Authors: John Brunner
Stand on Zanzibar (3 page)
(13)
THE OLD NEWSPAPER
(14)
STORM CENTRE
(15)
BRED AND BORN
(16)
MR. & MRS. EVERYWHERE: CALYPSO
(18)
ZOCK
(19)
A FREE RENDERING OF TWO NATIONAL ANTHEMS
(20)
THE PROS AND CONS OF A LUNATIC SOCIETY
(21)
LETTER
(22)
MOTHER AND BABY DOING WELL?
(23)
TO BE AVOIDED
(24)
ONE OF MANY ESSENTIALLY IDENTICAL PRINTOUTS FROM SHALMANESER
(25)
A FAVOURITE STORY OF CHAD MULLIGAN’S
(26)
TO MYSELF ON THE OCCASION OF MY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
(27)
STUDY GROUP REPORTS
(28)
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS
(2)
THE SOFT CELL
(3)
DOMESTICA
(5)
CITIZEN BACILLUS
(6)
STREET SEEN
(8)
BE KIND TO YOUR FORFEITED FRIENDS
(9)
SHAMBLES
(10)
SOUR GRAPES
(11)
HOW TO
(12)
THE GENERAL FEELING
(13)
RÉSUMÉ
(14)
RECRUITING POSTERS
(15)
EQUAL AND OPPOSITE
(16)
OBITUARY
(1)
MR. PRESIDENT
(2)
YONDERBOY
(3)
NO YOU DON’T!
(4)
MASKER AID
(5)
SCENESHIFTER
(8)
ILL WIND
(9)
POPPYSEED
(10)
SMOTHERLOVE
(11)
THE SEALED TRAIN
(12)
IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM BEAUT THEM
(13)
THE GOOSEBERRY BUSH
(14)
LIGHT THE TOUCHPAPER AND RETIRE
(15)
OUR PARENTS’ FEET WERE BLACK
(16)
THE MESSENGER OF THE GOSPEL OF UNIVERSAL LOVE
(17)
BRIGHTER THAN A THOUSAND MEN
(18)
IN MY YOUNG DAYS
(19)
SMALL WANTS AND THOSE EASILY SATISFIED
(20)
THE OLD LADY UNDER THE JUGGERNAUT
(21)
THE DRY CHILD
(22)
THE CLIMAX OF MORE THAN A LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT
(23)
BEGI AND THE ORACLE
(24)
NO REASON, PURPOSE OR JUSTIFICATION
(25)
THE MAN WITHOUT CONVICTIONS
(26)
ALL IN DUE TIME
(27)
RECIPE FOR A MUCKER
(28)
THE SLOW WAY TO DIE
(29)
WHILE THE BALANCE OF HIS MIND WAS DISTURBED
(30)
DÉFENSE D’ENTRER
(31)
UNTO US A CHILD
(32)
THE COOL AND DETACHED VIEW
(3)
AFTER ONE DECADE
(4)
ROOMIE NATION
(5)
HEAR HEAR
(8)
THE CAMEL’S BACK
(10)
DUE PROCESS
(11)
THE SOUND OF FALLING ROCK
(12)
IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE AUTOMATIC BUT ACTUALLY YOU HAVE TO PRESS THIS BUTTON
(14)
THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB
(15)
DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT
(16)
THE REVISED VERSION
(17)
TIMESCALES
(18)
THE WALLS OF TROY
(19)
SEMPER ALIQUID NOVI
(20)
THE SHADOW OF GRANDFATHER LOA
(21)
MORE HASTE
(25)
DADDY OF THEM ALL
(26)
HERE COMES A CHOPPER
(27)
MANSCAPE
(28)
FROM HERE ON DOWN IT’S UPHILL ALL THE WAY
(29)
I BEG TO REPORT
(30)
TURN HER ON AND LET HER ROLL
(31)
GROUNDWORK
(32)
FIRST WITH THE NEWS
(33)
GOT IT AND GONE
(34)
THERE LIVES MORE FAITH IN HONEST DOUBT
(35)
TO AWAIT COLLECTION
(36)
MAKESHIFT
(37)
STORAGE
(38)
NOT FOR SALE BUT CAN BE HAD ON APPLICATION
(40)
OF THE GREATEST SIGNIFICANCE
(41)
SEWN ON WITH NEEDLE AND THREAD
(42)
AND SAY WHICH SEED WILL GROW
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
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.
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?