20080903

My life never ceases to amuse me.

The last month or so, whilst making generous (yet not too generous) use of the office restroom, I started noticing packages of baby wipes. At first they would be found in what we might call the foyer of the restroom, habitating on a countertop opposite the sinks. Next to a fake fern.

While curious, I had no suspicions of nefarious activity. Perhaps someone was mistaking them for wetnaps and their fear of pathogens was such that soap, hot water, and hand sanitizer was not enough to sate their cautioned lives. Or perhaps somebody had brought in and changed a baby yet forgot to remove their aid in such an endeavor. A few weeks later, however, the purpose of said wipes became clear.

It was a warm, summery afternoon. (It being early August, this made much sense.) I had finished a fine lunch of Tokyo Steak and steamed rice and had decided that the best and proper course of action in that moment would be the immediate and grateful relief of my bladder. (A coke goes through me as though I were like unto a sieve.) And behold, a mystery made clear.

In the restroom stall (the handicapped one, for I like to have my room when I am at rest in such a room), scurried away and wedged between wall and handicapped bar was a half-empty package of baby wipes. Now I'm not so much a half-empty kind of guy but the level of dismay this discovery procured brought to life the certainty that this package was indeed half of empty.

The obvious conclusion is that some fellow or other had decided that paper was the way of the ancients and that baby wipes were the only honest way to clean one's anus. Or perhaps these wipes were merely functioning as a poor man's bidet. If the latter be the case, I can at least sympathize for I have long wished to have a bidet of my own—for what greater joy can be conceived that the operation of perfectly clean (and perhaps even well-scented) hindparts.

In any case, thence began my investigatory self. It was no more than a mere glance that told me that any baby wipings were not disposed of in the acceptable receptacle (i.e., the waste basket), for on these days of summer, the office is pretty bare of staff and so refuse is at levels minimal enough that a simple glance can ascertain manner of waste produce. The only other alternatives I could think of are: 1) ziplock bag carried in and out to be disposed elsewhere; 2) flushing; or 3) consumption. *chills* My bet, obviously was on Number Two (ar ar ar). Flushing.

There's just one problem.

The thing is, I do not know if I am man enough to bring up this matter at our Monday staff meeting. The women in the office would be scandalized (even if they practice likewise PMB (the Poorman's Bidet). Much embarrassment would ensue. And I would have to look people in the eye and know what kind of person they are way deep down in the private depths of their souls. And I just don't know if I have the guts or the rights to know that the person sitting next to or across from me in these meeting is, in fact, a baby wiper.

20080802

Apparently 490 years ago, in the heat of July, there began in Strasbourg to be a fever. A fever for dance. Frau Troffea began what is now known as the Dancing Plague.

The woman baffled onlookers and those who refused to onlook but merely stole surreptitious glances. Without warning or harbinger, she burst forth in glorious, lively dance. And continued to do so long after the band had gone home. If there had been a band. Which there hadn't.

Good ol' Frau danced four to six days straight.

The worst of it though were the copycats. As an early adopter of the Dancing Plague, Frau Troffea will always find her cozy nook in history, not so the nameless thirty-four others who had joined her. And like a prototypical viral marketing ploy, by months end, 400 had entered into Frau's swollen ranks and had taken to dancing, leaping, and hopping in the street.

In the move that best illustrated the proverb fight fir with fire since that first instance where some poor peasanty shmuck saw his haycart catch alight and instantly reacted by throwing a torch at the smouldering straw, authorities and experts alike agreed that More Dancing was probably the best prescription for the dancing citizenry's uncommon torment.

And like with most government programs, dozens perished. The plague caused heart attacks, strokes, and death via sheer exhaustion. The Dancing Plague was said to be the model for which Blizzard's programmers were told to aim when designing World of Warcraft.

You may think I'm making this up. Well I'm not, as this Discovery article aptly demonstrates. Some cat even decided to write a whole book about it. A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The John Wimbur Story.

In any case, until this very week, cause of the plague has remained a mystery, but recent evaluation of various engravings from the era (using special lenses unavailable in medieval times) reveals the probably cause of the mysterious blight. See below to unveil the horror.

20080612

I'm a member of a book club that seeks to read worthwhile fiction in order to discuss both the themes and the wider-world ramifications of those themes. Apparently the club's been functioning for a good fifteen years or so. The Monk and I joined shortly after the two founders moved on to greener pastures on the other side of the country. Gradually, as the club has striven to establish itself without the guidance of its founders, many of the rules that had bound the group in its purpose and methodology have relaxed or wholly fallen to the wayside.

The rule that here interests me is an outright ban on science fiction.

Honestly, I'm thoroughly puzzled why such a ban should ever have existed. Science fiction (or more particularly, speculative fiction) is one of the foremost literary tools for evaluating and criticizing society—and such evaluations seem like perfect fodder for a discussion group concerning itself with how literature reflects the needs and vector of society. Asimov, Huxley, Gibson, Vonnegut, Orwell. These are all names associated with speculative fiction in the twentieth century and each is responsible for works that question the direction of society and postulate ends to our momentum.

In any case, this all came to mind because of a recent CAPCast that while mostly focused on the recent cinematic expression of the Iron Man franchise ended with the contributors, Rich and Ben, each listing their Top 5 Favourite Sci-Fi Elements. I found this an interesting way to talk about what I find most interesting in the spec. fiction genre. So then, with imaginary fanfare that you can only hear in your head if you are the right sort of worthwhile individual... My Top 5 Sci-Fi Elements!

It’s easy to see why dystopian futures and societies are a mainstay in speculative fiction. Essentially, they give the author an open platform to discuss the failure of contemporary society at leisure, unraveling the source of the problem as quickly or leisurely as they like. Some authors really dive into the possibilities while others just think a broken world is cool to look at. Some cool stories exploring the dystopian society to one degree or another are Terry Gilliam's Brazil and 12 Monkeys, Metropolis (both Lang’s 1927 version and the Tezuka-based one from 2001), Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, A Scanner Darkly (and much of the Philip K. Dick oeuvre, including Minority report), and the super-awesome Delicatessen. Actually, besides the use of the space frontier, the dystopian society may be one the most frequently used tropes of spec. fiction.

Androids, when possessing an A.I. having grown to self-awareness, can make for fascinating studies into the nature of existence, personality, ethics, and purpose (despite the fact that synthetic humans are a creepy, creepy idea). Some of my favourite treatments of the idea come from animation (a la Tezuka’s Metropolis and the "Second Renaissance" episodes of The Animatrix by Mahiro Maeda). Other worthwhile uses include the synthetic humans in Blade Runner, Alien/Aliens, Data in Star Trek: TNG, Asimov’s android works, the Phantasy Star series, and in one of the best early works of spec. fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The active perfection of the human state through genetic manipulation is one of the aspects of speculative fiction that is most tangible to a contemporary audience—since we see the seeds of a eugenics future being sown around us all the time. The idea that we can make our lives better from the start by predisposing ourselves to greatness is a powerful one and it’s scientific possibility makes it ripe for ethical discussion. 1997's Gattaca wonderfully explores what genetic perfection would mean to a society and to those not perfected. Apparently Alien 4 deals with the matter, but after 3, my interest in the property waned significantly. Huxley’s Brave New World is probably the most famous instance of eugenics in spec. fiction and shows as well the dark side of the matter by postulating not only perfection in breeding but as well the breeding of imperfection to fill the ranks of a slave class. Vonnegut includes the concept in Galapagos.

Riding the eugenics train is the concept of wetware and other means to enhancing the human state. The idea of upgradeable humanity was found in "Johnny Mnemonic" and also finds front-and-center prominence in another of work of William Gibson’s, the dystopic story that introduced the term "cyberspace," Neuromancer. The idea of upgrading the human mind with hard drives and extra RAM has been with us since people started understanding computers and taking note that surgeons were getting better at creating artificial parts that the body might not reject. Videogames make great use of the concept and last year’s Bioshock combined ideas of eugenics and transhuman upgrade to posit the use of plasmids and genetic tonics that would be spliced into the DNA chain, enhancing the citizens of its Randian paradise to metahuman states (before eventually driving them mad). The dystopian government in Moore’s V for Vendetta is also involved in human enhancement—eventually to its ruin.

Ah, the good ol' Hollow Earth (map). I’ve always enjoyed sci-fi stories that attempt to draw links between the real world, the speculative world, and the mystic world. Stories in this vein usually abandon the pedagogical, exploratory use of spec. fiction and aim simply toward telling good yarns, but I really appreciate the effort used to bring formerly mystic and folklore elements into a world governed by scientific principle and objective reality. These stories are usually pretty soft on the science aspect, but I don’t think they have to be. In this realm, I’m a big fan of Hellboy and BPRD (Hellboy had a lot of use of Nazi paganism and sci-mystic exploration while BPRD has lately been exploring the mystical realm from more of a Victorian scientific standpoint—much like those scientists who also dabbled in alchemy, a la Isaac Newton).