Twin Fish Records

So you may or may not know, but I'm now "working" for a local record company called Twin Fish Records. They're pretty new, so no website yet, but we're working on it. Its actually a collaboration between many Electronic Arts (sound, video and animation majors) students and Darcy Stevens. Darcy's wife owns the company, and Darcy is the vice-president, and the students are the employees. I'm pretty excited about this; not only is this exactly what I want to do with my life, but the people I'm working with are people I like, which may not always be the case in later years. At least until I'm a big-league producer/mixer and everyone wants me for their record; then I can pick and choose who I want to work with. Till then though, I'll have to take what I can get.

Text Sex

Well, it was only a matter of time. Sex has finally come into the 21st century, straight to your cell phone via the magic of test messaging. For a mere $0.99 per message, you can chat with a hot, sexy babe who's aching to read what you have to text. Jesus.

I'm sure you're wondering what such a conversation would look like, so I did some research and found a text message translator to experience it without the cost. Observe:

ey bb, wuz ^?
u bb.
wotU warin?
A SxC thong. u lk thongs, dnt u bb?
cn u hear me nw? gud

(From the same website:
Y is it u cn sue a cigrett cmpny 4 canca, McDs 4 getin fat bt u cant sue Jim Beam 4 all da ugly c*nts uve f*cked!)

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

"A radioactive dinosaur fights a genetically engineered monster and battles pterodactyl Rodan for custody of a reptilian infant."

Now, the question is, what are you doing on Saturday night?

Wow...

I'm already getting flak for my last post, and it hasn't even been three hours.

Look, to clear some things up:

1) I have personally experienced PWM's "alleged" antics at each of the concerts I mentioned. If you haven't, that's great. 100% of the time I have ever seen/dealt with them they have tried this nonsense. Only once did they fail. I have heard from other people that they have done this on numerous occasions, but since I did not experience this, I did not post about it. I may have few good qualities, but integrity is one of them.

2) I don't feel I'm damaging the scene in anyway. First of all, Springfield's "scene" is pretty pitiful, and that's because everyone in it is too focused on figuring out what the "scene" is to actually play or enjoy local music. Scene is what you make it. Support the bands you like, don't support the bands you don't. Trust me, if I had known Playing With Matches was going to be at the concert, I probably wouldn't have gone. Or, since it was a national act, I would have gone late to avoid physically supporting the local band I don't like Oh wait, I couldn't have done that last night because they stole the headlining spot. Which was the whole point of my post.

3) I don't feel the need to sugar-coat my opinions. It's a free country, I'm entitled to what I want to think. You can think of me any way you like as well, and I'm not going to email you or post hateful things about you on the internet. At least not using your name and linking to your website. Hello? Thanks for the traffic!

4) I'm not attacking them personally. I know a lot of people get this confused. Because I don't like a band's practices does not mean I don't like the people in the band. I am attacking their blatant disrespect for their fans (not booking the show well enough in advance to advertise on the flyers) and other artists. I don't think any local scene should support bands with this sort of attitude.

Honestly, I had hoped for a little more support. Guess this is why Clear Channel, the RIAA, and Bush are running our country - no one really has any taste anymore, for manners or music.

Oh yeah, and I'm not a professional, so I don't have to be on my blog. I'm not claiming to be a professional, so... don't know why people would confuse my personal blog with that. Just because I can have a personal opinion on my blog doesn't mean I can't have a professional opinion somewhere else. Or does it? Where is the line drawn, nowadays?

Being a rock star, the Playing With Matches way

A) book a show at a local venue, hopefully with national acts
B) the night of the show, feign ignorance of the lineup and insist you are the headliner
C) convince the venue and the other bands that its in their "best interest" to let you headline because, after all, you bring in the peeps
D) end up with no fans watching your show because they have middle school in the morning

At A Wilhelm Scream last night, Playing With Matches again committed their rock crimes. As I arrived at the Rockwell, a friend told us that Playing With Matches was added to the lineup. Okay, fine, local bands are often added to lineups at the last minute here in Springfield, especially for nationally touring acts. My friend went on to say, however, that the lineup had changed; it seemed that Playing With Matches was now headlining. Yup, you read that right: headlining for a nationally touring act.

When I dug deeper into the story, a Rockwell guy gave me the scoop: it seems the Rockwell was concerned that A Wilhelm Scream wouldn't draw enough of a crowd, so they (the Rockwell) decided to add Playing With Matches and have them headline to up ticket sales. First of all, Playing With Matches was not on the original concert flyers (see photo at right), so many people didn't even know they were playing. Secondly, the Rockwell didn't deliver tickets to the ticket outlets, decreasing ticket sales dramatically anyway. Third, it was a summer Monday in a college town, your drinking crowd isn't even interested.

I have difficulty believing that it was the Rockwell's idea to have Playing With Matches ultimately headline. I'm sure they enforced it, but I suspect that the band used a little sway to make that happen. The evidence:

1) At a John Galt Line Show at the Blue Room, the crowd eagerly anticipated the metal show that was about to take place. At the last minute, John Galt Line was informed that Playing With Matches, who were scheduled to play second-to-last, were to be headlining instead. The reason? More ticket sales. After the John Galt Line finished playing, however, most of the crowd left, leaving Playing With Matches to play with themselves.

2. At the Growl Benefit Concert, Fallen From the Nest, a Texas band, was the headliner, with Playing With Matches the second-to-last act. The concert started at 8:45p, and at 9:15p, Playing With Matches suddenly "realized" that they were not the headliner, and began whining that they were told they were the main attraction. Besides their unprofessional attitude when the coordinator attempted to book them in the first place, this usurpation did not endear them to the concert promoter. Check out the flyer, kiddies, and tell me who you think was the headliner.

I ask you, do you want asshats of this degree musically representing the 'Field? Remember what your mother always told you: Playing With Matches is not cool or safe.

EDIT: In response to the comment "Way to help the scene in Springfield..."

Yeah, I agree. This is no way for Playing With Matches to help the scene in Springfield.

Redesign complete

Welcome to my redesigned blog! Thanks to StyleMaster 4.0 and Chugs for the awesome template. And thanks to me for tweaking it to work for my blog. And thanks to you for reading this.

Perhaps you've heard I'm in MUS 216, introduction to audio engineering. Darcy Stevens is my instructor (the only one for that class, actually), and he's a kick in the pants. Seriously, check out this statement:

Better is the enemy of good enough.

Is that not fucking cool? I have a million of them, I write them down every day. And, there's the world's dumbest guy in my class. I swear he asks dumb questions just to hear himself ask dumb questions.

Well, I've been working on this goddamned template for hours now, so I think I'll go to bed now. Look for another redesign in the future, done completely by me! Not in the near future, but soon...

Peace.

Lame CSS shit

God, I've been working on a redesign for my blog for a solid fucking week, and I can't get it done. First it was the design part itself, then I said fuck it and used a template. Now I can't get the template to work correctly, so I'm thinking of a complete redesign. FUCK! Oh well though, stay tuned a few more days and I should have something done. Meanwhile, I'll change the background around for youse guys.

I'm famous!

(That exclamation point is much deserved!)

Wow! My blog is in the Springfield News-Leader, our local paper (well, Springfield's local paper, I don't receive it). Thanks to Andy Cline, who lists southwest Missouri blogs for mentioning mine. And, since it starts with an "A," it was at the top of the list (don' you love the alphabet?).

Well, this definitely calls for more posts and more updates, and possibly getting my website up and running again. Wow! I still can't believe it! This is really amazing. Guess I'll have to bust my ass to get my blog redesigned, huh?

Anyway though, my fourth was happy and fun, and hopefully yours was too. Our friend Lucas made an artillery shell hand cannon, which is simply a gun you can use to point artillery shells. (Pictures to come soon.) Needless to say, it was the most popular toy at the party. Our finale was a sight to see, unless you were my mom, who got to see it a littly more up close and personal than she might have liked. Note: use flat surfaces to shoot off those large fountains (i.e. Diamonds in the Dark, Color Me America, Punk Rockers, etc.). Four people in my MUS 216 class have bandages on their hands from varying degrees of firework burns, and my hearing just came back yesterday.

I just had to do a wipe and reinstall on my laptop =( , but things are pretty much back to normal from that. After a long and angry conversation with Dell, that is. Dell used to have great customer service, but this past couple of years its gone to the dogs. I could give you a huge story, but I think I'll leave that particular customer "service" story until a day I'm more angry.

Wow. I still cannot believe it. Wow.

For those SW Missourians just coming to my blog for the first time, you should check out my Flickr site (which I'm much more proud of), and give me ideas for my blog and website redesign. Tell then, cheers!

And thanks to Amy from Gentle Whisper for commenting and turning me on to the News-Leader story.

Happy Independence Day

Or, as I like to call it, Happy Blow Shit Up Day! I got all the fireworks for our big party, so hopefully you won't be seeing us on the news for starting brush fires when it's been so dry. We have enough fireworks to share with everyone for 3 miles! We-ll, not really I guess, since everyone I know loves the damn things and would never part with them.

Have a safe and happy Fourth!

Save a tree and quit delivering phone books

Dear Phone Company,

Please don't send me any more phone books. I have enough. Four really is my limit. Please donate my excess phone books to a family in need; I'm sure they can use them for heating fuel.

I have one from you, Phone Company, and one from your rival, and one from your rival's rival. I even have the reverse lookup phone book, where the numbers are listed rather than the names.

All the same numbers appear in each of my phone books, and since I only have one phone, I think perhaps that four is enough. I keep one in my car for a booster seat, one in my kitchen for a trivet, one in my bedroom for a makeshift pillow, and one by the phone for, well, looking up numbers.

All my phone book needs are covered, and if I happen to misplace any of my phone books, I always have the internet. Thank you all the same.

Me

My typing fingers are atrophying

In the words of every rehab grad everywhere, I think I'm gonna be alright. I finally resisted the urge to put an exclamation point in my title. I can start counting from this moment. I can't wait until I can say, "I've been clean for 3 months." without ancillary punctuation.

However, I don't think I am going to get over my computer withdrawal. I have only been without my trusty blue laptop 4 days, and already my typing skills have gone the way of the turd sundae. Fucking Dell. Anyway, I always seem to have an excuse for my lack of posting, which turns into a flurry of posts. Which, now that I think about it, pretty much sums up blogs and their posts.

"Give me that katana, it's Seppuku time!"

Holy shit! I cannot believe my eyes. I just got done watching broadcast Fox's Sunday Animation Domination lineup, and I was completely offended. Was it the blatant disrespect for the reality television industry? No. Was it the representation of middle-class America being overweight slobs with no class or manners? No. Was it the generalization of conservative Republicans being neurotic, over-zealous, xenophobic religious whackos? Not a bit.

No, I was offended by the "warning" prior to the first Simpons episode:

"This episode contains discussion of same sex marriages. Viewer discretion is advised."

Whoa, hold the phone there. You mean, there is no viewer discretion for Bart being a completely rude degenerate? For Homer's child abuse and mysogynist behavior? For Lisa's overacheivment? For Marge's steady retrograde to the days of 50's housewives in pearls and high heels vaccuuming the carpet? (I love the Simpsons, so don't send my hate mail. I'm just proving a point here people, and if you can't get it, screw you. And the horse you rode in on. And your momma. That's right, your momma.)

This is the same channel that had a live video of an alien autopsy, for God's sake! They pay women to be gold-digging, heart-breaking sluts for prime-time. They signed a contract with Paris Hilton. Their list of human rights violations goes on and on, and yet we are being warned that this episode talks about same-sex marriage?

So, I called my mom, who is normally a very intelligent and forward-thinking woman. The problem: Fox News and the Atkin's diet. There is a terrible correlation between the two. Carbohydrates are brain food, the nectar of the grey matter. The Atkin's diet prescribes less carbs (my mom's on 30 a day) to discourage weight gain and promote weight loss. Less carbs = less brains. I believe the Fox News people either a) saw this coming and planned accordingly or b) invented the Atkin's diet and planned accordingly. Suddenly, there's this new news station and it shoots up to the top of the news ratings at the same time that much of America is eating less brain food.

Mom's been on the Atkin's diet for 5 years now, and her love and respect for Fox News have grown exponentially while her intellect and deductive reasoning skills have dwindled to the point of nonexistence. What did Mom say when I called and complained about the aforementioned warning label? Paraphrased:

"You know I don't like censorship, but when you have a cartoon, children are going to be drawn to it. When you talk about issues that are adult issues, issues that kids don't need to see, you should have a warning so kids aren't necessarily exposed to it."

Whoa. I swear she wasn't like this when I was growing up. Can you hear the atrophied brain cells crying, begging for nourishment? When did repecting other people no matter who they are become an "adult issue?" Why did all my books as a kid end with the moral of "love everyone for who they are" if that's not kids stuff? More importantly, where are your kids going to learn tolerance if not from you? And why aren't you involved in what your kids are watching? My mom never let me just watch whatever I wanted. She made me cover my eyes during "love scenes" until I was 12.

Besides, ratings and warning labels mean nothing, or close enough to it. PG-13 still allows hell, damn, and shit, and gives us erotica like the garage sex in The Fast and the Furious. Plus, PG-13 movies can have alcohol and drug use, something that 13 year olds should definitely be kept away from, and I speak from experience here. My point is, that is a ridiculous warning to be on the episode. You should watch things with your kids to monitor their media intake; they'll probably ask you questions about stuff they don't understand, rather then their friends, and it will be so much easier to warp their little minds into carbon copies of you. Just think, no brainwashing to remove the stain of independence from their impressionable little minds. So watch objectionable stuff with your kids.

(Thanks to Chambers for the title.)

Firefox 1337 extention

Oh my god...this is the coolest extension for Firefox ever. Even better than the Homeland Stupidity Idiocy Level. Check this post out:

()h my 60d...7h15 15 7h3 (00|357 3x73n510n f0r F1r3f0x 3v3r. 3v3n 83773r 7h4n 7h3 |-|0m3|4nd 57up1d17y 1d10(y L3v3|.

Yowza! (Y0wz4!)

The St. John's debacle

I said I would tell you more about my dad's stay at St. John's, and I'm not lying. Its just a really long post, and I'm going to have to take a couple of days to write it. I just wanted you to know I didn't forget about you.

Today, Chambers bought some more geckos. I will post pictures as soon as I take some. One's a white line gecko and the other is some guy's name that starts with a 'B' that I don't really remember. Meh. We got into a fight about me being an "oppressive bitch" because I have the opinion that one shouldn't waste one's life playing EverCrack, the Sims, or WoW. Although we have worked it out, I feel there should be some clarification, if only for my own gratification.

Firstly, I don't think that the games themselves or all the people who play them are evil, or stupid, or genetically/intellectually inferior. Just most of them.

Secondly, I am referring to all online multi-player simulation games, not just the aforementioned ones. I wouldn't want anyone feeling left out.

Thirdly, I think that people who play the Sims are the saddest of the bunch, and should probably qualify for Social Security Disability. I mean, I don't want those people responsible for important tasks, like washing my car or picking up trash on the side of the road. They are obviously deeply troubled individuals whom we should care for while looking for the cure to their disease to prevent further infection. You are playing a simulation of life, for Christ's sake! That is the epitome of d-u-m. Allow me to demonstrate:

"[I]nteracting with lots of people all day makes you more comfortable being around lots of people in other situations." Whoa, hold the phone buddy. This is a breakthrough; you mean, doing something regularly breeds familiarity? Now where did I put the number for the Nobel Prize committee...

"I have a bad memory, so when i think of something i need to tell a friend I 'queue' it up like the Sims queues up actions." Since the average human brain can only remember 7 things at once, this leads me to believe that this person: a) has very few friends, b) does not have many experiences to share, or c) both. And since they obviously spend a lot of time on the Sims, the answer is most likely "c." Newsflash: online games do not lead to successful IRL (in real life) relationships. See above.

"i forget how to do something because i'm too busy trying to remember the cheat for how to get it done." A glimpse into the future for all gamers.

"So, you're telling me that I can create little people and then tell them what to do? And if I tire of them, I can lock them in a box and watch them die a slow, lingering death? Sweet!" This is the correct attitude to have if you're going to play any online multiplayer game. This should also be the point of any online multiplayer game.

"First you try playing the game, then you make all the Sims lesbians, then quit." See above.

There. Hopefully that clears everything up.

GodDAMNIT

Fucking exclamation points.

Fireworks!

I found this list of fireworks that were cool from our 4th of July party last year. I thought I'd share them with you guys. Keep in mind that I'm in the midwest, so you may not be able to find these in your town. Just ask your friendly neighborhood fireworks outlet for a similar product. Just like drug dealers, they want you to go home with something.

Without further ado... (note: they go from cheap, short fireworks to larger, more expensive ones)

1. Googles
2. Flying Bees (AKA Bumbly Bees)
3. Ephereal
4. Double Whammy
5. Fire of Star
6. Fire Dance
7. Black Cat Blue Candle (roman candle)
8. Silver Fox
9. Jack in the Box
10. Screaming Eagles
11. Saturn Missle 300 Shot
12. Magnum Mortar
13. Color me America (good despite its blatantly conservative title)
14. Dragon's Fire
15. Thundering Delight
16. Willow
17. Blue Stars
18. Diamonds in the Dark
19. Pop Goes the Fountain (very long and cheap - good buy)
20. Cloud Dragon (cool but short)
21. The Wizard
22. Party Shots
23. Twitter Glitter
24. Magician
25. Double Victory
26. Garden in Spring
27. Anniversary Night
28. Sky Candy (freakin' sweet)
29. Punk Rockers
30. Barrel of Bangs
31. RLO (?) Roman Shot
32. Rainbow Fountain (looks like a rainbow)

So there you pyromaniacs go.

Yay! I'm back!

I'm sure you're all thrilled.

Well, after a few crazy fucking weeks, I'm back to blogging and generally hanging out online and making a nuicence of myself. Where do people find the time anymore to do anything? I have chores to do all over the house, but I can't seem to find the time, with my Flickr posts and blogging and web design, I hardly have a moment's peace. So, since penicillin kills germs, I guess my dishes are pretty clean now.

Let's see, what has happened? Well, my dad went into the hospital, but he's out now. More on that later. My mom couldn't walk 'cause she had "the gout." What the fuck is up with placing a definite article in front of medical disorders? "I've got the cancer," "She gave me the genital warts," "My dog got the neutering." Look, everyone gets their own personal cancer/genital warts/etc, there's not just one cancer going around infecting each person. That's lawyers.

Now that that's out of the way, where was I? Oh yes, boring you with my tedious month. After Mom got over gout one of my cats died, practically in my lap. My cousin went in for chest surgery yesterday to cure and prevent a virual infection (see my rant about hostipals tomorrow).

What a fucking month. And I start summer school on Monday. $984 for 5 credit hours this summer. What is this, Stanford?

Hospital

My dad's in the hostpical, so consequently I'm not blogging. But, I have a horrible hospital story for when he's better, so check back soon.

Dead Day Eve and Cinco De Mayo

Wow...double fucking whammy. Its our last day of classes (Dead Day Eve), which is one of the biggest college drinking holidays at MSU, and Cinco De Mayo, which of course is also a big college drinking day. There has to be a fucking stomach pump traveling van cruising downtown tonight to save all the drunk college kids lives.

We went and partied with our friends Sean, Jordan, and David. Chambers is now puking into a trash can, looking a little green; Jordan called and sounded like death warmed over, and David is apparantly still passed out. Ahhhh, you gotta love college.

McLuhan and Mieville: Understanding Media and Perdido Street Station

At first glance, one might be tempted to say that Mieville’s use of a pre-electric culture in Perdido Street Station is an escapist’s route; a romanticized version of Victorian-age industry, presumably to critique our predilection for and dependence upon electronic technology. However, I believe that Mieville uses a pre-electric age society as a means to remove distractions of familiarity from the minds of his readers. Such distance affords Mieville room to explore socialism, diversity, and activism without the expectations one would have about a society so similar to ours. Furthermore, I believe that Garuda society is a metaphor for Marshall McLuhan’s post-electric utopia; the “electric technology” that affords their society new, inclusive perceptions is simply their natural ability to fly. I intend to explore this thesis through a modest interpretation of Marshall McLuhan’s media theory as presented in Understanding Media, War and Peace in the Global Village, and The Medium is the Massage.
According to the theories of McLuhan, media are extensions of man, and such extensions change the perception of the societies and individuals who adopt them (Understanding Media pg 4, War and Peace pg 7). The content, or message, of the media is not important, for it’s “the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (Understanding Media pg 9). Mieville is aware of this and illustrates it in Garuda society: “The actions vary: the crime...is the theft of choice” (Perdido pg 610). Literacy is a visual perception, an extension of the eye (The Medium is the Massage) that nourishes a tendency to fragment and classify. Electric media, however, is an extension of the central nervous system (Understanding Media pp 3 & 4), and affords us more sensory depth in the marriage of sight, sound, and touch.
The invention of the Western alphabet, grammar, and the printing press caused a shift towards a linear and structured world with little room for variation or diversity as the written (or printed) word must conform to certain guidelines and rules if it is to be an effective communicator. This need for order in literacy caused new perceptions in those who were literate: it became necessary to structure the world in a linear, orderly, and homogenous fashion to complement the written word. Reading and writing allows us to become aloof and detached; literacy give us “the power to act without reacting” (Understanding Media pg 4), to experience without experiencing.
Words have certain meanings, and those meanings and usages predispose those involved to act in certain ways (The Medium is the Massage). In Perdido, Mieville shows his understanding of the power of connotation when Isaac meets Kar’uchai in chapter 52, “He raped you,” Isaac says, to which she replies “He stole my choice…You cannot translate into your jurisprudence” (Perdido pg 609 & 610). To understand, people must place words and sentences in sequence; thus, they began to conceive of things both abstract and concrete as sequential and continuous despite the randomness of the world. Literacy begat fragmentation (Understanding Media pg 8), and as more and more people became literate, everything from social relationships to education to industry began to conform to this new perception of fragmented detachment. New Crobuzon is the essence of fragmentation: the map at the beginning of the book confirms this. For little more than 400 years, we have been a society of this visual, fragmented world, and we are beginning to see the perceptual shift as electronic media takes the place of print media.
With the advent of electricity, television, and computers came the possibility of new perceptions afforded by electronics: a global, non-spatial view of the world (Understanding Media pp 4-5). Suddenly space and time began to recede; the idea of relationships that are not linear but related in different ways began to spark within the minds of those exposed to the new media. Electric media offers people the perceptions of others, sometimes oceans away, to ponder, and eradicates lines of territory and distance as neatly as if they had never been there. With the receding of space and time, societies began to see the world as fluid and simultaneous, rather than linear and consistent. People began to welcome variation and attain a more balanced – visual and aural – perception as electric senses began to replace print senses. The invention of the mouse as a means to navigate the new graphical user interfaces began to bring the tactile world into the mix, allowing for even more balance and shift of perception.
The transition between these two modes of perception causes social and psychological tension and pain (War and Peace pp 7 & 11). Artists, McLuhan believes, are the only people capable of embracing the challenges presented by new media; the artist “glories in the invention of new identities” afforded by new technology (War and Peace pg 12). Art is then a representation of the transition from one media to the next, a thought that Mieville echoes in Mr. Motley: “[Transition] is what makes the world....I believe this to be the fundamental dynamic….It is what makes you, the city, the world, what they are” (Perdido pg 37). Art is the media for both the nostalgia of the old tech and the potential of the new, and changes or reinforces ideology as the artist sees fit. Mieville sees art as a means to challenge the current ideology and the exalt the potential of the new technology, albeit through an old medium. Rather than use the old technology to do the job of the new, Mieville uses old technology to illuminate the possibilities of the new; to embrace new media with Perdido, Mieville would have to write an interactive video game. However, such a medium would negate his careful distancing, as his demographic is likely pretty hip to such new technology.
Yag’s introduction proves that new modes of perception afford you different ways to look at something. Roads, which McLuhan associates with literacy and the Roman empire (War and Peace pg 26, Understanding Media chapter 10), create a sense of sequence and homogeneity, that what follows is either the same or can be predicted by careful observation. “What trick of topography is this, that lets this sprawling monster hide behind corners…?” (“Perdido pg 2). That trick, according to McLuhan, is not one of physical but mental geography; the confusion brought about by new technology distracts us from noticing the effects of our changing perceptions until it is too late to counteract (War and Peace pg 136).
Mieville removes as many distractions of familiarity as he can to encourage his readers to perceive his novel in new ways, forcing new perceptions without new media, if you will. His purpose in Perdido is to analyze ideology, and, as noted in class, one cannot approach ideology directly, but rather must court it coquettishly. Just as literacy allowed us to act without reaction, distance allows us to examine more closely what would normally make us uncomfortable, and it makes expectations irrelevant. Mieville distances his audience through his use of the novel as his medium, pre-electric society, and non-human sentients. A novel is the ultimate form of detachment; instead of experiencing life, we can read about it, safe behind our expectations, our ideology, our current perceptions of the world. Most of, if not all, Mieville’s readers cannot remember a time without electricity; this simple fact alone gives perhaps the greatest distance of all. Likewise, non-human sentients quell our sense of “humanity” and “human nature,” affording us a clear view of who the actant is and why the author chose them.
Yag’s perceptions are rooted in the totality of existence rather than the fragmentation of it; when one is flying above something you cannot help but see the whole. “I wonder how this looks from above, no chance for the city to hide then…you would see it from miles and miles away…” (Perdido pg 2). This distance affords the flyer new perceptions and assumptions about their environment, much the same way as Mieville’s choice of a pre-electric society affords his readers distance. These perceptions gained from flying form the basis of Garuda society; such a total and collective whole could never be accomplished in New Crobuzon’s fragmented and specialized print society. These perceptions gained from flying are the direct parallel to McLuhan’s post-electric perceptual utopia. The Garuda are the natural evolution of the perceptions obligatory of electric technology: “[t]he aspiration of our time for wholeness, empathy and depth of awareness is a natural adjunct of electric technology” (Understanding Media pg 5). Mieville hints that a system such as New Crobuzon can never understand the collectivism of the Garuda: “Your laws…for whom individuals are defined abstract…where context is a distraction…cannot grasp that” (Perdido pg 610), and McLuhan would agree.
Mieville retreats to a pre-electric time not because he is an escapist seeking a retropia, but because it affords his readers – and him – distance to scrutinize ideology. By allowing such distance, Mieville’s message rings that much clearer: you are bound to remember a black cloud in a perfectly blue sky, but would have difficulty in picking out a silver cloud among the thunderheads. This apparent detachment lulls you into a false sense of security; you are lead to believe that this book is like other books. Ultimately, an author chooses every detail of their story for its effectiveness of advancing his or her message, and Mieville does just that. Moreover, an electric society is redundant, as the Garuda society gives us all the perceptions of electric society with none of the capitalist hassle. Mieville seems to agree with McLuhan that inclusive perceptions, such as those in Garuda and electric culture, bring their possessors that much closer to utopia.