“It Learned Mouse” or, I am such a Geek

Random lines of fiction surfacing today, but without context.

“It learned mouse.”

An isolated quote in a forgotten file lurking on a, until recently, nonfunctional laptop. The file itself reads as a dissertation prospectus, and one that is actually interesting to me now in a way that it clearly wasn’t at the time. The mouse references puts in mind Wen Spencer’s “Ukiah Oregon” series, but the writing itself is not the proper style for those novels. The sentence has more the feel of China Miéville’s work, but not one of his novels; more likely this is from the short story “The Familiar.” Lovely, creepy story – must locate the book and reread the story to see if my memory has actually decided to stand up and be counted for once. Ah, the dissertation prospectus that was wrestling not with representations of the fragmented self in post-cyberpunk science fiction, but rather a fractal self – a coherent individual who, depending upon angles and outside influences, switches among selves as necessary or appropriate.

Uh huh … fascinating, but ultimately worth what in the grand scheme of things? That may have been one of my biggest obstacles in grad school – it was (almost) all interesting, but had very little relevance to daily life. Or, as one of the women in my political science grad cohort said after she left the program, “Just try telling one of these homeless guys that you have to run a regression analysis before he exists. He’ll kick you right in the Chi-squared.” What I learnt my first semester of undergrad: the Greek alphabet. Three suite-mates rushing various sororities and I was the one who ended up learning the antiquated alphabet. Go figure. It does help to make me hell on wheels with crossword puzzles.

I finally have (almost) everything squared away for the spring/summer menu changes, have ordering, scheduling, and inventory streamlined, and have given myself permission to bring a book to work for those lovely afternoon slumps between lunch and dinner. There really is only so much preparation and cleaning that can be done during this time before you find yourself cleaning perfectly clean shelves. Boredom, tedium, desuetude – these are not good looks on me. I once quit a job because the level of desuetude far exceeded the engagement and activity opportunities.

Having been away from grad school for a couple of years, I find myself strangely drawn back to the theory texts that I always loved, but couldn’t bring myself to read once they became assignments. This isn’t a grad school specific problem, either. For as long as I can remember, the moment something became assigned, I was absolutely dead-set against reading it. Oddly enough, this came to include materials that I assigned to my own students. If I didn’t finish all of the reading before the course started, I was in deep trouble. Example: I once taught the first “Ukiah” book, Alien Taste, in a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy, but didn’t read the book myself during that three month period. I absolutely love those books, but simply couldn’t get past my mental block to actually read the damn thing.

Given the wide range of books out there, what have I chosen for my “work book” this month? Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. Right now it is fun and lovely to read. Yep … that fairly well laminates me in the geek category.

Actually, this feels like the precursor to a summer reading trend. I always have several books that I’m reading at a time, but frequently there is a thread of continuity that runs through the books. One book will suggest the next, which then shapes my subsequent selection, and so forth. This theme feels like one of theoretical texts and novels that then embody or illustrate these thought systems. Foucault will inevitably lead to Delaney’s The Mad Man. That, in turn, will likely lead to revisiting Marx (either Das Kapital or “Communist Manifesto” and “The Eighteenth Brumaire”). The accompanying fiction will be Miéville, probably Perdido Street Station and the short story “Jack”. In fact, that choice will be influenced as well by what I’m leaning toward as the follow-up theory/fiction combination. If my mood is waxing epic, then I’ll likely switch out Perdido Street for Iron Council and movement toward Clive Barker’s Imajica and Edward Soja’s Third Space; the more economic my groove, the more likely that Perdido Street will remain, to be followed by Richard K. Morgan’s Market Forces and the relevant international economic and post-colonial theories. Either way, “Jack” will remain in the picture.

“Jack” is an amazing story in which the dominant structures in the New Crobuzon power system literally creates the means, if not of its own destruction, then of its own radical destabilization. The Remakers craft with the tools of the penal system the Remade who becomes Jack-Half-a-Prayer. One of Jack’s Remakers is conscious of his role in the creation of Jack’s rebellion. The penal system literally remakes the bodies (human and otherwise) in the image of its own punishment, but in so doing creates a group of people, many of whom are uniquely equipped for jobs and employment in the New Crobuzon labor market. In some ways, then, the Remade represent the roots not only of the prevailing system’s inherent weakness, but also the economic forces by which that change or destabilization shall occur. They represent a new form of labor – one that the capitalist/ruling economic class of the old/current system cannot either become or embrace without placing themselves, in the moment of conversion/inclusion, by default outside the “normal boundaries” of the system within which they previously exercised power.

In this sense, then, the penal system of New Crobuzon is not just an exercise of power or a node within which power is concentrated (or through which power flows), but it is also a point in which power becomes diffused out of the networks or wills of the system that created those very power pathways. Nowhere does this diffusion of power become more evident than aboard the ship in The Scar. Here there is an even further transition as being Remade in specific ways becomes not merely acceptable, but highly desirable and something which individuals in some social classes/circles begin to aspire. Being Remade evolves into a necessary and sufficient condition of employment in key arenas in the functioning of the ship city.

Eep! This is coming dangerously close to linking with Soja’s Third Space as well as suggesting that more Foucault may be in order. What I really want, however, is to find the fiction link that will let me justify rereading Herbert Marcuse’s Three-Dimensional Man. Hmm, that will take some pondering.


Wow! You made it this far?!? You’re still reading???


Geek.


A little reward is in order for your persistence, delusions, or ability to scroll in your sleep: the story, in brief, of how Mr. Mossy Oak also came to be known as Hickey Boy.

After finishing his delivery one Friday, Mr. Mossy Oak was on his way toward the back door, but had to pass by the Baroness in order to do so. Just as he passed she took one look at his neck and exclaimed, “Whoa! Your woman put one hell of a hickey on your neck last night!” Needless to say, that stopped him in his tracks. Then she looked a bit closer. “That’s not just one hickey! There must be half a dozen there. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t all made by the same woman. No way that one,” she said, pointing, “could be made by the same size and shape mouth as the one that made these two. And these! That woman must be half octopus!”

Poor guy, he was absolutely beet-red by this time, but he managed to paste on a silly grin, square his shoulders and say, “Sweetheart, it was a long night, but I bet she would have nothing on you.” The Baroness started laughing and said, “Bye-bye cutie. You drive safe Hickey Boy, and maybe she’ll give you another busy night tonight.”

Sometimes geekdom has its own debauched rewards.