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all tomorrow's parties
Wednesday, 19 March 2008 09:48 amArthur C. Clarke is dead. This is inevitable, with Elder Gods, but still sad.
I have two very strong memories of Clarke's writing, its vivid sense of infinite possibility. The one is finding "The Nine Billion Names of God" in one of my late grandfather's extensive collections of science fiction short stories when I was still in junior school. I think it actually might have been the first sf story I ever read. I still very much remember the enormous sense of narrative satisfaction from the ending. The other memory is reading 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I discovered in a glossy hardback whose cover I still remember, lurking in the shelves in the not-very-good library of my high school. This was in Marondera, which is the tiny little one-horse Zimbabwean farming town where I spent my first couple of years of high school. The contrast between the context and Space Odyssey was extremely marked: I went around in a bit of a daze for a week or so after reading the novel, bumping into things. I also loved Childhood's End. He was always a writer who was obviously charmed and uplifted by the infinite promise of the future.
Hmmm. I may have to make a regular thing of this Rant List: like a prayer list, but for grumpy atheists. Things to go onto it this week, apart from the loss of important cultural figures:
1. Sid the Sinus Headache. He's lurking in there, rubbing his hands and cackling as he plots. I'm incredibly tired and feel as though someone has poured cement into my skull. Phooey.
2. Load shedding. Two hours without power yesterday. I'm still all twitchy from the internet withdrawal.
3. Techno-jinxes. The Evil Landlord's, which still won't allow us internet access for more than a few minutes at a time, randomly, when it feels like it and isn't booting down in a sulk, and Robynn's, which is likewise denying her her rightful connectivity.
4. Linda Hutcheon on parody. My brain is too tired to make sense of her.
Last Night I Dreamed:: I was married to Tom Cruise. Again. What's with that, subconcious? Honestly. This time, he was deathly ill with somethingorother, meaning that I had to dig his shiny full-body superhero suit out of the cupboard and bring it to him.
I have two very strong memories of Clarke's writing, its vivid sense of infinite possibility. The one is finding "The Nine Billion Names of God" in one of my late grandfather's extensive collections of science fiction short stories when I was still in junior school. I think it actually might have been the first sf story I ever read. I still very much remember the enormous sense of narrative satisfaction from the ending. The other memory is reading 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I discovered in a glossy hardback whose cover I still remember, lurking in the shelves in the not-very-good library of my high school. This was in Marondera, which is the tiny little one-horse Zimbabwean farming town where I spent my first couple of years of high school. The contrast between the context and Space Odyssey was extremely marked: I went around in a bit of a daze for a week or so after reading the novel, bumping into things. I also loved Childhood's End. He was always a writer who was obviously charmed and uplifted by the infinite promise of the future.
Hmmm. I may have to make a regular thing of this Rant List: like a prayer list, but for grumpy atheists. Things to go onto it this week, apart from the loss of important cultural figures:
1. Sid the Sinus Headache. He's lurking in there, rubbing his hands and cackling as he plots. I'm incredibly tired and feel as though someone has poured cement into my skull. Phooey.
2. Load shedding. Two hours without power yesterday. I'm still all twitchy from the internet withdrawal.
3. Techno-jinxes. The Evil Landlord's, which still won't allow us internet access for more than a few minutes at a time, randomly, when it feels like it and isn't booting down in a sulk, and Robynn's, which is likewise denying her her rightful connectivity.
4. Linda Hutcheon on parody. My brain is too tired to make sense of her.
Last Night I Dreamed:: I was married to Tom Cruise. Again. What's with that, subconcious? Honestly. This time, he was deathly ill with somethingorother, meaning that I had to dig his shiny full-body superhero suit out of the cupboard and bring it to him.
