DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK: END OF SUMMER AND THOUGHTS ON ASIMOV

Well, summer is officially over for me. I am back in Pittsburgh, writing this from the desk of my new apartment. When I stare out my window, I no longer see student slums. That has to count for something. There are many things to do in the two weeks between now and the first day of classes (like finally getting around to writing that syllabus . . .), but I should hopefully have enough time on my hands to resume blogging with whatever approaches regularity for me on this thing. I've been working on the long promised post about chillwave (thesis [essentially]: chillwave is a specifically North American form of hauntology) and I hope to have it up (famous last words) by tomorrow evening. After that, I'll try and tackle my impressions of DFW's The Pale King--it really does seem to me to lend itself to a reading via capitalist realism--and some of his other later work.

Before I get to any of that, though, I've just finished re-reading Asimov's three Lije Baley/R. Daneel Olivaw novels (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn). When I was younger, I loved all three, but I have to admit I didn't find them as enjoyable this time around (it's been probably five years at least since I'd even glanced at them). While I was impressed with the resonances between some of Asimov's sociological and psychological commentary and current social and political situations--particularly in the two earlier novels--what left me cold were the glimpses of the much stranger novels that got left behind in their adherence to fairly conventional mystery/adventure templates. In some ways, the humaniform robot R. Daneel Olivaw invites speculation on the nature of the human vs. the simulation, the authentic vs. the simulacrum from the first: he is introduced to the reader as a human, and is under orders to maintain his disguise as a human at all times (a deception he achieves much more successfully in the second novel, but which is rendered impossible in the third). Asimov is too clever to dispense entirely with speculation on the above themes, but he avoids lengthy digressions on the subject, preferring the issues to remain in the background (and to arise mostly as secondary or tertiary subtexts to other conversations or internal monologues by Baley). Indeed, Daneel becomes increasingly "human"--or is thought of as such by Baley--throughout the series, to the point where he is able to smile in the third novel (something he is unable to do successfully in the first). Whereas this would seem to be the point at which to push the distinction between the authentically human and the imitative robot to its extreme or to dissolve it entirely, Asimov does neither.

This is, ultimately, where the weirder novels that lurk just beneath the surface of the trilogy start to appear. Not overtly, but rather as the ghosts of what other writers might have done with this material, particularly Asimov's doppelganger in terms of hyperprolific American science fiction writers with an extraordinarily large influence over the field: Philip K. Dick. The Caves of Steel could become, with some minor tweaking, a dry run for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? What happens instead is that at the very point where Dick's novels and stories break into epistemological and existential chaos, at the point where the human and the real become impossible to locate or verify, Asimov's novel closes the door to that chaos through the relentless logic of Baley the plainclothesman. Where in Dick's hands Daneel would grow steadily more unnerving as he became increasingly human--and where Baley's shifting attitude toward Daneel (from fear and loathing to love and respect) would be matched by an increasing uneasiness towards Baley's own humanity--Asimov's Baley is already so machine-like, so rooted to cause and effect, to chains of logic, that he can point to Daneel's artificial nature and discuss that nature with the robot without ever really making the question of the human/robot distinction a live one. Baley's physical shortcomings (his agoraphobia, for example, or his need to eat, to defecate, etc.), what would on the surface seem to point to his very humanity, become affectations on par with Daneel's in the robot's attempt to be taken as human. The many references to Baley's long, glum face, a face that only rarely smiles, seem like deliberate echoes of Daneel's own grave visage and Baley's revulsion at the lifeless smile he commands Daneel to display for him in The Caves of Steel.

The two become mirrors of each other, but where Daneel's resemblance to/echo of everything that should distinguish Baley as the human in the pair should unnerve, should awaken exactly that primal fear Freud mentions in "The Uncanny," it fails to do so precisely because he has no one who appears to fulfill the criteria of the "human." This, ultimately, is the disturbing part of the series, and it is in some ways more deeply unsettling than Dick's questioning of the human. Where Dick worked hard to locate the "authentic" human gesture--"The concept of caritas (or agape) shows up in my writing as the key to the authentic human. The android, which is the unauthentic human, the mere reflex machine, is unable to experience empathy"--Asimov works with a similar basic assumption (the reflex in this case being a robot's unfailing response to the First Law of Robotics), but then undercuts them (the search for the Laws of Humanics) with a desire to make the human more like the robot, like Lije Baley, who is identified at the end of the third novel as the template for the "ideal" human to colonize the galaxy.

REGULAR SERVICE TO RESUME SOON

I have been remiss in my blogging this month. Come August I should be back in the swing of things (providing there are no major moving mishaps next week). I've got some posts I'm working on about DFW's The Pale King and capitalist realism, Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, and various music things (chillwave and hauntology, Fennesz's new EP), in case you were dying to know what's forthcoming. For now, follow the links to enjoy some music I made during the summer break:

"certain other details have been changed"

"tv theme"

If you're only interested in keeping up with music that I write/make, direct your attention here (or, alternatively, here).

CONFESSIONS OF A FAILED SUMMER BLOGGER

I had something of a plan to blog more regularly in July; obviously that hasn't happened. Of course, I pictured my July as a non-stop workfest in which I would wake up, leap to my computer, and frantically type away until I could type no more. Other than typing some 140 character bursts for Twitter, though, I can't say I've spent much time at the keyboard. Or working. Or thinking about work. About the closest I've come to work so far is a conversation with a friend (he's a grad student in the sciences) in which he kept asking me (in a polite and friendly way, I should note) to explain the rationale for what I do (and, by extension, what English Studies as a whole does). His point was essentially "what I work on has the potential to contribute to a cure for cancer. What do you do for anyone?" It was an interesting conversation. Maybe I'll write up some of my thoughts and post them here to see what people think.

What have I been doing so far this month? Well, since you asked, not a whole lot. I've been playing a lot of guitar, listening to a lot of music, and reading. I went to a racetrack and watched harness racing. I went swimming. I went to EPIC LASER TAG.* None of these things are helping to get the tasks I wanted to complete in July accomplished, but I guess something in me wants more of a break than I would consciously like to allow myself to have. I've decided to crack the whip, though. Starting Monday, I will be up and writing when my alarm goes off. It's time to produce and not just to laze about. There's nothing to stop me doing work and enjoying myself, so I just need to start working on the former as much as the latter.

On the plus side, I've been slowly getting back into shape, and, after getting lost that first time, I've managed to keep my bearings while out running. I've realized over the past two months or so how much I've missed having running as a way to structure my days. Now, on the days that I don't run, I feel a little aimless. I'm even considering finding my spikes and going down to a track to work out. We'll see if I manage to get that far.


*It was fun, but three games was definitely excessive. The building was not air conditioned and we were all doused in sweat by the end of the night.

THE IRONY OF SUBURBAN LIVING

I just had to post this after my somewhat touchy-feely post on home earlier: I went for a run this evening and got lost in my own subdivision. I've lived here for almost fifteen years, but I guess that's not enough to be able to find my way home if I make a wrong turn. The subdivision did its best impression of a medina, with every street seeming to turn onto itself and no indication of a way out of the maze to be found. Given that there are only about four models of home on display in my subdivision landmarks were in short supply. I eventually found my way back to the main road and went straight back to my house, but it was touch and go for a few minutes there. Home: it's where you go to end up lost, I guess.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

I had some friends visit last week, which should explain my total absence from blogging (and the internet in general). Anyway, I feel the need to put something up here so that it doesn't seem like I've entirely abandoned the blog. To that end, a brief list:

1. While my friends were here, they convinced me to read Neil Gaimon's American Gods. I'd read the first two Sandman graphic novels and enjoyed them, so it wasn't exactly a hard sell. I'm happy to note that American Gods was wonderful. It reminded me a lot of Douglas Adams' The Long, Dark Tea Time of the Soul, though slightly more serious. What impressed me most about American Gods was its originality and ability to surprise me: I never felt that I knew what would happen next in the novel and the characters (even those with theologically/mythologically pre-determined natures) were unique and memorable.
2. Also, my friends convinced me to rent and watch Thank You For Smoking while they were here. Again, an excellent call on their part: the movie was fantastic. I don't think I've laughed so much while watching a movie in quite some time. I'm already scheming up ways to show parts of the movie to my class in the Fall.
3. Inspired by a ridiculous comment by the teacher of the German class I just finished taking ("When you think of the Industrial Revolution, you think of Pittsburgh"*), my friends and I spent the past week making increasingly ridiculous statements as we wandered around the city ("Pittsburgh invented Christopher Columbus;" "Pittsburgh invented America;" "Pittsburgh invented Elephants;" etc., etc.).
4. I've been unable to get to work on any of the stuff I "need" to be working on--like those papers I said I wanted to get ready to send out--because another idea has popped into my head and won't let me go. Taking the advice I've received from the Object-Oriented Philosophy blog, I've decided to strike while the iron is hot and get to work on this idea. There will be plenty of time to get a rough version of this paper together and to work on those other things. Given that this is the first paper I've ever written without any outside prompting or context (like a class or a conference), I'm really anxious to get some feedback.
5. Two short books I'm enjoying working my way through right now: Roland Barthes' Writing Degree Zero (although the chapters on "Writing and the Novel" and "Is There Any Poetic Writing?" are something of a slog) and Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning of Style. The former is helping me re-think some sections of one of the paper's I should be working on and the latter is helping me think through some problems I'm facing in the paper I am working on.
6. I'm heading home for a month or so this coming week. I'm looking forward to being back in Canada and seeing some friends. I don't know if I'll have the chance or not, but it would also be nice to see my sister and my brother, his wife, and my niece. 

That's all for now. Here's hoping for a more productive July (though I've enjoyed my pretty vacation-esque June).


*For the record, when I think of the Industrial Revolution, I think of English cities like Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool.