Skitse: Der er en dreng, der læser fantasy. Og der er en bibliotekar, der også er en heks.
Er det science fiction? Så afgjort ikke.
Temaer: Drengen har brug for noget. En form for terapi, den almindelige verden ikke kan tilbyde. Han passer ikke ind.
Mens han prøver at overleve, prøver ikke at have det så skidt, så læser han forskellige bøger, jeg kender. Mine eksemplarer hvisker dog ikke noget, så vidt jeg ved.
Er det godt? Det er jo altid rart at blive enig med forfatteren, ja, det her er en god bog. Og det er rart at have øje for dem, der lider, prøve at hjælpe dem. Jeg kedede mig dog lidt undervejs.
Note: Novellen er nomineret til en Hugo. Så selvfølgelig anmelder jeg den.
So, I’ve already said a great deal about the podcast Post Atomic Horror. But I’d like to say more! So here’s an episode guide, I’m working on.
I include quotes and such, but most of the time only in keyword form.
I include the date, because I find it easiest to find the corresponding blog post with that info.
I include errors and stuff, because you (the fan) might wonder: Don’t they get the facts wrong here? Isn’t there a lot of noise in this episode? Then the guide will say: You are right.
“In our exhibition catalogue, Alondra Nelson refers to the seminal Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stephchildren” (1968) featuring a kiss between Captain James T. Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, the first interracial kiss on US television. There’s also the subsequent year’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969) which I distinctly remember seeing as a re-run as a child in the 1980s: Lokai and Bele are two — literally — half-white, half-black aliens, but their color separations are mirror images of one another. The final scene reminded me so much of Dr. Seuss’ “The Butter Battle Book” (1984) and both had a profound impact on me about race and intolerance at a young age. Maybe I was a strange kid…”
Future Movements: Black Lives, Black Politics, Black Futures—An Introduction; tobias c. van Veen, Reynaldo Anderson
Vi skal vade lidt rundt i, at afrofuturisme kan defineres på mange måder. Og at alting ændrer sig over tid, også dette felt.
Afrofuturisme er dødsens alvorligt. Racisme er noget, folk dør af.
Hm. Blev “The Comet” først opdaget, da en akademiker så den? Jeg tror, der var et par andre indover også.
Whip My Hair: John Jennings on the Black Liberation Technology of TOPIA’s Cover; tobias c. van Veen
Forsiden på tidsskriftet er vist lavet af en tegneserieskaber. Så vi skal snakke tegneserier.
Reading Black Resistance through Afrofuturism: Notes on post-Apocalyptic Blackness and Black Rebel Cyborgs in Canada; Robyn Maynard
Abstract – Taking seriously the temporal aspects of Public Enemy’s assertion that since the advent of slavery, “Armageddon been-in-effect” for the African diaspora, this paper examines Canada’s black radical tradition through Afrofuturist methodologies that disrupt the linear progress narratives of modernity. As the project of modernity positions black life as outside of humanity, the black condition can be conceived of as cyborg: figured at once as machine, fungible commodity and monster. Yet despite the foundational, apocalyptic violence exerted upon the black Atlantic, subversion and resistance have also defined the black experience, embodied by those who refused, often at great risk, to fight against incorporation into the violent structures of the New World, working instead toward new ways of black becoming. These individuals have been described by Joy James and João Costa Vargas as “black rebel cyborgs.” Taking up Kodwo Eshun’s elaboration of “chronopolitics,” in which interventions in our pasts can help to rewrite new futures, this article examines flashpoints of black futurities elaborated by the history of black rebel cyborgs in Canada. This article does not undertake a comprehensive historical narrative, but seeks instead to explore subversive moments in the black rebel cyborg history of Canada, turning to the “runaway slave” and freedom seeker Marie-Josephe Angélique, accused of burning down Montreal’s Old Port in 1734; the resistance of black vigilance committees against slave catchers at the border in Chatham, Ontario, in 1858; and Haitian taxi drivers who organized against racism in 1980s Montreal. These flashpoints are explored alongside the Afrofuturist science fiction and speculative myths created by Drexciya, Kaie Kellough and others, with an emphasis toward infiltrating the past and the present with new black futurities.
Jeg er med på en forbindelse mellem slaveri og apokalypse. Men hvordan kommer vi derfra til sort = cyborg?
Artiklen starter med noget overordnet, teoretisk, før vi kommer til de konkrete eksempler fra Canada.
Som er konkrete, historiske eksempler. Annoncer, referater osv., der beskriver sortes kamp. Dog omtales der også noget, der lyder som sf: Navette.
Unenslaveable Rapture: Afrxfuturism and Diasporic Vertigo in Beyoncé’s Lemonade; Valorie D. Thomas
Abstract – Drawing from African diasporic cosmology, Beyoncé’s Lemonade pivots on the tension of black being and unbeing constructed through and situated in a global order structured by the production of antiblackness. While bowing to Afropessimism’s acknowledgement of the black unbeing produced by the precondition of antiblackness, and to the inescapability of social death and actual annihilation, I assert that Lemonade advances a black womanist aesthetic that articulates the complex effects of diasporic vertigo. Diasporic vertigo signals a fundamental effect of antiblackness that is at the same time the condition of its healing and resistance, calling forth the balancing forces of black femme resilience to counter its destabilizing effects. In this article, I formulate the concept of Afrxfuturism to explore Lemonade‘s investment in African-derived futurist cosmologies and the ethos of the crossroads that destabilizes polarizations of time, space, gender, and raced identity. In the place of black unbeing and erasure, Lemonade reflects and advances a black womanist Afrxfuturism that asserts Itutu, precision of self-expression and direction within instability. Conjuring balance in the maelstrom of antiblackness produces an Afrxfuturist aesthetic teeming with seeming paradoxes that can be best understood through the idiom of diasporic vertigo.
Omhyggelig gennemgang af nogle af symbolerne i Lemonade. Elsker sådan noget.
Hvis der er sf i Lemonade, så har jeg ikke opdaget det.
Black Mecha Is Built for This: Black Masculine Identity in Firedance and Afro Samurai; Alexander Dumas J. Brickler IV
Abstract – Through a reading of Steven Barnes’s science fiction (SF) novel Firedance (1994), this article investigates the allegorical character of the black cyborg through the motif of “black mecha.” Black mecha, I contend, proffers a means of investigating representations of trauma that haunts the origin of black masculine identity. Situating this motif in what I propose as the “prosthetic communities” of Afrofuturist fiction, I engage the concept of “AfroAsia” and deploy it as a methodological tool for inscribing blackness across ethnonationalist boundaries. Placing Firedance in conversation with the Japanese black anime series Afro Samurai (2007), I focus upon themes of masculine identity, rehabilitation, and return to sites of original trauma in the contestations of black mecha. Though the mechanized bodies in Afro Samurai and Firedance can be readily understood through the mecha conventions of technological conflict and control, the black mecha bodies of protagonists Afro and Aubry represent something more than the contest for antagonistic hierarchal domination and instead can be read as effecting a reconciliation, if only partial, of black male identity.
Et nyt ord, sankofarration.
En roman. Og en tegnefilm. Jeg kender ikke nogen af dem.
The Grapevine Telegraph “Jes Grew”: Sonic Materialism, Afrofuturism and Information Theory in Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo; Myungsung Kim
Abstract – Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo situates the history of African American culture in the language of genetics, information theory, biocultural evolutionism and sonic/vibrant materialism. Reed’s motif of “Jes Grew,” as an evolving acoustic entity vibrant through radio technology, signifies a codified medium of information storage and transfer; it stores and transfers black cultural information in a viral form, articulating it to the physicality and orality of the antebellum grapevine telegraph. Such a biosonic construction of African American experience provides fertile terrain to explore the marginalization and rehabilitation of black ontological forces. By dramatizing the production and transmission of black tonality, Reed’s trope of “Jes Grew” signals vibrational forces that counteract Western, white cultural norms. Thus Mumbo Jumbo’s trope of the Jes Grew virus participates in, and advances, the aesthetic politics of Afrofuturism, in which Jes Grew’s bio-sonic effects enable us to contest the narrow humanism of Eurocentric biopolitics with an Afrofuturist sonic materialism. By the same token, the novel’s description of 1920s Harlem revolves around an epistemological framework of modern technoculture in which biological research becomes a textualization of nature and DNA becomes an information storage and transfer system. Mumbo Jumbo perceives the biological human body as an outcome of dynamic interactions in which information networks and social, cultural and biological relations are scripted in textual and coded platforms of sonic materialism.
Aha! Jes Grew. Just grew. Tidlig ragtime “voksede ligesom bare”.
Så … lyd og musik og sådan noget. I en science fiction-bog.
Minority Reports from 2054: Building Collective and Critical Forecasting Imaginaries via Afrofuturetypes and Game Jamming; Lonny J. Avi Brooks, Ian Pollock
Abstract – Imagined affordances reflect the imagined applications that users have for technology compared with what designers intend, including their own values and expectations that inform these imagined actions. For our purposes, imagined affordances enable black people in the diaspora to strive for affirmation within hostile environments that have accompanied slavery and its traumatic aftermath. This article presents pedagogical research in speculative black futurism, turning to our Minority Reports 2054 Game Jam, first held at California State University, East Bay in spring 2017, as a model for forecasting Afrofutures. In our forecasting pedagogy, we ask students from marginalized working-class communities to reimagine their social, media and digital spaces into the year 2054—the imagined year for the film Minority Report—thereby highlighting the “minority reports” of future visions too often ignored. We explain the forecasting processes developed for systematically imagining viable black futures by revisiting ancient black cultural rituals, such as the Brazilian adaptation of the African Kongo cosmogram. We also meld the latest methodological tools for scanning future trends to reposition them as “Afrofuturetypes” that trace past, present and future. Afrofuturetypes describe the building exercises of and outcomes via the Game Jam, whereby students create socially interactive games that aim to generate stories of 2054 with black futures in mind.
Det her er vist fremtidsforskning. Nej, det er udvikling af spil.
Det er som om, den her artikel ikke er redigeret helt færdig.
Ja. Get Out er vel egentlig også sf.
Flere nye ord. Så overvældet af nye ord.
The Thing from the Future er et spil, der blev hacket, så dets fremtidsprojektioner kunne inkludere sorte.
25 Years of Afrofuturism and Black Speculative Thought: Roundtable with Tiffany E. Barber, Reynaldo Anderson, Mark Dery, and Sheree Renée Thomas; Tiffany E. Barber
Tja. Det er en diskussion.
Destination Saturn: Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist Utopias in the Art of Stacey Robinson; tobias c. van Veen
SR laver vist tegneserier. Eller tegninger i den stil.
Jævnligt støder jeg på argumentet: “Jeg ser den her tv-serie, og i lige det her afsnit, der viste det sig, at det hele var en drøm, så i virkeligheden, så skete der jo ingenting. Dårligt afsnit.”
Der er mange variationer:
Det hele var en drøm.
Det hele var en dagdrøm eller på anden vis en bevidst overvejelse om fremtiden.
Det skete, men de involverede glemte det hele.
Det skete, men tiden blev spolet tilbage, og i anden omgang forløb tingene anderledes.
Det skete, men kun for kopier af de involverede.
Der skete en hel masse, men vores hovedpersoner var ikke særligt meget involveret, og de udviklede sig ikke.
Der er sikkert flere muligheder, men det må være nok lige nu.
(Jeg ser rigelige mængder af science fiction, og det påvirker selvfølgelig min liste.)
Jeg er ikke enig i, at det er ingenting.
Lad os nu starte med at antage, at afsnittet er godt skrevet.
De hovedpersoner, jeg ser hver uge, er på sidelinjen. Men det gør ikke noget. Dem, der i virkeligheden er hovedpersoner i lige dette afsnit, optager mig. Mine “gamle venner” reagerer på begivenhederne, mine “nye venner” gennemlever dem. Eksempel: Af forskellige årsager er der ikke nogle af mine gamle venner, der bor på dødsgangen. Men en af dem kan komme på besøg, og så får jeg en ny ven. Så kan vi også fortælle den historie.
Der fik jeg startet bagfra. Resten af listen kan jeg egentlig klare på en gang.
Okay, så der sker noget, men intet har konsekvenser næste uge, fordi det hele var bare en drøm, eller noget.
Ikke desto mindre skete der noget alligevel.
Jeg lærte personerne bedre at kende.
Her kan en af mine gamle venner havne på dødsgangen selv. Hvad ville der så ske? Hvordan ville folk reagere?
Næste uge er hele holdet på plads, de kan tage en ny omgang sammen, ingen er døde. Men jeg har stadig lært noget.
Måske kan jeg se en mening med den slags, fordi jeg læser sf. Sådan en episode trisser lidt ud af en tidslinje, der så ender med at blive sløjfet. Men i mellemtiden spørger den: Hvad nu hvis? Hvad nu hvis hende her havner på dødsgangen? Uanset hvad genre serien har, så skriver vi science fiction lige nu.
I øvrigt gør antologi-serier det her hele tiden. Mit bedste eksempel er Twilight Zone. Hvert nyt afsnit starter forfra, med nye personer osv. I en serie med fast hold, der kan vi snyde lidt, det er ikke alting, der er nyt. Lige den her uge, der har serien ikke formatet “hovedpersonerne udvikler sig”. Og det er okay. En fleksibel serie har plads til alt muligt og kan skifte fra uge til uge.
Ikke sandt?
ETA: Den helt store “det var bare en drøm”-hader i mit liv (dvs. på en podcast) har gjort en undtagelse. Batman, “Over the Edge”. Batgirl drømmer noget forfærdeligt. Det får hende til endelig at sige “far, jeg er i øvrigt Batgirl”. Der virker det.
There’s this podcast, called the Post Atomic Horror. It reviews Star Trek. Lots of it. In a fun way. And I listen to it, and I giggle. And I steal their greetings 😉
Now, what do you do, when you like a review podcast? You review it of course! So that’s what I’m going to do today.
The short review: It’s great. But that won’t do. We need something longer.
How do you review a podcast with 400+ episodes? You pick a few.
This is the Post Atomic Horror podcast, with Ron “AAlgar” Watt and Matt Rowbotham.
(Click to enlarge.)
Episode #148, “Emissary”
Summary: So, Matt and AAl start out with an impartial and balanced, ahem, intro to this series, Deep Space Nine. A gushing summary of “Emissary” is followed by a brief discussion of spoilers. Then they gush over the pilot, gush over the strangeness of Sisko, gush over the cast, and gush over the number of aliens in the cast. The opening credits disappoint a bit, and Matt loses his train of thought. But you can’t really blame him, he’s about to get married. Gosh!
Good thing: The mnemonic for the quadrants. Which lead me to find this picture. Remember: Good guys in the Gamma Quadrant, dummies in Delta.
(Click to enlarge.)
Bad thing: Women being called “chicks”. Which is weird, because they claim to be feminists.
Drink *:
The difference between something you hate and something you love to hate.
Matt not liking religion.
“Without really spoiling anything…”
Serialization being new in the 90s.
Quote: This one is better if I don’t set it up. 17:46, AAl: “My house is a bit like [the space station] Deep Space Nine.”
* “Drink” means: You can use this cue in a drinking game.
Congratulations to Matt.
Episode #162, “Second Sight” / “Sanctuary”
Summary: After a short meditation on the badness of bad things, the summary of the first episode is presented: Sisko wants to bang someone. We discuss the happiness of Sisko and the age of Jake, and then detour to Community. Arrogance can be fun and Sisko is a builder. Matt and AAl count their Irish friends, laugh attack #1. The second episode is summarized. The hideous dress was fun. Ingratitude is bad. Don’t look gift horses etc., laugh attack #2. Kira shouts, AAl’s wife shouts, Kira/Dax, Bert/Ernie, John/Paul, segue!
Good thing: So much laughing. But I could say that with most episodes.
Bad thing: So. These aliens show up and say “according to our prophecies, your planet is our new home”, and they are not welcomed, and they are surprised/angry. They should be happy! The Federation found them another planet! – Guys, I know you don’t like the whole religion thing. But saying they should be happy, that’s not cool. – This is related to the bitching about The Maquis. – Sometimes I just don’t agree with Matt and AAl.
Drink:
Colm Meaney is off making movies.
“Chose poorly.”
Noh-Jah Industries.
Quote: Regarding the origin of some very alien aliens. 43:40, AAl: “This is a whole other side of the galaxy.” Said with great enthusiasm.
AAl made a segue, that worked. And then called attention to it. But still. Great! (And I learned how to spell segue. Great!)
Episode #176, “Past Tense”
Summary: We start with some important information: Matt is about to have a garage sale. Then comes the summary: Men are wearing hats. AAl reminisces (not) about seeing this episode the first time. Then we go through all the problems with the episode. The main characters are not characteristic and they don’t learn anything. Show, don’t tell. No solution is presented. Inconsistencies with other parts of the franchise. Oh, and it’s boring and preachy. Interlude: Matt checks his email. We briefly touch on talk of other people liking this episode. (So, this isn’t really a spoiler: This is the beginning of something, that spans many later podcast episodes.) Finally: The news.
Good thing: Apparently “Past Tense” references “City on the Edge of Forever”. Didn’t know that.
Bad thing: Okay, so some episodes fail, because we don’t know the persons in trouble. I’ve heard that particular issue so many times in basically the same (numerous) words. I tire of it a little.
Drink:
“San Francisco, the only city on Earth.”
“This isn’t really a spoiler.”
“Mullety rebels.”
Quote: About the preachy no-solutionness. 9:10, AAl. “I’m pretty sure there’s nobody in the world who’s pro homeless.”. Unfortunately there are.
Let’s never speak about this again. Yeah, right.
Episode #184, “The Way of the Warrior”
Summary: One is excited about Worf joining DS9. One summarizes some of the double episode. One summarizes some more, including a phone call. One can’t tell the difference between Scots and Klingons. One validates and is in turn validated. One produces Star Wars fanfic. One giggles. One Worfs! One nostalgizes about long distance relationships. One plans to kill Alexander. One plays the quotes. One spoils. One signs off wrong. One realizes, that if one wants things done correctly, one has to do it oneself. – One should have thought about the limitations of this format a little longer.
Good thing: There’s a reference to a math/Trek joke I love.
Bad thing: Loving space battles. What to say. I don’t love space battles.
Drink:
Worf can’t remember Wesley’s name.
Sisko can’t count.
Worf always takes vacations.
“I don’t give a damn!”
Quote: Imagine Gowron getting his head stuck in a bannister. 10:43, Nate: “Somebody get the blood butter!”
Lots of laughing, giggling and happy improvisation. This can’t go on.
Episode #207, “Soldiers of the Empire” / “Children of Time”
Summary: After some talk about drinking and a little summarizing we get to the existential questions: Are Klingons boring? How do spaceships work? Would Harry Mudd be friends with Penguin? Further summarizing leads to further questions: Is Lost bad? Did Old Odo go quietly crazy? Is Dax a timelord? Are freestanding ladders important?
Good thing: A short discussion finds, that Sisko is adorable with kids. I like guys understanding that kind of thing.
Bad thing: The chick thing. Sigh.
Drink:
Worf needs a vacation.
“We’ve said before…”
Sisko can’t count.
Worf can’t remember Alexander.
“This isn’t really a spoiler…”
Quote: An old Klingon being atypical. 3:54, Flonk: “He even let a Jem’Hadar baby keep his candy.” Just a tiny bit of a funny and energetic summary.
Will AAl and Matt recover from the reset button in that episode?
Episode #219, “In the Pale Moonlight” / “His Way”
Summary: Greatness ahead! Summary! Wonderment! Squeeing! Quoting! Crying at this climax! Historicizing! Batmanning! Defining principles by their absence! Summary! Punning! Improvising! Music appreciating! Fanficcing! Quoting! Plugging! Disclaiming!
Good thing: Breaking the rule of always having a bad thing. They are your rules, break them if you want to.
Bad thing: A lot of this episode is jubilation that Sisko and Garak lied and cheated. While I find that kind of stuff fascinating, ultimately I condemn lying and cheating and couldn’t wholeheartedly like an episode, that depicts it as necessary.
Drink:
“Major.”
“Wesley has killed a guy.”
“Who says there is?” (Or isn’t.)
Shipping Garak and Bashir.
Quote: Garak intimidates a guy by saying “I’ll come by your quarters to check on you later.” 18:03, Gav: “Imagine how Julian feels when he says that to him.”
The hosts certainly didn’t cheat out of recording that episode.
Episode #235, “What You Leave Behind”
Summary: AAlgar Productions! We just have time to debate this being the end of DS9, and then we get a summary from Speedy AAl and Musical Matt. There’s also a poem. Ship porn leads to drooling. Of course Bashir and Garak are shipped. (A different kind of ship porn.) (If they do it on the Defiant, space ship porn.) Oprah hands out ambassadorships. We learn through punning that kanar is made from (bespooned) eagle juice. Is that spunning? Pooning? Weyoun apparently died a million times. I just think AAl can’t count. Oh, there should have been more Jack and Sisko. Quick, what’s the difference between the Gorn and the Breen? Between Garak and Bashir? (And if you can’t tell the difference, is Garak just a narcissist?) Is Dukat the best villain ever?
Good thing: That poem is just superb.
Bad thing: The podcast has already covered Nemesis. I would’ve done the podcast in chronological order. I think.
Drink:
Shipping Garak and Bashir.
“I don’t give a damn!”
“Honey.” (Like “muffin”, rare, take 2 drinks.)
Sisko can’t count.
Keeping an open mind about Voyager. (Without the jingle, only half a drink.)
Quote: 1.03.00, AAl: “I will say, I do love, all of the listeners, and I’ve heard this a lot, the listeners who are like, yeah, I’ve just never watched that one, but you guys are so enthusiastic about it, I gave it a shot and it’s great.” Hurray for more Star Trek being watched! Hurray for people watching stuff, before dismissing it!
So, that’s 7 episodes for 7 seasons of trek, right? I don’t know, I can’t count.
So. What else to say? There are some memorable episodes spread out over the whole run. The ones where AAl was jingling an open mind about Voyager (maybe episode 225 was one of them?). The one Matt did while being dead (episode 64). The one AAl did from a bucket (episode eh). The one where Matt simply wrote a fanfic instead of a summary (episode hm). All the episodes with a live audience, and among them I especially recommend this one:
Yeah, that’s video! Although I really could use a good video interview as well.
And then I haven’t mentioned the supplementals. I’ve just discovered I’m mentioned in #28. Squee! Surprise! ETA: And in #43, at 0.52. And #46, at 32.30. (Woohoo!)
Maybe you have a burning question now. Cup and mouse? Listen to episode 148 and on, just a few episodes, and you’ll get it. For those who haven’t listened to a lot of PAH, this review is also a pastiche of their style. And the shield above is fanart. And of course there’s the beginning of a drinking game. And a review!