Stand on Zanzibar (3 page)

There is nothing wilful or arbitrary about the Innis mode of expression. Were it to be translated into perspective prose, it would not only require huge space, but the insight into the modes of interplay among forms of organisation would also be lost. Innis sacrificed point of view and prestige to his sense of the urgent need for insight. A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. As Innis got more insight he abandoned any mere point of view in his presentation of knowledge. When he interrelates the development of the steam press with “the consolidation of the vernaculars” and the rise of nationalism and revolution he is not reporting anybody’s point of view, least of all his own. He is setting up a mosaic configuration or galaxy for insight … Innis makes no effort to “spell out” the interrelations between the components in his galaxy. He offers no consumer packages in his later work, but only do-it-yourself kits.

—Marshall McLuhan:
The Gutenberg Galaxy

context (1)

SCANALYZE MY NAME

Stock cue SOUND:
“Presenting SCANALYZER, Engrelay Satelserv’s unique thrice-per-day study of the big big scene, the INdepth INdependent INmediate INterface between you and your world!”

Stock cue VISUAL:
cliptage, splitscreen, cut in bridge-melder, Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere depthunder (today MAMP, Mid-Atlantic Mining Project), spaceover (today freefly-suiting), transiting (today Simplon Acceleratube), digging (today as every day homimage with autoshout).

Autoshout cue:
“It’s happening it’s happening! SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER SCANALYZER—”

Stock cue VISUAL:
cliptage, wholescreen, planet Earth turning jerk-jerk-jerk and holding meridians for GMT, EST, PCT, Pacific Conflict Zone Time.

Live cue SOUND:
“And it’s six poppa-momma for the happening people keeping it straight and steady on that old Greenwich Mean Time—how mean can time get, you tell me,
hm?
Zee for zero, bee for base, counting down to one after ess ee eks—sorree—ess EYE eks! We know what’s happening
happening
HAPPENING but that piece of the big big scene is strictly up to you, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere—or Mr. and Miss, or Miss and Miss, or Mister and Mister, take your pick, hah-hah! Counting down to one after one poppa-momma for that good old Eastern Standard tie-yum, one after ten anti-matter for the Pacific Coast, and for all of you fighting the good fight in lonely midocean one after seven anti-matter—PIPS!”

Clock cue:
5
×
1-sec. countdown pips on G in alt, minute signal on C in alt.

Plug cue:
“No time like the present for things to happen in, no better way to keep time straight and steady than by the signal from General Technics’ critonium clock, so accuright it serves to judge the stars.”

Script cue VISUAL:
cliptage, splitscreen, excerpts from day’s news.

Live cue SOUND:
“And no better way to keep abreast—pardon—than with SCANALYZER!”

Cut autoshout cue.
(If they haven’t made it by this time they’ve switched off.)

Plug cue:
“SCANALYZER is the one single, the ONLY study of the news in depth that’s processed by General Technics’ famed computer Shalmaneser, who sees all, hears all, knows all save only that which YOU, Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, wish to keep to yourselves.”

Script cue:
the happening world.

the happening world (1)

READ THE DIRECTIONS

For toDAY third of MAY twenty-TEN ManhatTEN reports mild spring-type weather under the Fuller Dome. Ditto on the General Technics Plaza.

But Shalmaneser is a Micryogenic
®
computer bathed in liquid helium and it’s cold in his vault.

(DITTO Use it! The mental process involved is exactly analogous to the bandwidth-saving technique employed for your phone. If you’ve seen the scene you’ve seen the scene and there’s too much new information for you to waste time looking it over more than once. Use “ditto”.
Use
it!

—
The Hipcrime Vocab
by Chad C. Mulligan)

Less of a machine, more of a human being, but partaking of the nature of both, Georgette Tallon Buckfast is largely supported by prosthetics in her ninety-first year.

When the strain becomes TOO MUCH it’s because Hitrip of California bred it to have less stalk per ounce, more clean-queen leaf. Ask “The Man who’s Married to Mary Jane”!

Eric Ellerman is a plant geneticist with three daughters who’s scared because his wife has developed a permanent pot-belly.

“… and Puerto Rico today became the latest state to ratify the controversial dichromatism provision of United States eugenic legislation. This leaves only two havens for those who wish to bear disadvantaged children: Nevada and Louisiana. The defeat of the baby-farming lobby removes a long-time stigma from the fair brow of the Junior-but-One State—a congenital stigma, one may say, since the J-but-O State’s accession to hoodness coincided almost to the day with the first eugenic legislation concerned with haemophilia, phenylketonuria and congenital imbecility…”

Poppy Shelton has believed in miracles for years, but now there’s one happening right inside her body and the real world is leaning on her dreams.

THE DIFFICULT WE DO AT ONCE. THE IMPOSSIBLE TAKES A LITTLE LONGER.

—Base version of General Technics motto

Norman Niblock House is junior VP in charge of personnel and recruitment at General Technics.

“One fraction of a second, please—participant breakin coming up. Remember that only SCANALYZER’s participant breakin service is processed by General Technics’ Shalmaneser, the more correct response in the shorter quantum of time…”

Guinevere Steel’s real name is Dwiggins, but do you blame her?

Other books

Fast Slide by Melanie Jackson

Abomination by Gary Whitta

The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry by Harlan Lane, Richard C. Pillard, Ulf Hedberg

The People's Will by Jasper Kent

Odd Girl In by Jo Whittemore

The Dark Corner by Christopher Pike

Love After Dark by Marie Force

Building Up to Love by Joanne Jaytanie

A Sister's Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter

The Dust Will Never Settle by Deva, Mukul