you can run a red light

Well, now that I've been censured by both houses of Congress, I feel I have a bit of added weight to my opinions and general avoirdupois and/or gravitas. I mean who'd a thunk it? Way back last eon, when I was active in the anti-apartheid movement, I was told that the FBI had a file on me. I said, "If the worst thing you can say about me is that I oppose apartheid, well, all right!"

Meanwhile, for the last five years, I have been very vocal in my opposition to the war in Iraq. MoveOn was the only thing that gave me hope, though I think the Democratic leadership has crushed it. MoveOn also gave me wonderful opportunities to connect with other Americans, to go to congressional offices and speak to legislative staff. I wouldn't trade it. So, though I first thought I should keep my head down,
I am standing up and saying, hey, look who Congress censured--me!

When the big flap started two weeks ago, I couldn't believe it. Private citizens were being censured by the Senate for expressing their views in a newspaper ad? I may get my amendments confused some times, but I'm sure that's covered in the first ten. Those dearly held freedoms, right?

Nevermind. I am wrapping my brain around the idea that I am the enemy here. Me and my debit card and MoveOn. A middle-aged peacenik=an agent provocateur. Definitely. I don't usually discuss politics here, even if it does fall under blather. I try to keep my politics separate from my librarianship. But on the Venn diagram in my mind, there is the occasional overlap.

Reading Spook Country, I often thought about how the three narrators bring their own politics to the conspiracy that envelopes them. I related at different points to each of them, Hollis, a fading cult art rock star, Tito, a member of a large Cuban-Chinese syndicate, andMilgrim, an amphetamine addict and prisoner, perhaps.

Some of the constructs are elegant as only Gibson can be. Describing a rant on the Frankfurt School, "it had an appealing sci-fi campiness to it, staccato and exciting, with grainy monochrome Eurocommie star-spawn in tweed jackets and knit ties, breeding like Starbucks." Throw in "locative art" which combines GPS and VR to show River Phoenix's dead body in front of the Viper Lounge. And my favorite character name from Pattern Recognition makes a reappearance:Hubertus Bigend (possibly pronounced "bay-jend"). Gibson gives Bigend a Wikipedia entry, which Hollis looks up. Maybe Spook Country is the first novel
2.0. I read a few extracts on Gibson's blog, before I decided I didn't want to ruin the anticipation. Delayed gratification really worked for me this time.

Reading Spook Country was such a pleasure--and not just because I received a signed copy in the mail a week after it came out. (I am truly blessed in my friendships.) In some ways it reminded me of reading Thomas Pynchon before everyone and everything became post-modern. Spook Country is post modern in some senses. I saw that
the NY Times Book Review said that it is the first post post 9/11 novel. That's an interesting take. I'm sticking with some vast exploded Venn diagram/novel 2.0.

Thank you NYT, for the blue image of Gibson. Please don't go after me for copyright infringement. It's a thumbnail. For educational purposes, and didn't you make your site free? Not that way? Go ahead, censure me. I saw Across the Universe, which warped my brain. It was not to the sixties as Spook Country was to the Cold War (did I mention Cubans texting in Russian?), in my mind. Both works said more about the oh-ohs (my term for this decade we are in), though Gibson wielded the far mightier lens.