what’s good, squad? the latest mutations from Dicktopia were straight up insane! Dick was on conceptual fire, dishing out two sick new evolutionary dewhat’s good, squad? the latest mutations from Dicktopia were straight up insane! Dick was on conceptual fire, dishing out two sick new evolutionary dead ends: the psychic Unusuals and the brainiac New Men. they rule a brave new world full of Undermen like you and me, all of us with nothing to do except watch tv, take our tests, take our pills, punch the clock, follow the orders of New Men & Unusuals... and wait for the people to rise up! no cap, the regime change will be lit, especially when the CEO of This Ain't It returns from Frolix 8 with a dank alien who will totally run the table. fam, it's time for us all to glo up and finally take that W!
I wanted this book to be off the chain but it turned out to be mid. concepts were good but I was shook when I realized that the book wouldn't hit different. too much cringe in the first third, too much yadda yadda in the middle third, but finally the revolution came to slay. and folx, it was savage. all those out of pocket New Men and extra Unusuals may have brought the drama but they just weren't ready to catch hands. they can take several seats. ...more
Paranoia will destroy ya even if you're right about what you're being paranoid over. Like say the mutilated stranger hanging from a lamppost in the miParanoia will destroy ya even if you're right about what you're being paranoid over. Like say the mutilated stranger hanging from a lamppost in the middle of the town square that apparently bothers no one. This short story distills all that made Dick a fascinating and exciting author in the early part of his career: weird, barely described science fictional elements, normal people acting crazy, sudden violence, a herky-jerky prose style that is a good match for the frantic pace, and of course an over the top paranoid narrative in which the paranoia is all too justified.
"...the Old Testament gives us many instances of Yahweh addressing his people through the prophets. This fountain of revelation dried up, finally. God no longer speaks to man. It is called 'the long silence.' It has lasted two thousand years."
"Jung speaks... of a person, a normal person, into whose mind one day a certain idea comes, and that idea never goes away. Moreover, Jung says, upon the entering of that idea into the person's mind, nothing new ever happens to that mind or in that mind; time stops for that mind and it is dead. The mind, as a living, growing entity has died. And yet the person, in a sense, continues on.
If it arises as a problem, your mind will fight it off, because no one really wants or enjoys problems; but if it arises as a solution, a spurious solution, of course, then you will not fight it off because it has a high utility value; it is something you need and you have conjured it up to fill this need."
Once upon a time there was a Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, a man who made mistakes but tried to do the right thing, a man whose son killed himself, a man who went on a spiritual journey after that death, a man who then also died tragically. This was a real bishop and his name was James Pike. One upon a time there was a book about the Bishop of California, a good man and a flawed one, and all the rest of it, the sadness and the tragedy and the death and the seeking and the death, the death. This is Philip K. Dick's bishop and his name was Timothy Archer.
Once upon a time there was a character named Angel, the protagonist in a book about a bishop and a death, and another death, and finally, another death. She was a good protagonist and a flawed one, she tried to do the right thing, she tried and she failed. But is it even failure if you are living in a flawed world, a vastly imperfect creation, one where the Creator has walked away, or flown away or floated away or transubstantiated away or or or, who cares, they left, He left, bored and uninterested in providing even the smallest sign of His caring, let alone His love. You can't blame an angel for failing in a world that sees both success and failure as equally meaningless. At least Angel tried.
Once upon a time there was an Angel who tried, who tried to not let the idea get in her head, that there was something more, some meaning to it all, a God who created order and meaning, that life and death both had meaning, she tried not to believe in all of that. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least save one person, she wasn't able to save the others but surely she could at least save this Bishop, the most helpless and yet the strongest of them all. She failed. Once upon a time she decided she could at least help herself, she could try to achieve some sort of understanding, or at least a kind of equanimity with what had happened in her life, she could at least try to make sure she was more than a hollow where a person once was, a life that once had people in it, all of them gone now. She--
"I turned to my own menu, and saw there what I wanted. What I wanted was immediate, fixed, real, tangible; it lay in this world and it could be touched and grasped; it had to do with my house and my job, and it had to do with banishing ideas finally from my mind, ideas about other ideas, an infinite regress of them, spiraling off forever."
Once upon a time there was Angel, and she succeeded, in that one small thing, in that decision to keep trying, she'd leave the world of ideas behind and focus on the material world, hope wasn't lost yet, she would save this fourth person and so would be saving herself, and she--
Once upon a time there was a Bishop who transmigrated, he had left the world and then he came back into it, into the body of another, yet another person who needed saving. The Bishop had searched and he had failed and he had died and he had came back and he--
Once upon a time there was an author named Philip K. Dick who tried, who really tried, to understand God and the world and all of the ideas in his head, so many of them, he tried to organize his thoughts and create a kind of narrative out of them, he tried to understand death and reality and his place in it all, he succeeded and he failed and he--...more
an ingenious, frenetically paced book crammed full of fascinating ideas. this was Dick's first published novel yet it doesn't feel like it. he jumped an ingenious, frenetically paced book crammed full of fascinating ideas. this was Dick's first published novel yet it doesn't feel like it. he jumped into writing with his style and his themes fully formed. that's not to say this isn't rough - but all of his stories are rough. for me that is a big part of their appeal. it feels like he wrote this in a white heat and then immediately had it published, screw any rewriting. it has so much energy! and talent to burn. I've always found it hard to write about Dick (but not about dick) because anything I'd want to tease out or explore is already right there between the pages, blatant. his ideas are front and center: the human struggle to be an individual rather than a cog in the machine and the equally human desire to just have a relaxed, pleasant life; mega-structures like governments and corporations that hold complete dominion but still function like slot machines or a roulette wheel or a bad yet very funny dream; a world of predetermined lives where everyone, high and low, is still prey to luck and randomization - it is the person who can figure out a system deciphering that randomness who often wins.
my favorite part of the book was an outstanding sequence in which an android assassin attempts to carry out a hit - a blank slate of an assassin whose decisions are made by a multitude of minds jumping in and out of its body, changing directions and plans abruptly with each new mind, confounding its telepathic pursuers with every new and surprising decision. a breathless and very exciting scene.
synopsis: in the year 2203, at the start of a shocking regime change, irritable everyman Ted Benteley gets a new job....more
I've met a certain kind of person a number of times in my life. Cheerful and upbeat, "happy" in their job, "happy" in their personal life, yet dying iI've met a certain kind of person a number of times in my life. Cheerful and upbeat, "happy" in their job, "happy" in their personal life, yet dying inside. Maybe they don't know that they radiate sadness despite the cheerful smiles, that the almost desperate happiness that they are trying to portray comes across as manufactured and even tragic. At the very least, the difference between the affect and what lies beneath is uncomfortable, unsettling - they fool even themselves. Another version of this person only pays lip service to being happy: openly petty, judgy, vindictive, yet always making sure to state "I'm doing good!" or "I love my life" - they dare you to disagree. You've met these kind of people too, I'm sure - or maybe you've been them? I sure have. Maybe you've watched them on Bravo.
Galactic Pot-Healer is the book version of such personalities, the two being flip sides of the same coin. Cheerful, light-hearted, surprisingly cutting at times, other times rather strenuously silly... all a bright-toned cover for the dark desperation and feeling of failure throbbing underneath. A tragic book, despite what could be considered a happy ending. An uncomfortable, unsettling book, despite its friendly exterior. A deep sadness, despite the sarcasm and the absurdities. The protagonist "heals pots" but this sad zombie can barely recognize his own brokenness. He goes through the motions of life, his attempts to connect with others are like people trying to have a conversation while underwater. When other characters try to engage with him in an honest way, his response is to tell a joke, make a non-sequitur, recount some pointless anecdote. Or he gets passive-aggressively angry for reasons even he doesn't understand. He's drowning while saying don't worry, don't save me, I'm perfectly fine, leave me alone.
"You mean you're trying to protect your life?" Joe said. "But your life is over." He did not comprehend; it made no sense, it was eerie and bizarre. The thought of a decayed corpse - his corpse - living this semilife down here, going through the motions of making itself safe... "Improve living standards for the dead," he said savagely, speaking at large, to neither Mali nor the corrupted body floating before him.
His life may be hollow, but he will try to protect it. Even when given an opportunity to be a part of something larger than himself, something that will connect him to others, he will find ways to fuck it up. It's like he can't help himself.
I should feel sorry for you," Mali said. "But I can't. You brought this on all of us - you've destroyed Glimmung, who meant to save you from your puerile pastimes. He meant to restore the dignity of work to you in a heroic enterprise, a joint enterprise involving hundreds of us..."
The book feels like its narrative is leading to some grand adventure, so many people and aliens gathered together to accomplish something remarkable, something that will give their empty lives meaning. Not so much though, or at least not so much for our poor, tragic, angry, friendly Galactic Pot-Healer. Don't buy what the book is pretending to sell, on its surface. Dick is just fucking with you.
synopsis: the Earth that is under the shadow of Satan, religion and government its twin rulers; the father who is not His father lies dreaming, of a singer; the mother who was a virgin is dead, assassinated; the Father who is God has lost the battle, driven from Earth; He who is the son of God, conceived on a planet far away, He who shall become God, fostered by elias, He who shall invade this Earth, a divine invasion, He who shall win the war, and destroy the Earth; She who shall tease and taunt and guide and lead Him astray, into the Secret Commonwealth, into a new reality, Her reality, or perhaps the reality. we are saved, God become merciful, His divine invasion transformed, hallelujah!
weiver: the script flipped he flipped the script Dick scripted a flip again, like VALIS, again, the story the novel, it's a play it's science fiction, it's not real. the real world is not science fiction, it's not a divine invasion, it's a bored and unhappily married man, now in love with a singer, straying from a wife who has realized she could do better. the man doesn't want a son, he doesn't care about God. not true! Dick makes it not true, the pink light that is VALIS knows it's not true. this is a cautionary tale, but for whom? a cautionary tale for God? God should be merciful, says Dick. don't be such a dick, God, says Dick, who loves God, as of course God loves Dick.
and so I finished the nightmare turned dream, glad for Earth and scared of Dick.
I/he looked in the mirror to find the face of God. We are all created in God's image, or so we've been taught, I/he thought. But I/he saw n
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I/he looked in the mirror to find the face of God. We are all created in God's image, or so we've been taught, I/he thought. But I/he saw no God there; instead there was fallibility, weakness, hypocrisy, despair, and longing. A desire and a need to fool oneself, to compartmentalize so that one part can hide from the other. Where is this so-called God, I/he thought. Perhaps God is disguised somehow, in the background... or camouflaged in the foreground, a Zebra hidden in plain sight.
I/he looked in the mirror a second time, and saw all of our selves - all of us throughout time, some weak and some strong, but most somewhere in-between. We looked at our reflections. Are we an aspect of God? But God doesn't die, and this body certainly will, I/he thought mournfully.
All of us looked in the mirror a third time; God looked back upon us. Information was sent; the message was received. That message: We are all one and so We will never truly die. God is not bound by space or time; God exists to unify. The Empire will fall; God's Kingdom shall triumph. God lives through all things, in all of the weak things and in all of the strong, in everything in-between; even in us, thought Us.
"I am the eye in the sky Looking at you I can read your mind I am the maker of rules Dealing with fools I can cheat you blind And I don't need to see "I am the eye in the sky Looking at you I can read your mind I am the maker of rules Dealing with fools I can cheat you blind And I don't need to see any more To know that I can read your mind, I can read your mind"...more
"Three's my lucky number And fortune comes in threes But I wish I knew that number That even little children seem to see Oh, I'm missing everything I "Three's my lucky number And fortune comes in threes But I wish I knew that number That even little children seem to see Oh, I'm missing everything I knew It's just so hard to be a child Oh, i'm missing all the things i knew Yet whinge i knew nothing at all I whinge i knew nothing at all"...more
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