Fwd: Man in Hightower Netflix

Tue Dec 8 11:16:10 CST 2015

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter M. Fitzpatrick <petopoet at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Man in Hightower Netflix

     Regarding P.K. Dick in general, I find most dramatic adaptations of
his novels do not come near the power and bite of his writing. I used to
think it was a purposeful avoidance of Dick's powerful questioning of our
culture, it's claims on reality, and the nature of reality itself. There is
no question of the cynicism of his views, or at least a most eloquently
stated distrust lying at the heart of it, that I felt modern Hollywood
sensibilities were neither equipped or inclined to replicate in their
dramatic reinterpretations, with "Blade Runner" being perhaps the closest
they have managed.
     But the makers of "A Scanner Darkly" appeared to really want to do him
justice, the result being mixed and merely narratively similar. Perhaps
there is an element of subjectivity in his voice that is inherently
impossible to translate into dramatic representation. "The Man in the High
Castle" was perhaps one of Dick's most mainstream novels and did gain a
readership outside of the science fiction "ghetto". I do not consider it
one of his best books, but in that book, reality and the I Ching are much
more interrelated, causation, truth, reality and historical consciousness
being thrown open to questioning and doubt.
     The modern retelling of that early sixties novel seems much more
character driven, with emotions and conflict being brought to the
foreground, the philosophical and science fiction elements being subdued to
the point that it contains none of the intellectual force of the book. A
general move away from challenging ideas and experimental form is probably
omnipresent in modern fiction of all kinds, even in Pynchon, with "Against
The Day", though there is still an impressive imaginative scope present
there. The modernist "experimental" novel seems to have crucified, and even
 P.K. Dick had to "hijack" the science fiction genre to make his thought
experiments publishable. He was writing "new wave" novels long before the
term was coined. Amphetamines and constant churning out of material make
for some uneven material, perhaps, but the force of his bravery and
intelligence is always discernible. Post-modernism, anti-intellectualism,
the war on drugs... I am not certain of why this fear of experimental and
intellectual fiction seems to be the new zeitgeist. If it isn't
straightforward and "Star Wars" in its clear cut lines of Heros and
Villains, it doesn't get published or made. That is a broad brush to be
painting, but I intuitively feel it is the general trend.

  -Peter M. Fitzpatrick

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:10 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I
>
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ooh that looks good and it reminds me. I also love the TV show The
>> Americans. It's junk television and totally preposterous at times but
>> very very entertaining.
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppW5ml4vdw
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:10 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling
>>>> away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan.
>>>> The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that
>>>> Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by
>>>> it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the
>>>> metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of
>>>> course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given
>>>> moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any
>>>> individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
>>>> everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire
>>>> whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that
>>>> became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was
>>>> overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.From
>>>> *1984*
>>>> <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorSpecAlphaList.asp?BkNum=143>, by
>>>> George Orwell
>>>> <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=61>.
>>>> Published by Unknown in 1948
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 3:23 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> THE TUBE
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh ... the ... Tube!
>>>>> It's poi-soning your brain!
>>>>> Oh yes....
>>>>> It's dri-ving you, insane!
>>>>> It's shoot-ing rays, at you,
>>>>> Over ev'ry-thing ya do,
>>>>> It sees you in your bedroom,
>>>>> And --- on th' toi-let too!
>>>>>             Yoo Hoo! The
>>>>> Tube....
>>>>> It knows your ev'ry thought,
>>>>> Hey, Boob, you thought you would-
>>>>> T'n get caught ---
>>>>> While you were sittin' there, starin' at "The
>>>>> Brady Bunch,"
>>>>> Big fat computer jus'
>>>>> Had you for lunch, now Th'
>>>>> Tube ---
>>>>> It's plugged right in, to you!
>>>>>
>>>>> (Vineland, pp.336-337)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm watching too much TV too, but the thread simply asked for this
>>>>> song. And isn't it amazing how Pynchon anticipated 'Smart-TV?'
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 08.12.2015 05:14, John Bailey wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> A lot of people are loving Mr Robot (which I haven't seen). In the
>>>>> Black Mirror vein I believe.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> And oh yeah I did like Breaking bad but that was another one whose ending
>>>>> annoyed me. The penultimate episode worked better as an ending imo. They
>>>>> filmed the first season in Albuquerque during my final year at UNM and my
>>>>> compatriate played the bratty kid in the first episode so it was a mandatory
>>>>> watch. Show got harder for me to watch after moving out of Albuquerque. Was
>>>>> like becoming the outsider and seeing the city with a different perspective.
>>>>> Was a dirty place for me and it became clearer when recognizing the
>>>>> landmarks with a sufficient physical detachment from the place. I dunno, the
>>>>> show felt really icky. Great show though overall.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Breaking Bad was superb. I don't know Luther.  Is on Netflix or Amazon?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Perry - What about Luther ? Or The Wire? You didn't like True Detective?
>>>>> Or the "recent" BBC Sherlock Holmes shows? I agree about Man in the High
>>>>> Castle. Too many of the binge tv series get sidetracked into unimportant
>>>>> character stories. (Good to see that Luther is getting a second coming as an
>>>>> American series. If its anything like the clip I saw on Late Night the other
>>>>> night, it's going to be a good un.)
>>>>>
>>>>> -Allan in WV
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 7:22 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> When it comes to teevee, sopranos and mad men spoiled me. Nothing else
>>>>> has really satisfied me.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I couldn't make it through the first episode.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Ten episodes in, and just tolerating it. Way too slowly paced and full
>>>>> of irrelevant personal drama interactions.  I haven't read the book, but I'm
>>>>> sure the plot is more important in the book than it is in this show.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
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