So, making my rounds of the various forums to which I belong, I stumbed on a reference to this article that outlines Ron Moore’s (you know, the creator and exec producter of the wonder new BSG series) top five science fiction stories. Number five is Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. One passage in it struck me if you think about it in reference to the Cylons:

We had given AM sentience. Inadvertently, of course, but sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn’t God, he was a machine. We had created him to think, but there was nothing it could do with that creativity. In rage, in frenzy, the machine had killed the human race, almost all of us, and still it was trapped. AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge.

—Harlan Ellison, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

In rage, in frenzy, the machine had killed the human race, almost all of us, and still it was trapped.

—The Cylons killed (nearly) the entire human race.

AM could not belong

—The Cylons still haven’t managed to entirely belong in their faith because they cannot reproduce.

with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them

—Can’t you just hear Six’s ‘loathing of humanity’ voice in that statement?

mmmmm. Must read more Harlan Ellison. I could probably go all English-major on the story, but Seroquel is starting to take effect.

…and Nathan’s feet are stinky. Good lord.

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I think this is what I will say to him should I ever chance to have a conversation with him. He does this wonderful job of making us love and appreciate the characters, care about them, look forward to continuing to read about them and have them entertain us…

…then he kills them!

Awful! Just awful!

Except the zombie Catelyn. I’m not so sure about that. But I love a good zombie flick, so I’m game for it.

I’m reading A Feast for Crows now, finally having finished Mirror Dance. I need more time to read, this fifteen minutes before I pass out due to Seroquel just isn’t cutting it anymore.

Anyway. Reading AFFC has me thinking be nice. Be nice to your characters, GRRM, or the zombies will get you.

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I’m not a huge fan of the normal-everyday-grapefruit-Fresca, but damn, I like the peach Fresca. And because I like it, it goes down into the annals of Fucking Hard To Find In Large Quantities like Diet Code Red Mountain Dew was (and continues to be). I found it today at Rite Aid in 20 oz. bottles, while not a large quantity, it’s better than nothing, and is nearby. Of course I was at Rite Aid dropping of one of the prescriptions for one of the gobs and gobs of drugs I’m on.

Gimme drugs, man!

This time it’s the speed. I really, really need to not run out. I think I have short-long-term memory problems of how much it sucks without having taken Adderall. When you’re on it and running out you think: oh, I can go a couple days without it and pick up the new script when I see the doc.

Wrong.

The next day, as you’re speedless and have the concentration of a winged wombat, you realize: it fucking sucks when I have no Adderall. This time I ran out because I didn’t make sure that my next appointment was within thirty days. Four weeks, yes, thirty days, no. This means Jamie runs out of Adderall. My psychiatrist’s office keeps moving. Last month, there was a sign on the office door saying that due to water damage, the doctor’s offices have been moved to a wing of the actual hospital (instead of a building next to the hospital attached only by a corridor). Then you have to wander through the maze of the hospital—because my hospital has letters for floor instead of numbers and some sort of numerical system on each floor that makes no fucking sense whatsoever—to hopefully find your shrink’s office. Today I went to pick up the script, thinking ahead and went straight up to the E floor where they were before…but they’ve moved. No, not back to where they were in the first place, but to the 500 section of the E floor, which is called the north end but doesn’t even face north.

I think they’re just messing with us psych patients. The hospital is the maze and our meds are the cheese.

Cheese, Grommit!

The most evil game in the world. And I just lost. Bugger!

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This song’s been getting a lot of play time in the car’s CD player lately. The discordantness of the music is hard to get used to at first, then it just…grows on you. Then you start listening to the lyrics and realize holy shit, they’re saying something. Something political, even.

B.Y.O.B. — System of a Down
Bring Your Own Bombs. © 2005 System of a Down

(my comments in italics)

Why do they always send the poor?

sending the poor to fight the war, instead of the middle and/or upper classes

Barbarisms by Barbaras
With pointed heels
Victorious victories kneel
For brand new spankin’ deals

this is interesting because it seems to point towards the current Bush administration and its various atricious actions, then having some moral victories that are set aside in favor of new “better” action

Marching forward hypocritic and
Hypnotic computers
You depend on our protection
Yet you feed us lies from the tablecloth

Those in support of the current policies continuing forward as automatons that ignore their hypocrisy. However, those same people depend on protection of their freedoms by the poor (those sent to war) and they still lie to them (lies from the tablecloth could reference watching the evening news while eating dinner)

Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine

I think, fairly apparently, that’s got to be the war in Iraq. This is also the verse where the song switches from hardcore metal to a catchy pop-like tune. An interesting foil to what’s actually happening, which isn’t dancing in the desert or anything nice like the pop-tune of this chorus.

Kneeling roses disappearing into
Moses’ dry mouth
Breaking into Fort Knox stealing
Our intentions

back to the hard metal with this verse. Kneeling roses could refer to those masses continuing to blindly back Bush (reference to burning bush and Moses’ dry mouth being Bush?). And now the representative of our nation (bush) and his followers (who have disappeared within his presence) breaking into our inner selves/integrity (symbolized by Fort Knox?) and stealing our intentions and misrepresenting them.

Hangers sitting dripped in oil
Crying freedom
Handed to obsoletion
Still you feed us lies from the tablecloth

The military posts seeped with the desert oil, still saying it’s all for freedom, but without finding any WMD’s, it’s obsolete, yet the evening news tells us it’s still about the freedom of the Iraqi people.

Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine

Everybody’s going to the party have a real good time
Dancing in the desert blowing up the sunshine

Back to the catchy pop-tune, referring back to the war and where all the “people” are

Blast off
It’s party time
And we don’t live in a fascist nation

the followers’ self denial, that all’s good, and our nation isn’t in the wrong at all

Blast off
It’s party time
And where the fuck are you?

and all those war supporters, why aren’t they in the war? (at the party)?

Where the fuck are you?
Where the fuck are you?

mmm. self-evident.

Why don’t presidents fight the war?
Why do they always send the poor?

Pretty damn good question.

The rest of the song is repeats of chorus, melodies and verses. Fairly evidently anti-war and interestingly so. I just find myself liking this song more and more. I’m certain other people have other interpretations of the lyrics, so more discussion of them would be cool.

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Dammit, why isn’t one of the OS X startup keys “show me the fucking options?”

— Brendan

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