Hello there 🙂
Welcome to issue thirty three of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
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Speaking of coffee, grab yourself a suitable beverage my loves, let’s do this thing…
Part I: Things I’ve Encountered Online…
This week I came across this write up of a 2013 event at the New York Public where author William Gibson was interviewed by Paul Holdengräber.
The whole article is fascinating, but I was particularly struck by this section, where Gibson explains how he came to coin the phrase “cyberspace”.
(Gibson first mentioned “cyberspace” in a short story called “Burning Chrome” which was published in 1982; however, it wasn’t until Gibson used it again in his 1984 novel Neuromancer that this new word really caught on.)
“[…]the topic of the coining of the word cyberspace, arose, and Gibson gave the secret origin of the phrase:
Gibson: I came to that out of a perceived need to find an arena in which I could set science fiction stories. The science fiction arena of my childhood was space travel, and the vehicle was the rocket ship, the space ship. And in the late 70s early 80s, that wasn’t resonant to me. I knew I didn’t want to do that. I knew I didn’t want to to do the post-apocalyptic wasteland. I knew I wanted to try to write science fiction, but I didn’t have an arena. And I arrived at cyberspace —
Holdengräber: By arena, you mean?
Gibson: A territory, a place in which the story can unfold. And I wanted that sense of another realm, and I wanted a sense of agency for the characters, and particularly for the protagonist. She drives her (hmmm) through (hmmm). But I didn’t know what she was driving, and I didn’t know what she was driving it through.
So in some odd way I think I began to mull over that and keep my eyes open while walking around in my daily life.
Bits and pieces of reality, bits and pieces of something that could be cobbled into the arena I need this character to have, some sort of agency. And the pieces I came up with were just the sight of kids playing very early huge plywood-sided arcade games, and the body language of just intense longing and concentration and when I glanced into these arcades that I was probably afraid to go into myself, it seemed to me that like they wanted to go right through the glass, they wanted to be right there with the Pong, or whatever.
But you could see that they wanted it, and I think I could also see that they were very likely to get more complicated games than Pong pretty quick. Which indeed they did.
I had that, I had the big bus stop posters of the actual computer part of the Apple IIc, which was smaller than most briefcases. It was a very crisp-suited businessman arm, holding this thing, and it didn’t show you that there was this big clunky monitor that you had to have. He was just holding this thing with a keyboard on it.
I knew people who were starting to buy Sinclairs and kits, building kits, like these incredibly primitive little computers that, you built it, and you had to keystroke all of the programs into it, and if you made a single mistake, the whole thing wouldn’t work. But I knew that people did that.
I started hearing about people that connected home computers distantly via telephone, and because, fortunately, I knew absolutely nothing about computers, I was able to smoosh that all together and get this vague vision of my arena, which I then need a really hot name for. Dataspace didn’t work, and infospace didn’t work.
Cyberspace.
It sounded like it meant something, or it might mean something, but as I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad, my whole delight was that I knew that it meant absolutely nothing.”
I think what’s perhaps most interesting about this, is the process Gibson engaged in, in order to arrive at coining that word:
He pays attention:
“…I began to mull over that and keep my eyes open while walking around in my daily life.”
He collects things:
Bits and pieces of reality
[…]
the sight of kids playing very early huge plywood-sided arcade games, and the body language of just intense longing and concentration
[…]
it seemed to me that like they wanted to go right through the glass, they wanted to be right there with the Pong, or whatever.
[…]
I had the big bus stop posters of the actual computer part of the Apple IIc, which was smaller than most briefcases. It was a very crisp-suited businessman arm, holding this thing
[…]
I knew people who were starting to buy Sinclairs and kits, building kits
[…]
I started hearing about people that connected home computers distantly via telephone…
He makes some leaps:
“I think I could also see that they were very likely to get more complicated games than Pong pretty quick. Which indeed they did.”
He seems to indicate that his lack of understanding about the technology allowed him the freedom to imagine this world, without getting bogged down in technical detail:
“because, fortunately, I knew absolutely nothing about computers, I was able to smoosh that all together and get this vague vision of my arena”
(Also, I love that he uses the work “smoosh” here)
Then, finally he names this arena:
“Cyberspace.
It sounded like it meant something, or it might mean something, but as I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad, my whole delight was that I knew that it meant absolutely nothing.”
Cyberspace.
Utter absorption. Intense longing.
Kids who want to go right through the screen, and be in the game.
A faceless businessman.
It’s delicious, no?
And we can steal Gibson’s process for pretty much any type of creative work:
- Pay attention
- Collect things
- Make some leaps
- Give yourself space to play
- Smoosh things together
- Create a thing
Moar serendipitous finds:
Dear valentine, I’ve made special yoghurt to celebrate your brand new big heart
The amazing Janelle Shane has created some AI generated Valentine’s Cards. Here are a selection made with model GPT-3 Curie:
When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray
I’m sharing this partly because the headline is an absolute triumph, but mostly because I found it fascinating. Moray eels can hunt on land, and footage from a recent study highlights how they accomplish this feat with a second set of jaws.
“Dr. Mehta first described the moray eel’s second set of choppers, known as pharyngeal jaws, in 2007. When a moray hunts, it seizes its prey with the teeth of its outer jaw, and then its pharyngeal jaws leap forward out of the throat and into the mouth to grasp the prey and drag it deeper into the eel’s body.
Now, Dr. Mehta has described how snowflake eels and other morays use their pharyngeal jaws to feed just as effectively on land as in water…”
A different font helps me believe in my own words
This essay by R.E. Hawley is brilliant, and this sentence in particular struck me:
“creative output of any kind depends upon a steady stream of tiny self-delusions — guardrails to keep yourself from veering into a pit of self-doubt and despair…”
Erect whatever guardrails you need to, in order to keep going 🙂
Why the (insert your own expletive here) can’t we travel back in time?
“Look, we’re not totally ignorant about time. We know that the dimension of time is woven together with the three dimensions of space, creating a four-dimensional fabric for the Universe.
We know that the passage of time is relative; depending on your frame of reference, you can slip forward into the future as gently as you please. (You just need to either go close to the speed of light or get cozy with a black hole, but those are just minor problems of engineering, not physics.)
But as far as we can tell, we can’t reverse the flow of time. All evidence indicates that travel into the past is forbidden in our Universe. Every time we try to concoct a time machine, some random rule of the Universe comes in and slaps our hand away from the temporal cookie jar.
And yet, we have no idea why.
The reasons really seem random; there is nothing fundamental we can point to, no law or equation or concept that definitively explains why thou shalt not travel into the past. And that’s pretty frustrating. It’s obvious that the Universe is telling us something important… we just don’t know what it’s saying.”
Joel Golby’s account of what it’s like to attend the Brits as a non-celeb is glorious.
Highlighting the inequities of the education system, and the associated barriers to achievement, Dallas-born artist, Hugh Hayden’s Brier Patch consists of 100 elementary school-style desks with tree branches erupting from the seats and table tops.
The work calls on the notion of the brier patch as a place that is protective of some, but dangerous for others.
Brier Patch is on display at New York’s Madison Square Park until April 24th.
The exclamation mark looks hysterical
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
In Nearby Bushes, by Kei Miller. This poetry collection is divided into three sections: “Here” a series of poems about Jamaica; “Sometimes I Consider the Names of Places”, which contains 10 micro essays concerning the meaning of place names and their links to colonialism; and “In Nearby Bushes” where Miller makes use of Jamaican newspaper reports of people who have been attacked, raped and killed – always “in nearby bushes” – reproducing the same piece of text again and again but with different words highlighted each time. It’s an incredible collection, and even if poetry isn’t your thing, I’d strongly encourage you to read it.
“before the invention of boundaries (which was the invention of fences, and also the invention of countries – countries being the invention of men wearing clothes the colour of trees, patrolling the arbitrary lines, the dark promise of their rifles);
before the invention of stamps (which was the invention of bureaucracy, which was the invention of embassies, which was the invention of old women gathered hopelessly on Hope Road, the quartz of their sweat glistening on their foreheads)”
~an excerpt from “Here That Was Here Before” by Kei Miller.
“The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century” by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken.
The crew of the Six-Thousand Ship consists of those who were born, and those who were made. Those who will die, and those who will not. Structured as a series of numbered witness statements compiled by a workplace commission, The Employees explores what it means to be human, and exposes our problematic obsession with work and productivity.
“Perhaps all that’s needed is for you to change my status in your documents? Is it a question of name? Could I be human if you called me so?”
~an excerpt from “The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century” by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
For film club this fortnight we watched The Lost Daughter (Netflix), an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley, this is a tense, often difficult film to watch, but one which is incredibly rewarding.
It’s a film about the expectations society places on women, and the roles we are supposed to occupy. It confronts one of our most pernicious cultural myths: that motherhood comes naturally to women; and it’s brilliant.
I also loved The Tourist (BBC iPlayer). It’s a beautifully shot, violent, darkly comic delight. Stop reading this and go and watch it immediately.
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
Short story writing & submissions
Dear reader I have done very good work here. In the past fortnight I have completed two new pieces which I’ve entered into competitions, and I’ve submitted stories I’d previously written to four publications.
I’ve also received my first rejection. I thought perhaps I might feel sad about it, or discouraged, but actually I feel weirdly good. Perhaps it’s just because I feel good about actively putting my work out there, and maybe future rejections will hit me harder, but right now I just feel like: “Cool. That means I’m free to send that piece somewhere else.”
Four-Day Work Weeks
I’ve been doing some calendar juggling and it looks like I’ll be able to do four-day work weeks for three out of the four weeks in February which feels pretty great. I’m really enjoying having a day each week where I’m focused on writing fiction, plus, slowly but surely I’m finding that I’m thinking about work less on non-work days.
I’m calling it a win 🙂
What’s next?
I’m really looking forward to emceeing WTSFest, a women-only technical SEO conference which takes place on February 25th in London. In-person tickets are sold out, but tickets to access recordings are still available.
I will also work on, and submit more short stories; and I will likely make another collage or two.
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