The same building? That's awesome. Did you know that a Star Trek episode was filmed using the Mayberry (Andy Griffith) set?

I subscribe to Geek Trivia on Tech Republic & a recent one was about Harlan Ellison being given credit in the 'Terminator' credits because he's so quick to sue & a couple of his stories, especially 'The Demon with a Glass Hand' were similar enough to warrant it. I think it's a stretch, but there is no doubt he did some great stuff.

Harlan Ellison also wrote the original script for "City on the Edge of Forever" (I think that's the right name), one of the best episodes of the original Star Trek. He hated the way they rewrote the script & wanted credit given to 'Cordwainer Bird', the pseudonym he has them put on when he feels they've destroyed his story. Rodenberry wouldn't do it & the episode wound up getting a big award.

The episode is about McCoy going crazy & jumping through a time portal. Kirk & Spock follow him to the 1930's & if you know where to look, apparently you can see Floyd's barbershop in the background.

Check out DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND from the original Outer Limits; my favorite episode. Interestingly enough, the climax to BLADE RUNNER was filmed in the same building!

It's all about The Outer Limits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I sort of mentioned this in another thread, but I was standing in the sci-fi section the other night with a friend and we were looking for something to rent. She said, "I'm so glad you turned me on the The Outer Limits, but now it's hard to find sci-fi stuff that rates with some of those episodes...."

Not to dis The Twilight Zone...more great existential questioning and angst! But somehow more people seem to know about TZ than OL.

Alex DeLarge, I agree completely. An old Outer Limits or Twilight Zone often moves me far more than one of these new, excessively expensive films. It's amazing that Rod Serling could write so quickly, spend so little money & still reach out to tweak my emotions so effectively after so many years. Of course, he had some of the best actors in the business working for him.

I liked The Matrix somewhat, but, like Phillip stated, my problem is with the proliferation of movies that came after it that copied it's style and excess. I highly doubt if the Wachowski Bros. intended The Matrix to become a sub-genre of it's own, but it seems that's what's happened. Now there's even idiotic horror/action films that take their cue from The Matrix. The Matrix was cool for what it was, kind of a sci-fi/action/fantasy hybrid, but enough already!!

Right on point Phillip! You nailed the problem with MATRIX and other popular superficial science fiction films (I ROBOT, anyone?)that use the genre as only a vehicle for special effects and unbelievable action sequences. The truly interesting questions are never asked or obscurred by CGI, inane writing, lazy directing, and bad acting.

thank you Phillip, I find your comments in line with what I have ,in my modest knowledge of sci-fi things and philosophy, felt and thought was supposed to be the aim or initial message of the movie.To the "mass" public the deep significance is totally buried by those extraordinary special effects and one is surprisingly taken away by them, forgetting the message. More or less like those "awful" reality serials ,for me at least,as for instance Big Brother. people get interested and taken by the characters daily life,almost addicted I would say, just for gossiping or create the "day after" topic for discussions at the haidresser's, at office, lunch break or while on the train going to work. The all thing is a mirror for the simple-minded, hiding instead that terrible suspicion (or truth?) that everyone of us is in someway continuously controlled.
Dunno if I got it right but this is what I got and that's why my questioning.

i certainly don't consider myself an expert in the field of sci-fi, but:

vivianna's question is interesting...of course it's sci-fi, but the reason anyone would ask that question is because the sci-fi elements are buried underneath all those high-tech action sequences. this is an example where the desire to create a crossover (a film where genres are blurred, and the resultant effort offers something for everyone...you know the drill) kind of backfires, because in the end, the elements that make the film special or unique are buried beneath stylistic excess.

i liked the first matrix and didn't like the second and third installments. but the worst thing about the matrix is how, because of its popular and financial success, so many films that came after it felt they had to trot out all of that uber-action.

thanks Angie, I'll check it out, I'm curious.

There is a thread on the Matrix where everyone goes into a little more detail on what they think if you want to check that out.

and concerning the second question:was it a good sci-fi movie?,I'd leave it up to all of you geniuses!!!!

SHOULD I DISAPPEAR AGAIN FOR A WHILE, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU, MAY YOU SPEND IT IN A SERENE AND AFFECTIONATE ATHMOSPHERE WHILE LEAVING THE SRIOUS PROBLEMS OUT OF THE WINDOWS FOR A FEW DAYS.
WE ALL DESERVE IT.

I bet you were going to be the first replying, Alex- Thanks.

THE MATRIX as science fiction? Yes. Maybe the question should be: is it good science fiction?

I have a question for the masters:
Considering my total ignorance on sci-fi, could "The Matrix" be part of the genre?
I got to see it few days ago, so I wonder....(frankly speaking never been interested in seeing it but a friend suggested and made a dvd for me,so..)and must admit that I liked it(beside Mr.Mono-facialexpression).thanks for answering any time, no rush...

Yep, I pushed Blindness up my To-read list so I could read it before seeing the movie... and then never saw the movie.

*sigh* There's always the old standby - Netflix!

it was made into a movie fairly recently. i think someone reviewed it in the (good) horror group, or perhaps it was the movies we just watched group (i think it was that one, actually).

i've never read the book, but it sounds like a promising premise.

I read Blindness not long ago and loved it, but I didn't think of it as sci-fi. It seemed to me more of a study of human nature. There was almost no information given about the characters' world at all, but rather how they interpreted it and coped within it.

But I am curious, what aspects of it made you think of sci-fi?

OK, years back I read the Novel Blindness by Jose Saramgo. Has anyone read that? It is about the world (as you are shown) going blind and how people are dealing with it. The book is disturbing but extremely well written. It deals with relationships, panic and how people interact with each other. Without going into too much detail, it has been made into a movie. Has anyone seen it? I am assuming this going under the what is sci-fi?

Phillip, I added The Place of Dead Roads to my TBR list, and to my wishlist on both bookswap sites I'm a member of... Hopefully someone will have it so I can give it a try. =)

you won't have a hard time understanding it. it plays out in a clear narrative. structurally it is kind of challenging. he employs a cut-up chronology, which is something you find more often in movies. it's brilliant, and one of the things i really like about the novel.

back to sci-fi - this is another aspect of why i think burroughs is a sci-fi writer through and through. he was fascinated with the idea of time-travel, and that's why and how he exhibits this kind of structure in his books - in his world, you can always travel back and forth across past-present-future.

Thanks for the recommendation and the vote of confidence, Phillip. Maybe "simpleton" is a little inaccurate, but I tend to exaggerate things just a tiny bit. Sometimes. Plus, I have a healthy sarcasm gene, so please don't be offended on my account. ;)

I will see if I can find The Place of Dead Roads somewhere and give it a shot. I may not understand it all, but I can still enjoy it.

damn, i wrote a really nice response to you both and somehow it just disappeared. i'll try again. (don't you hate it when that happens?)

so, becky: please don't call yourself a simpleton. it's not fair to you or the books. taste and style are objective as you can get.

i would highly recommend The Place of Dead Roads. I think I reviewed it on my 50 favorite books shelf. that book, along with the others in the trilogy, is a return to traditional narrative. you get passages of the cut-up method here and there, usually just a paragraph where a character is meditating on something and the narrative slips into kind of a trance for a second. it is burroughs doing "the old west", and he clearly loves the genre, turns it on its head to cite his own political agenda. it has so many beautiful passages. it's nothing like Naked Lunch or any thing else in his works, really. i think if you like that one, it might encourage you to explore some of the other stuff. regardless of the concerns or considerations, it's a great book, and one i recommend to anyone that will listen.

meg,
i've never read running with scissors, and as becky has said, i think that's a different burroughs.

dostoevksy is also hard to situate in the literary canon. he broke a lot of rules back in the day, and as bahktin says, he was the first one to create the "polyphonic" novel - where more than one perspective is being presented. in earlier works, it was usually the hero's perspective that the writer posited. in dostoevsky, all characters have their own agenda, and we are able to know intimately their motivations and concerns. this is explored masterfully in the brothers karamazov.

for me, that paves the way for existentialism. dostoevsky was also concerned with choice and its outcomes. look at crime and punishment, or demons...

in c & p, raskolnikov clearly has a choice, and he murders the old woman for money, knowing full well the consequences. his conscience troubles him (proving one of the tenets of existentialism - you don't need god to have conscience or justice - it is an innate sense common to all human beings). dostoevsky was not writing to fulfill some philosophical agenda, existentialism hadn't been born yet. but you can see why the existentialists consider him the foundation of their inquiry. i love his books, have read all of them, and re-read them when i can. no one else seems to be able to see into so many perspectives. as much as i like modernism, and some contemporary fiction, i always go back to him when i want to read something with real substance.

Meg, I believe that Running with Scissors is a memoir recounting a really messed up childhood. But, that was written by Augusten Burroughs.

I haven't read Running with Scissors (and at this point I have no plans to), but I don't believe its Sci-fi.

William S. Burroughs is the author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded.

I have Running with Scissors in my TBR pile. How would you classify that?

Going on your thoughts about Kafka, where would you place Dosteovsky (spelling sucks) in this continuum. Years back I was hugely into existentialism but memory weakens with age. And, are you familiar with Malamud? where does he fit in this continuum?

Very thought provoking.

Thank you for the explanation Phillip.

I can agree that I want a story that I can comprehend, but unfortunately, as lovely as you make it sound, I don't think that I would get it. But I am willing to give anything a try, so maybe I will pick up something by Burroughs and give it a go.

What would you recommend for a simpleton Burroughs beginner like me? :)

meg,
i have a hard time citing kafka as an existentialist. the existentialists like to claim him, but...

sartre, camus, and the lot were very concerned with how do we deal with choice (free will).

in my experience, kafka's characters don't make choices; choices are made for them (joseph k is arrested for a crime he DIDN'T commit - which has nothing to do with his actions. i suppose the fuss he makes in the wake of said arrest could be seen as his "choice", but again, he isn't operating in a world where free will and choice are possible - that's one of the horrific things about kafka). regardless, they are victimized by the same system that robs them of choice. that's not existentialism, but i can see how the existentialists viewed his work as a foundation for what they wanted to explore. i really see kafka in his own camp with few genre devices to pull him into any one stylistic school. he is his own school, his own style, his own set of paranoic concerns about the future and how we will be shaped by it (whereas existentialists are concerned with how they can shape the future).

rob, becky, (regarding burroughs)

i like the cut-up works because they are very musical to me. no, it doesn't help tell the story. that's not what the cut up method was all about. we're not going for beginning-middle-end narratives here, but about something else all together. there is a lot more philosophical concept here that burroughs is flushing out, and a lot of it has to do with the idea of freedom. i read a great book by robin lydenberg, i think i referenced this book when rob last cited nova express. she has some great things to say about burroghs' aims, and she really knows her stuff. you can find her excellent book on my literary criticism shelf.

anyway, these books force you to think about information differently. that was one of the things that defines a lot of burroughs later works. he was interested in how cognition occurs, and what it means to control someone with words. he wanted to free his readers from the shackles of traditional narrative, which has very little to do with why people read books, as it turns out....most people just want a story they can comprehend.

for me, the repetitions and framework in the cut-up novels is, again, extremely musical to me. he uses words the way the composers from the second viennese school (schoenberg, webern, berg) used the 12 notes of the chromatic scale: in a way that resisted empirical order (establishing a "key center"). in schoenberg, all notes are equal - in cage and other composers that come after the second world war - all sounds are equal (so they began to compose with sounds, rather than notes). in burroughs, any *passage* of words has equal merit or importance. it's a lot more like poetry actually, than the standard novelistic approach.

I tried reading Nova Express (as I expressed in an eariler post....or in a post in another group), but was so perplexed I put it down after about 15 pages. It just didn't make any damn sense...which is what you'd expect if the author were using the "cut-up" method, I suppose.

In related news: The "cut-up" method is also how Kurt Cobain of Nirvana devised the lyrics for his songs. Seems he was a huge Burroughs fan....and a fellow addict to boot.

Mmmm...I read a lot of Kafka many years ago. I always thought it was existentialism. Am I wrong here? Burroughs, only the Naked Lunch. I think that is Burroughs, right?

I am very interested to see how people talk about Kafka and sci-fi. As I said previously, I am new to sci-fi, at least I thought I was.

Are these "collages" meant to enhance the reading experience? Or was he enhancing his own experience via glue-fumes? ;)

I don't know how I would feel about reading something in that format. I have a feeling I would find it annoying. At the very least, just from the description, it seems that they would distract me from the story itself... but not having read it, I could be wrong and they could add that "special something" to the story that would be lacking if not for the collage.

*shrug*

you mean bug metamorphosis, like kafka?
or bug powder, like burroughs?

burroughs is sci-fi. at least some of the novels fit nicely into that realm. the cut-up novels (wild boys, nova express, soft machine, ticket that exploded) are radical re-visions of sci-fi.

back to your other question, meg - about linguistics. those books are the literary equivalents to the exploration of language as an aspect of sci-fi. i'm not sure how you would receive those novels. if i were to recommend any of them to you, it might be nova express.

burroughs' cut-up method was to take pages of texts that he wrote (or found in some cases), cut them up in pieces and them reassemble them in collage structures. this is not practiced strictly throughout the novels, but in short passages (at least in nova express, the ticket that exploded has much longer passages). the results are varied (IMO): sometimes he gets utterly brilliant poetics and others long exercises in boredom.

he is best at work when he is combining this stuff with his earlier strict narratives, which he does gloriously in the late trilogy. my favorite from that sequence is The Place of Dead Roads. one of my favorite books of all time.

but back to kafka, here's a serious question, and one i hope will re-focus this conversation:

is kafka sci-fi?

i mean, come on: the metamorphosis? or the penal colony. i wish kubrick would have made a film of that. seems like something he would have knocked out of the park.

it's both nightmare and sociological study; as are the trial and the castle. the latter two have more of a futurisitic view, whereas the former really plays like in stylistic terms like a 19th century work of prose. that's actually what makes it so bizarre.

Oy, now I am a bug..........

now THAT's funny!

Phillip: OK. I dig.



Has anyone seen Flesh Gordon lately?

rob, stay focused. we're trying to discuss important stuff here, like film, sci-fi, and literature....

you dig?

Phillip: would you care to dance, meg?


Meg: I love dancing.






Cuter than two bugs in a rug, ain't they?

there really aren't many, especially ones that also fit into sci-fi.

there was a post-noir film that came out about two years ago called brick, which was modelled on the maltese falcon. it utilized a kind of made-up language that takes the audience a while to work out what is being said. i liked the film, it had a nice way of re-imagining the maltese falcon, which i prefer to the usual re-make routine.

getting back to Clockwork Orange. Since I really liked that movie, what other movies would you put in the same category of the science of linguistics?

I love dancing.

Wow! You guys need your own thread! :)

i wasn't dancing with anyone - it's rob that hallucinated it all (help me out, here rob!)

why do you ask?
would you care to dance, meg?

Who are you dancing with?

ok, i'm going to try to repair my rep over here and steer this back to the original thread.

i wanted to add (regarding clockwork orange), that the film utilizes the novel's unusual linguistics, which author anthony burgess inherited from james joyce's finnegans wake. burgess wrote a fine book on joyce (it's called Re:Joyce, and is a nice companion to read along with joyce's novels - burgess really knows his stuff, loves joyce, and offers great insights) and admittedly impressed enough with the language that he wanted to explore this element in CO.

but back to the film. i would say that the exploration of linguistics in the book and the movie adds another element of science to the mix; the science of linguistics.

curses, foiled again!

No slow dances, you two!!!

Well.. its a little hard to see your TV from here, but I'll do my best. What're we watching?

now i am confused.
who am i yelling at?
no, wait,
who am i laughing at?

*******************

either way, i'm looking out for meg.
that's how we got in this position to begin with.

*******************

i'm cool with both of you!
why aren't we all watching a movie together?

actually, i'm reading Gravity's Rainbow, there's a sci-fi book that I love to read out loud.

Oh sure, you yell at me and now you're laughing at me.

:*(

Mmmm, and I thought Becky was looking out for me.

it's ok, you made me laugh...

it's been a while since i thought about stairway to heaven. that would have been one of the songs that played at one of my junior high dances actually. i went to dance in junior high, but would never have gone in high school. ( ??? )

...sorry.

:(

you're not helping!

; 0