think I Am: Philip K Dick for the journal Science Fiction Studies. I also have some fiction of my own to revise and, of course, the band still takes up a lot of my time. But it's time to have another community read here at TDH. So, I'm going to ask for suggestions in the comments section. Personally, I'm hoping to read Ubik, Martian Time-Slip, We Can Build You, or Man in the High Castle. But I'd like to hear from you. We'll start reading the book a little before Christmas.

Previous community reads have included:
Galactic Pot-Healer
Maze of Death
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Vote early and often!! Our pick will be announced towards the end of the week...

New York Times Reviews Androids Stage Adaptation

2010-12-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

There was an interesting review of the staged adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in Dec 3rd's New York Times - usually a very trustworthy source. Here's the line that should indicate to readers that this writer has no idea what he's talking about:

"Ridley Scott’s 1982 “Blade Runner” is a stylish action movie starring Harrison Ford as Deckard, a bounty hunter in pursuit of coolly attractive androids. Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” the 1968 book it’s based on, is a very different novel of ideas, at its essence about an unhappily married man." The emphasis is mine, the knumbskullery is all theirs.

If that didn't dissuade you from reading the review, go here.

What to Expect From the Androids Onstage

2010-12-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

As you regulars know, there is currently a stage adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Alas, I have not been able to procure transit to the New York area, and in these troubled economic times no funding seems forthcoming. Luckily, reader Mark Rowe has generously offered an account of his experience seeing the play. Without further ado, here's Mark:

"I went to see it Saturday and thought I'd fill you in in case no one else had.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!!]

I've read the book twice and its been a year or so since the last time so some of my details on the book may be sketchy. The play is significantly closer to the book than Blade Runner, however does definitely veer from it.

The play opens with Luna (not Luba) Luft singing. While I did really like the play the music was way out there and I did not dig it.

Luna Luft is the primary android in the play. Roy Batty and Pris are in there as well but 'Luna' is the primary concern. Her being a celebrity also becomes a factor. She is seen singing on a number of occasions on the Buster Friendly show. She sings 'Mercer hymns', which I don't recall from the book. [and which is kind of weird since Buster is dedicated to Mercerism's undoing -ed]

Then the scene turns to Deckard, upset after just killing his electric sheep. I don't think he really gave a reason for killing it. He and his wife talk about the emotions they've dialed (with little gadgets around their heads). He calls Isidore at the Happy Dog Pet Shop and they talk prices for a real animal. And Bryant calls Deckard about the androids. They also have a version of the empathy box, where they open a large door with a screen on the front of it - so when they're inside you can see the actor along with projections of Mercer being stoned, walking with a tattered bloody shirt (the actor pretends to be dodging stones left and right).

Bryant has Deckard meet Rachel, Tyrell Corp is called Rosen Corp in the play. I think she said her father was Jeffery Rosen. She mentions her uncle Eldon Tyrell but they eliminate him as a character. Deckard gives her the Voigt Kampf test and asks the same questions regarding boiled dog, the poster of the naked lady etc...

I may be forgetting the order of things... But I think next was Isidore Pris meeting at JR's apartment. He talks about being a chickenhead and about all the androids being created on Mars - the media says "Everything's better on mars" but Pris says otherwise... at some point she gives herself away (fairly easily) as being an android. OH! and Pris is played by the same actress as Rachel. (I had hoped they'd come out with twin actresses towards the end but alas).

Deckard goes to meet Luna Luft (does not pretend to be someone else); he tries to give her the test but she distracts him and calls a cop (Bryant) and Bryant sends Phillipa Ryan. I was trying to recall the name Phillipa Ryan from the book but i couldn't find anything online...[sounds like a feminization of Phil Resch to me - ed]. I don't have my copy of the book readily available to flip through. She is the cop who arrests Deckard from Luna Luft's dressing room. She takes Deckard back to Bryant's office... Bryant says she's an andy and wants Deckard to kill her....[not in the book] in a standoff Bryant is killed and Phillipa reveals Bryant to be the android... There was also a blood test to prove who is and who isn't an android. I didn't recall that one in the book either. [That's the boneli test which can be performed only after the man/machine is dead]."

So at the point Bryant is revealed as an android - I'm hooked. But Luna Luft's singing keeps returning and that puts me off (even though her voice wasn't bad). So Isidore and Pris finally meet Roy Baty. Deckard kills Luna Luft whilst she is singing on TV, seemingly out of revenge for having gotten away from him the first time. Deckard's motive - while still regarding the $3k and his live animal is less driven by the 'law' with Bryant gone.

Buster Friendly is played by an actor (always while actually doing the show in studio with a camera). The fact that he kills her while on TV is made a big deal... Deckard is turned into a villian of sorts (a minor subplot) after killing everyone's favorite singer.

Deckard and Rachel meet up again and Rachel offers him money to kill Baty. There were a few 'fake' plot twists here and there that I can't recall - but something Rachel said to Deckard - which I can't completely remember - ended up not having anything to do with the actual plot. Another was when Pris I think mentioned Luna Luft to Isidore saying "I heard there are three (andys) of her around." Which wasn't true.

Deckard goes to Isidore's apt and finds Baty. Rachel also turns up. Baty and Rachel talk about a revolution and I'm sketchy on the details of the conversation, but it was as if Rachel was trying to fake out Baty ...Rachel then kills Baty.

There was another scene where Deckard comes back to kill Pris but Pris comes out dressed as Rachel (played by the same actress). He ends up killing Pris and is now distraught by having to do so. A kiss between Deckard and Rachel earlier in the play takes the place of their relationship and signifies the empathy Deckard has for the androids.

Deckard goes into Isidore's empathy box and two weeks later comes out of the empathy box at his home with a real turtle. Once his wife sees he's alive they talk about Mercerism a bit and wrap up the plot. Buster Friendly revealed Mercer to be an actor (I'm going out of order here sorry this was earlier). At the end Deckard's wife says Buster Friendly presented android parts belonging to Deckard, telling the world that Luna Luft's killer was Deckard, an andy. So Deckard is off the hook.

All in all I really liked it - there was some dialogue that hit you over the head a little hard regarding empathy and the book's message. But I loved seeing it presented on stage. My wife enjoyed it as well and she won't read an entire PKD novel (I've tried to get her to)."

Thanks Mark! This certainly sounds interesting, and no I'm not being evasive at all.
All you NYC locals, keep us posted!
I found this slide-show on the production company's website. Check it out.

Interview with Androids Stage Director

2010-11-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

Tor.com has posted an interview with Edward Einhorn, the director of the stage adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? currently running in New York City. In a recent post I may have hinted that the producers of this were on a different page, what with the mock 'Save the Androids Fundraiser', but even a cursory glance at this interview reveals that Einhorn has zeroed in on the book's central theme. Here's an important excerpt:

DB: What drew you to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And what inspired you to adapt it for the stage?

EE: I read the book after I had already seen Blade Runner, and I was struck by how different it was—and to my mind, better. The thing that intrigued me about it was Mercerism, empathy, and their relationship to the symbol of the electric sheep—none of which appeared in the movie at all. The movie is of course an entity in itself, and groundbreaking in its own way, but it didn’t capture the heart of what the book said to me.

Then I read about one of Dick’s inspirations—he had read a Nazi journal in which an SS officer complained about not being able to sleep because the crying of the children in the concentration camps kept him awake. Instead of empathizing with the suffering of the children, the officer only saw them as a nuisance that disturbed his sleep. Dick started thinking of people who lacked any sort of empathy as androids. To me, the book is all about how the process of war and killing (or being enslaved) makes people into androids, and Mercerism is all about resurrecting that spirit inside. Deckard is a character who is losing his own humanity because of his job.

This theme seemed to resonate perfectly with our mission, which as I said, is to be a Theater of Ideas. It also reminded me of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, which I staged some years ago. During World War II, as Ionesco saw fellow colleagues succumb to anti-Semitism, he started envisioning those people as rhinoceroses, losing their humanity to a herd instinct. That connection made Do Androids Dream… seem all the more perfect material for us."

Make sure to read the rest here.

I talk about that concentration camp journal too, where does PKD discuss that, is it mentioned in Sutin?

Stay tuned, in the coming days we will have a sort of a preview/review of the show written by one of our faithful readers!

Obsessive Blogger Featured in The New York Times

2010-11-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

Not just any obsessive blogger - me! The New York Times is running a great piece by Scott Timberg about Anne Dick's newly-released edition of The Search for Philip K Dick. Apparently the Times felt a little weird linking to a blog titled Total Dick-Head, but we have seen a spike in hits from the Google Search "David Gill, blog" so some fans are going the extra click to get here. Welcome! Timberg has posted some really good outtakes from his interviews with Lethem and me on his Misread City blog. Check it out. I'm going to update my CV! Buy the book at Amazon:

What Ever Happened To...

2010-11-22T10:40:00.001-08:00

Picture: It's definitely NOT this Matthew Wilder....

Remember movie director Matthew Wilder's William J Frick bio-pic, Your Name Here? Well, last I heard from him he promised we'd see the film released in a revolutionary way. A few days later he de-friended me on Facebook. Where is he now?

He's working on this. From Eonline:

"You snooze, you lose. You violate probation and have to take an extended stay in rehab...you lose.

Despite previous assurances that the production was ready and waiting for Lindsay Lohan, Inferno director Matthew Wilder exclusively tells E! News that his Linda Lovelace biopic is moving on without the troubled star.

[...]

"We are withdrawing our offer from Lindsay Lohan," Wilder says. "We are currently in negotiations [with another actress] and working out the legalities of bringing her onboard."

In fact, E! News will exclusively announce Monday which "amazing actress" is replacing Lohan as Lovelace.

So what finally prompted Wilder, who sang Lohan's praises as an actress and as a promoter when she was in Cannes to help sell the film (which ultimately landed her in hot water), to give up on the 24-year-old actress?

"We have stuck by Lindsay very patiently for a long time with a lot of love and support," Wilder says. "Ultimately, the impossibility of insuring her—and some other issues—have made it impossible for us to go forward.""

I have watched Your Name Here and it's not an easy film to sum up. Now that Wilder's moved on to other projects perhaps it's time to dig it out and write up a review...

King Felix, Revealed

2010-11-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

From VALIS:

#18. Real time ceased in 70 c.e. with the fall of the temple at Jerusalem. It began again in 1974 c.e. The intervening period was a perfect spurious interpolation aping the creation of the Mind. "The Empire never ended," but in 1974 a cypher was sent out as a signal that the Age of Iron was over; the cypher consisted of two words: KING FELIX, which refers to the Happy (or Rightful) King.

Yahoo News:

A Little Good News

2010-11-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

It doesn't take much more than a quick look around to realize our society is far from being a true meritocracy. Seriously, PKD himself toiled in obscurity while lesser authors were enshrined by our society. Dick's friend KW Jeter has never been given proper respect as one of the forefathers of cyberpunk. But, in a nice turn of events, the makers of the Pirates of the Caribbean juggernaut are using Tim Powers' novel On Stranger Tides as the basis for the fourth film in the series! To be completely honest, I've never seen any of these movies so I don't really know if they're any good or not. My students sure write about the films though. Either way, this deal probably means Powers has a nice little chunk of change in his pocket and perhaps even more clout as a writer. I met Powers and found him to be one of the nicest, funniest, best-hearted people I've ever met. It was easy to see why PKD found him such a great friend.

Anyhoo, there's a great article in UC Fullerton's daily paper about Powers and James Blaylock, another Fullerton alum and PKD scotch party attendee. Oh, and lest you think this post is only tangentially connected to PKD, he gets some cool attention in the interview. I particularly like this quote from Powers:
“He gave me a few early pages in VALIS while he was in typing,” Powers said. “From the other room he’d shout, ‘How do you spell nuclear?’ I’d tell him. ‘How do you spell Eliot?’ I told him. Then I said, ‘This looks really good, Phil. I’m gonna leave. I’ll let myself out.’ And then when the book was published, it was fun to see nuclear and Eliot right in the same paragraph. That was the paragraph he was typing when I was there.”

So, I did a little research and found the part of VALIS that Powers is talking about. What's interesting is that it's much more than just a paragraph. Clearly, PKD got a couple pages done while Powers was in the other room:

"The one about the nuclear wastes that contaminated most of central Utah," I said. "That disaster the newspapers reported two years ago but TV was afraid to talk about; the government put pressure on them. Where all the sheep died. The cover-story that it was nerve gas. Rockoway did a hardball film in which the true tale of calculated indifference by the authorities came out"
"Who starred?" Linda said.
"Robert Redford," I said.
"Well, we would be interested," Linda said.
"So we should get back to southern California," I said. "We have a number of people in Hollywood to talk to."
"Eric!" Linda called; she walked toward her husband, who stood with Kevin; he now had Kevin by the arm.
Glancing at me, David made a signal that we should follow; together, the three of us approached Kevin and Eric. Not far off, Sophia ignored us; she continued to read her book.
A flash of pink light blinded me.
"Oh my God," I said.
I could not see; I put my hands against my forehead, which ached and throbbed as if it would burst.
"What's wrong?" David said. I could hear a low humming, like a vacuum cleaner. I opened my eyes, but nothing other than pink light swam around me.

"Phil, are you okay?" Kevin said.
The pink light ebbed. We were in three seats aboard a jet. Yet at the same time, superimposed over the seats of the jet, the wall, the other passengers, lay the brown dry field, Linda Lampton, the house not far off. Two places, two times.
"Kevin," I said. "What time is it?" I could see nothing out the window of the jet but darkness; the interior lights over the passengers were, for the most part, on. It was night. Yet, bright sunlight streamed down on the brown field, on the Lamptons and Kevin and David. The hum of the jet engines continued; I felt myself sway slightly: the plane had turned. Now I saw many far-off lights beyond the window. We're over Los Angeles, I realized. And still the warm daytime sun streamed down on me.
"We'll be landing in five minutes," Kevin said.
Time dysfunction, I realized.
The brown field ebbed out Eric and Linda Lampton ebbed out. The sunlight ebbed out.

Around me the plane became substantial. David sat reading a paperback book of T.S. Eliot. Kevin seemed tense.
"We're almost there," I said. "Orange County Airport."

Congratulations Tim! Couldn't happen to a nicer guy!

Save the Androids Fundraiser

2010-11-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Pictured: "Deckard Retires Polokov" by Mark G Taber

I got this email today from the folks putting on the stage production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. There was no plane ticket enclosed for me - sad. But of course I understand in these troubled times just putting on a show can tap anybody out - just ask Meg Whitman.

Anyhoo, the press release is about a fundraiser and reads, in part:

"UNTITLED THEATER COMPANY #61 TO HOST FUNDRAISER
TO FREE ANDROID SLAVES ON MARS

...

On December 4th, 2010 Untitled Theater Company #61 (UTC61) will host a benefit for the Free the Androids movement, a movement devoted to the plight of the enslaved androids on Mars. UTC61’s current production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a stage adaption of the Philip K Dick novel, which runs at 3-Legged Dog November 18th through December 12th was the inspiration for the fundraiser. Proceeds may also be used to help benefit the theater company.
When asked what first led him to consider the plight of artificial intelligence, Artistic Director Edward Einhorn said, “The more I dug into the material, the more aware I became of the plight of androids on Mars. We on Earth know only those androids who have escaped and gone rogue--driven rogue, I should say, by their enslavement. Mercer teaches us empathy for sheep, but what of electric sheep? What of electric humans? Empathy should extend to all.” When asked to comment on the rumor that Buster Friendly himself would leave his studio to appear at the event, Einhorn declined to respond but did note that “This will be a bounty hunter free zone. Androids can feel free to attend with an assurance of their own safety." All androids and sympathizers are welcome to come dressed for the occasion."

Are other readers getting the distinct impression these guys aren't exactly on the same page? I mean, yes, the androids in the novel tug occasionally at the heart strings, but should we, as future humans, be spending our hard-earned status rations on saving these guys and gals? We suddenly find ourselves awash in the complexity and moral ambiguity of Dick's novel. Sure the androids got it bad, but Deckard's got it worse. I mean really, the fundraiser ought to be raising money to pay for Deckard's future therapy. After realizing "the electric things have their lives, too," surely Deckard will need to spend some serious couch time coming to grips with all the andys he's retired in the past.

What good are these funds raised for the androids? Are you going to buy the robot slaves from their masters and set them free to amputate spider legs from the Shoulder of Orion to Tannhauser Gate? Seems like a bad idea.

Even though this staged production is supposed to be more faithful to the book than the cinematic adaptation Blade Runner, these folks seem to be inverting the book's moral much the way Ridley Scott changed the film to reflect his optimism about robots (rather than Dick's cynicism about humanity). Sure, the androids are victims. Of course Rosen/Tyrell are selfish capitalists, blind to the plight of their creations (symbolized brilliantly in the film by Tyrell's thick glasses), but the novel is not, for instance, a civil-rights novel like Invisible Man (it is that, in part, but more). The goal of the novel is not just to identify with the robotic otherness of the androids, but to see the way using something's 'otherness' to justify an action erodes our humanity. Part of the subtle irony of the novel is that the androids serve to illustrate Deckard's apathy, his lack of empathy, rather than telling us anything about the nature of artificial intelligence. Instead of focusing on the victimization of the slave, the novel explores the dehumanizing effect of being a master.

Don't get me wrong. I think this stage production looks interesting. We should feel sorry for the androids. They are pathetic. But Deckard's pathos is worse; his moral identity was forged in the fires of an apathetic culture and his dehumanization is worse, for he was, once, human.

Exit Dreaming Androids, Stage Left

2010-11-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

Our old friend anonymous dropped this bombshell of a link in our comments section the other day. A theatrical production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Looks like this'll have about a three-week run in New York from November 18th to December 11. Dear production people, you should fly me out for this. I could probably get you some good press. Hopefully, if you're in the New York area, you can check this out, and write it up for us not privileged to live in the center of the free world.

From the production's website:

An adaptation of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi classic about androids and a bounty hunter, Rick Deckard, who loves them/loves to kill them. The book inspired the film Blade Runner, but this adaptation returns to the original novel's ideas about a post-apocalyptic world seeking resurrection through the rediscovery of empathy. The production uses innovative video techniques to blur the lines between humanity and technology, finding the soul within the machine..