From White Noise:

I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies.
 

From Underworld:

In her veil and habit she was basically a face, or a face and scrubbed hands. Here in cyberspace she has shed all that steam-ironed fabric. She is not naked exactly but she is open—exposed to every connection you can make on the world wide web.

There is no space or time out here, or in here, or wherever she is. There are only connections. Everything is connected. All human knowledge is gathered and linked, hyperlinked, this site leading to that, this fact referenced to that, a keystroke, a mouse-click, a password—world without end, amen.

But she is in cyberspace, not heaven, and she feels the grip of systems. This is why she is so uneasy. There is a presence here, a thing implied, something vast and bright. She senses the paranoia of the web, the net. There's the perennial threat of virus of course. Sister knows all about contaminations and the protective measures they require. This is different—it's a glow, a lustrous rushing force that seems to flow from a billion net nodes.

When you decide on a whim to visit the H-bomb home page, she begins to understand. Everything in your computer, the plastic, silicon and mylar, every logical operation and processing function, the memory, the hardware, the software, the ones and zeroes, the triads inside the pixels that form the on-screen image—it all culminates here.

Originally posted on Thursday, July 17, 2008 | Link | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

1970 The Beatles, Let It Be
1971 T Rex, Electric Warrior
1972 The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
1973 Wings, Band on the Run
1974 Big Star, Radio City
1975 Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
1976 Eagles, Hotel California
1977 Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
1978 Elvis Costello, This Year's Model
1979 The Clash, London Calling
1980 Elvis Costello, Get Happy!!
1981 The Police, Ghost in The Machine
1982 Duran Duran, Rio
1983 U2, War
1984 The Replacements, Let It Be
1985 Talking Heads, Little Creatures
1986 Crowded House, Crowded House
1987 U2, The Joshua Tree
1988 Billy Bragg, Workers Playtime
1989 The Pixies, Doolittle
1990 Sinead O'Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
1991 U2, Achtung Baby
1992 REM, Automatic for The People
1993 Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
1994 Nirvana, Unplugged in New York
1995 Pulp, Different Class
1996 Beck, Odelay
1997 Radiohead, OK Computer
1998 Hole, Celebrity Skin
1999 Built to Spill, Keep It Like a Secret
2000 PJ Harvey, Stories from The City, Stories from The Sea
2001 Old 97s, Satellite Rides
2002 Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003 The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site
2004 Arcade Fire, Funeral
2005 Eels, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
2006 Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
2007 Sea Wolf, Leaves in the River
2008 Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills

Originally posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 | Link | Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

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