Enthralling Books: Do Androids Dream Edition

 It's been a busy week here, dear readers, as I've been working on this essay for Boingboing's series: Enthralling Books. Anyway, I wrote about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and my essay is now up. Read it here.

A Polaroid is Worth 276 Words

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.

About That "Empathy Test" Of Yours

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!)

Save the Androids Fundraiser

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.

Photo of the Day: Halloween Edition

Whoever these people are, they are cooler than me! Happy Halloween!

From Our WTF? Deparment

A student of mine recently ordered a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for class online, and when it arrived he became suspicious, since the page numbers I was assigning didn't match up with the chapter breaks in the book. Turned out the student had mistakenly ordered a 'Oxford Bookworms' edition of the novel (pictured above). After some additional research, I discovered that the Oxford Bookworms Collection takes novels and abridges them both for length and to fit particular reading levels.

All fine and well, of course, (I guess) but Amazon does not make it clear that this is an abridged version, or that it differs in any way from Dick's novel. Bad enough, but then I started reading the Amazon reviews of this edition. It's almost like they'll let anybody write these reviews. Here's a paragraph that I think indicates serious damage has been done to the reviewer's corpus callosum:

"Unfortunately for Isidore, and Deckard too, it's beyond question that androids are in fact incapable of empathy, of identifying with others and comprehending their lives. They abandon each other in danger, torture animals out of curiosity, and sacrifice humans at the merest hint of trouble. (Of course, there are humans who do that, too, and there's something dangerously innocent about PKD's assumption that empathy is a universal human characteristic, but it's his book.) More to the point, although this lack of empathy makes the androids dangerous, it also makes Deckard's job all the more devastating to his conscience once he discovers that, as a human, he has feelings of empathy for the androids. Can he eliminate the android threat and still retain his own humanity?"

Wow, just wow. Of course the androids in the book repeatedly demonstrate the ability to empathize. Furthermore, Deckard is proof that many humans don't possess any ability to be empathetic, unless they are forced to acquire it, painfully, and with great suffering. 'Can he eliminate the android threat and still retain his own humanity?' Is that serious question? Because the answer is that nothing in his human nature demands that he not kill androids. Deckard's morality doesn't evolve out of necessity, or because it's a latent condition of his being, but out of struggle. Deckard's humanity is equally demonstrated in his desire to kill the andys, complete his assignment, and buy himself a nice animal as it is in his final realization that 'electric things have their lives too, paltry as those lives are.' Not only can't this reviewer affix his review to the proper edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, he also appears unable to process moral ambiguity.

At the end of the Bookworks edition there are some reading questions. Check these out (not liable for the desire to poke yourself in the brain with something sharp that these may elicit from you):

This novel has a mysterious title. What do you think it tells you about the story?

What do you remember most at the end - the fake toad or Iran's changed behavior towards Rick? What does that suggest?

Is there any hope at the end of the novel?

The film Blade Runner ends with Rick (who is divorced) and Rachel Rosen deciding to spend whatever is left of their lives together. Do you prefer that ending, or the one in the book?

Blade Runner Web-Based Prequels Announced

io9.com recently detailed plans underway by Ridley Scott and his brother to develop prequels for Scott's 1982 magnum opus Blade Runner. That sensation you're feeling is, I believe, cynical trepidation. But there's hope: YOU (riders of the Intertoobz) will have direct control over these webisodes, as you'll be voting on the plot points.

Some paid person at io9.com writes:

"Scott, along with his brother Tony and son Luke, are teaming up with the independent studio Ag8 to produce Purefold. Ag8 previously produced the British web series Where Are The Joneses?, which asked viewers to write and submit the further adventures of the title characters. Purefold will use a similarly interactive format, as it unfolds in five to ten minute shorts driven by reader input culled from the social aggregator site FriendFeed. Although the series will debut on the web, there is some hope it will ultimately make its way to television."

The article continues:

"The producers of Purefold don't have the rights to Philip K. Dick's original novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, which provided the basis for Ridley Scott's film. As such, the series definitely won't be featuring any of Blade Runner's characters or specific situations, although I'm still holding out hope we'll finally get to see what's so damn unbelievable about attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Or C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate, for that matter."

And, if you thought it couldn't get any stupider, here is the final straw....

"What Purefold definitely will have, however, is product placement, as RSA Films is bringing in a number of advertising and marketing agencies to help secure funding for the project. Considering what happened to companies that had their logos prominently featured in the original film, such as Bell, Pan Am, and Atari - they all went bust - I'm not sure if that's really a good idea."

Is there any way I could vote for this not to happen at all?

What To Get The Bounty Hunter That Has Everything

Rick Deckard's laser blaster, pistol zapper thingy is up for auction over at Profiles in History. For somewhere in the 6-figure range you can run around your apartment pretending to hunt vicious androids with a prop that was in a movie!

But damn if that gun doesn't steal one scene: you know the one where all you see is the gun against the wall as Deckard hunts Batty, and Batty says. "Come on Deckard, show me what you're made of." Good stuff.
From the auction site:

"(Warner Bros., 1982) Arguably one of the single most important weapons in Science Fiction history is the hero firing blaster used by Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to "retire" replicants in Ridley Scott's timeless Sci-Fi classic Blade Runner. While few rubber stunt guns have surfaced in the collector's market over the years, this particular Hero-blaster has been thought to have been lost for decades. Purchased by Hollywood Marketing specialist Jeff Walker, in a sale by the film's production company after filming had wrapped, this iconic piece has been in Walker's private collection for over 25 years. It was briefly displayed at a convention around the time of Blade Runner's 25th Anniversary and immediately caused a frenzy among Sci Fi fans, who had never thought to ever see the “holy grail” of Sci-Fi weapons in person.

Only one hero firing weapon was made for the production which was created by mating a Steyr-Mannlicher Model .222 SL receiver on to a Charter Arms .44 police bulldog double-action revolver. It features custom amber grips, dual triggers, and futuristic illuminating LEDs (four red and two green) that can be activated by a small switch mounted beneath the barrel.

Besides its cult-classic status and tremendous re-release success on its 25th Anniversary, Blade Runner is a leading example of the neo-noir genre and is regarded by its director as one of his most complete and personal films. It has been selected by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". It is also ranked by the American Film Institute and Time Magazine as one of the “100 All-TIME best movies” and the popular British movie magazine Empire voted it the "Best Science Fiction Film Ever" in 2007. This blaster is most likely the most representative artifact for this important contribution to cinematic history."

Rare Blade Runner Script Drafts Unearthed

In an ironic twist of fate, today I'm actually writing about something someone posted on i09.com, specifically, this heavily-researched and annotated post dissecting Blade Runner's ending as it appears in several different versions of the script, including a new draft by Hampton Fancher recently unearthed (or manufactured) by Keebler nerds working deep underground.


First they present an excerpt from Fancher's July 24, 1980 draft:

"Roy Batty dies. (And instead of that awesome speech, his last line is, "Crap.") Deckard drags himself to his car and goes home to find Rachael. They get in Deckard's car and drive out to the countryside, while Deckard's voiceover talks about how they had a lovely day and he taught her a song about monkeys and elephants. And then Deckard takes her out in the snow and shoots her in the head. If he hadn't done it himself, they would have done it, his voice-over explains. But now Deckard can't go back to the city, and he's no longer sure what's really real. Maybe nothing is. He drives off. The end."

Then another excerpt from the December 22, 1980 draft:

It's the day after Deckard kills Batty, and he's in his apartment with Rachael. Bryant shows up at Deckard's apartment, and they talk on Deckard's vidphone. But Deckard won't let Bryant in. Deckard insists he's alone, but Bryant can tell Deckard is lying. Bryant warns Deckard that Gaff is ambitious. There are long pauses while Deckard tries to figure out what Bryant means, and then he gets it. Deckard finds Gaff staking out his apartment, and almost shoots Gaff. But Deckard says (in a voice-over!) that he's tired of pulling triggers. So instead Rachael and he sneak out and go out to the countryside. Rachael makes Deckard pull over because she's never seen snow before. They talk about Roy Batty, and how he made Deckard realize every moment is precious. Rachael says it's the happiest day of her life, then she begs Deckard to shoot her. He does. Then he drives off, realizing it's too late for him to get away. "They wouldn't give me papers for the Colonies even if I wanted them." He wonders who designs "the ones like me." As Deckard stares at the sky, he concludes his voiceover:

The great Tyrrell hadn't designed me, but whoever had, hadn't done so much better. 'You're programmed too,' she told me, and she was right. In my own modest way, I was a combat model. Roy Batty was my late brother.

The end.

Then, finally, they present an ending from the February 23, 1981 version:

Deckard and Rachael are in Deckard's apartment. He asks her if she loves him, and if she trusts him, and she says yes. He packs some stuff and they head for the elevator, but he sees a tiny unicorn made of tinfoil: "Gaff's gauntlet." Then Deckard drives through the woods at 160 miles per hour. Deckard and Rachael smile at each other, but a blip flashes on the vidscreen of Deckard's car. Deckard puts the tinfoil unicorn on the dash. Deckard's car zooms through the woods, and he gives us a last voice over:

I knew it on the roof that night. We were brothers, Roy Batty and I! Combat models of the highest order. We had fought in wars not yet dreamed of... in vast nightmares still unnamed. We were the new people... Roy and me and Rachael! We were made for this world. It was ours!

And then the camera pans up above the woods and we see Gaff's spinner, chasing them. The script says: "CREDITS ARE ROLLING, God help us all!" The end.

If you still think Deckard's not an android, perhaps you'd be interested in a bridge I have to sell you.

Rare Blade Runner Production Shots

Some guy on myspace had all these cool covers posted on his page. It's interesting to glimpse the way the movie was marketed, not to mention how antiquated everything looks just 25 years later. As you probably guessed, I'm still quite busy, trying to grade papers and get a band going (Bay Area drummers please shoot me an email), so this is a just a quick post to tide you all over.


My students are reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? right now and I have been meaning to post something on the book, so stay tuned, hopefully in the next couple of days I will explain exactly why calling Deckard an android is an insult to androids.