Matt Cahill's blog
So, the band I’m in – Behind The Garage – have a gig this Thursday (Valentine’s Day). We’re playing at the venerable Mitzi’s Sister (1554 Queen Street West, just west of Lansdowne). It would be a great thrill, boost, and gas to have one and all come out if available.
We don’t play covers and we’re pretty darn good ™.
Allow me to spotlight one of those articles that is sure to disappear from the news as fast as it was posted. Andrew Carey, a journalist with CNN, posted the following:
Let me outline some relevant quotes from the CIA’s Annual Threat Assessment, always a February ritual on Capital Hill:
“Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat.”
Iran has shown a “willingness to use terrorism to pursue strategic foreign policy agendas…”
In Afghanistan, the “chaos here is providing an incubator for narcotics traffickers and militant Islamic groups.”
In Pakistan, “Musharraf’s domestic popularity has been threatened by a series of unpopular policies that he promulgated last year. At the same time, he is being forced to contend with increasingly active Islamist extremists.”
The Internet enables “terrorists to raise money, spread their dogma, find recruits and plan operations far afield,” and “acquire information and capabilities for chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear attacks.”
Does any of this sound familiar? It should, they are direct quotes taken from the threat assessment as released on February 7th, 2001, a full 7 months before the U.S. ‘homeland’ was attacked. All of it was practically rewritten for the 2008 U.S. Threat Assessment.
The highlights of the 2008 Threat Assessment, as delivered before a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday, are depressingly void of detail or anything that approaches real insight into the virulent threat now faced by the U.S. and its Western allies.
Skepticism is a good thing, cynicism is not. Unfortunately I confess to feeling much of both as I listened to what the best minds in the U.S. intelligence community had to offer on the state of the threat.
They seem unwilling to share any of their material “intelligence,” the kind that would have potentially tipped off a few suspecting citizens as mass terror plots have unfolded around the world in the last decade. The intelligence community would doubtless argue that to do so would compromise operations and compromise important individuals. I would argue that without real and specific information to enhance their threat assessment, the entire exercise is essentially meaningless, as the 2001 assessment so tragically proved.
I don’t think there’s anything I need to add to this, other than (by-now-predictable) metaphors involving Orwell, the film Brazil, or the book I’m currently reading, We by Eugene Zamiatin.
For those of you living in the south (south of Canada, that is), I hope to see some changes come November, eh?
Okay, so I made the decision that this blog shall display my real name and not the (admittedly appealing) pseudonym I’ve used since I started this blog 171 posts ago.
I’ve been playing with the idea for a while and realised that, while it’s not a question of having ‘nothing to lose’, I don’t have a shitload to gain by hiding my identity. It’s not like there’s a Bruce Wayne/Batman thing happening in my life…well, not outside my imagination.
I caught an entry on the popular literary blog/magazine Book Ninja, highlighting an article by writer Clive Thompson, revealingly titled “Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing“. I wanted to respond on Book Ninja, but I realised that I wasn’t responding to the article so much as forking the argument in an unrelated direction. That, and, well, when I tried posting my response the bloody “security phrase” was wrong and when I clicked the Back button on my browser my eloquent, finely-crafted response was gone. Consider this a means of channelling my sorrow.
Thompson contends that the strength of science fiction over so-called “literary fiction” is that the latter, in regards to ideas, has become so mired in everyday realism that it’s become less interesting as a result.
While that is debatable, there’s a bit which I thought contentious:
“So, then, why does sci-fi, the inheritor of this intellectual tradition, get short shrift among serious adult readers? Probably because the genre tolerates execrable prose stylists. Plus, many of sci-fi’s most famous authors — like Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick — have positively deranged notions about the inner lives of women.”
Firstly, let me get the following off my chest: I hate the term “science fiction”. [Note: Thompson rubs salt in this irritation by including dragons into the mix. Dragons? Methinks he has his genres confused]. “Science fiction” is a left-brained label which conjures 50’s-era Youth Adventure stories with rocket ships and lasers. In other words, the connotation of “science fiction” is that it is a lesser, more utilitarian form of fiction than the hallowed halls of “literary fiction”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, you can’t blame people for thinking this when they step into the Science Fiction section of their neighbourhood Book Behemoth. Row upon row of monochromatic, serialised “space and laser” stories. Blame the capitalists, I say. If you’re a publisher and you know that 16-year old kids will devour clichés so long as they involve space travel, you won’t care about quality.
However, to directly address Thompson’s contention, I would like to know how “execrable prose” and “deranged notions of women” are the sole providence of science fiction? Are we talking about a genetic disorder from which our precious “literary fiction” is immune? Are you telling me that one is cleaner than the other – do you really want to go there, Thompson? Eh?
I do stand in agreement though: science fiction (for lack of a better term) historically represents the bleeding edge of philosophy. What people who shun the genre don’t realise is that it often transpires without a space ship, laser, or tight-pantaloon’d woman in sight. Need I mention the likes of Stanislaw Lem, Eugene Zamiatin, or the Strugatsky Brothers? Some of the greatest sci-fi writers produced their best-known work under political tyranny (it should be stated: the one convenient thing about writing in a genre that the establishment doesn’t take seriously is that one can communicate vast, revolutionary ideas without getting caught).
What bugs me is that when authors of “literary fiction” dip into the conceits of science fiction, there is often praise for their bold move (as if they were writing in a foreign language), yet – outside the likes of William Gibson – there is scant recognition for the science fiction author who transcends the confines (or expectations) of his or her genre.
In truth, as a writer, I’m torn between the gravitational pulls of both “literary fiction” and “science fiction”. I think an otherworldliness can make the everyday more captivating for the reader, but it takes skill to balance both so that you’re neither stretching believability nor betraying the wonder of the other by miring it in mundanity. I respect both strains of fiction yet I consider it tragic that so many good books and stories remain unread because of nothing more than a problem in perception.
I read the news last night and saw that Bobby Fischer had passed away. Like many people who were familiar with his life and accomplishments, there was mix of surprise, disappointment, and (sadly) relief.
Fischer was the yin/yang of fame and fortune – in his youthful prime, the greatest chess player who ever walked the earth, and in the years that followed, an increasingly paranoid, hateful, and divisive man.
He embodied the so-called American Dream: a lower-class kid who started playing competitive chess by the age of 8, to become an International Grandmaster by the age of 15. The highlight of his career was winning the 1972 world championship against then-Soviet opponent Boris Spassky in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was the first American to win the championship in over a century and, in light of the Cold War, was embraced as a hero by millions of people around the world. As a chess player, Fischer was imaginative, often employing so-called “traditional” moves in new ways. He closed down his opponents mercilessly.
The problem, which certainly did not begin late in life, was that he was a sheltered, neurotic, perhaps even mentally unbalanced individual. It wasn’t enough for him to control the
chessboard: he demanded that everything about his playing environments be to his standards, which often meant no cameras, no illustrators, no televisions. He lived most of his life in reclusion, eventually leaving the United States (persecuted for playing chess in Yugoslavia while it was under embargo) to live throughout Europe and the Asian Pacific. He became an ex-pat with a paranoia streak. He became infamous for radio interviews he gave in the Philippines, denouncing conspiracies which were often anti-Semitic in nature. In short, he was a mess. I’ve read some of the transcripts (I didn’t want to believe it when I’d first heard), and it pretty much destroyed any respect I had for the man. I’m only thankful he wasn’t organized enough to start a militia.
He died of unknown causes on the same island which was the scene of his greatest triumph – Iceland. In this there is some dark poetry to be written. About heroes. About the duality of an unparallelled tenacity. But dark still. Very dark.
