William Gibson

November 13, 2004 9:53 PM

William Gibson’s blog is back.
So far, it’s mostly about Bush and Osama bin Ladin. ”You know who would’ve completely gotten OBL? Andy Warhol.”
posted by Termite (10 comments total)

Thanks for the heads up. So much for not him not blogging while working on books... unless he isn't working on a book!

And here I was waiting for a new one to come out before I checked the blog again. His September 11th quote is excellent, though.
posted by halonine at 10:10 PM on November 13, 2004

His last book so reminded me of mefi.
posted by adampsyche at 9:54 AM on November 14, 2004

what's our footage, adampsyche? at least we don't obsess about just one thing, luckily enough. that was an even more dysfunctional Internet community. and it also looked more boring than MeFi.
posted by matteo at 10:00 AM on November 14, 2004

Given his ranting on how the youth vote was so going to rock the election and send Kerry to the White House, and how *none* of the polls were catching this because they were so clueless, he seems a lot better at predicting the future when he sticks to novels.

Seems a number of novelists started foaming at the mouth over the then up-coming election. Not that there weren't plenty of things to get excited about, but it seems their ability to arrange words in a cogent, rational manner just vanished when they weren't describing make-believe worlds.

Maybe that's why they're fiction writers: they lack the wherewithall to rationally process reality.
posted by Ayn Marx at 11:44 AM on November 14, 2004

Ayn -- the evidence is quite clear that the youth vote did come out in large numbers, and voted for Kerry by a fair margin, so the extent guys like Gibson predicted it, they were right.

However, Bush won for two reasons: Evangelicals turned out in large numbers, and Bush increased his vote considerably among high-earners.

This caught people of the Gibson type by surprise.

They don't know any Evangelicals, so they didn't grasp the extent of their love for President Bush and their outrage at judges trying to impose a new social order.

And it just was beyond their imaging that well-educated prosperous professionals would not care to see a lifelong tax-and-regulation loving pinko like John Kerry, and a job-and-business-destroying ambulance chaster like John Edwards get into office.
posted by MattD at 1:27 PM on November 14, 2004

the percentage of young voters stayed about the same. more people turned out to vote generally, but there's nothing to show that efforts aimed at young voters were particularly effective. saying "young voters turned out in large numbers" is true to extent that "people of all ages turned out in large numbers".
posted by andrew cooke at 1:48 PM on November 14, 2004

outrage at judges trying to impose a new social order.


well, the Enlightenment is not that "new", actually. but I concede it's newer than the fundy's beloved Mosaic Law. Enlightenment's newer than Hammurabi, too (Hammurabi who, ironically, did call himself "the favorite of the gods". sounds familiar huh?)

oh, and "pinko" is priceless.
do you still say things like "Chappaquiddick" as well?
posted by matteo at 2:16 PM on November 14, 2004

andy
posted by Satapher at 7:12 PM on November 14, 2004

This place has turned into one giant game of "Six degrees of the damn election"

1. William Gibson
2. Blog
3. Andy Warhol
4. Osama Bin Laden
5. Bush
6. Election

There, I did it!
posted by ChasFile at 11:48 PM on November 14, 2004

what's our footage, adampsyche? at least we don't obsess about just one thing, luckily enough. that was an even more dysfunctional Internet community. and it also looked more boring than MeFi.

I think you missed my point, but I most likely didn't explain it well. It wasn't how dysfunctional it was or what it was focused on, it was just the way that she related to a community, how different usernames come to symbolize different things (attitudes, "movements", etc.) and how the members related and thought about each other. And that the person that she met looked nothing like she thought he would (forgive me, it's been a while, so I forgot their names).
posted by adampsyche at 5:03 AM on November 15, 2004