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Out of all of William Gibson’s Novels, Spook Country is the least evocative. A lot of Gibson’s now all too common critics read and loved Neuromancer for its impenetrable descriptions of the ephemeral and then unknowable internet, (or cyberspace), the vague chic of apathetic criminal characters, and the all too potent tincture of drugs, sex, and violence.

I was certainly among the throng of disaffected youth who read and loved the early books when I was fifteen, had a punk rock hair-do, wore a black trench coat and wanted to punch authority figures. Certainly because of William Gibson I became more literate. But I was not among the hordes of disappointed cyberpunks who’ve been gravely disappointed by Gibson’s move towards more mainstream fiction; I am merely disappointed in the lack of narrative cohesion, snappy dialog, and pointed cultural observations.

Pattern Recognition was a terrific novel. It was full of good characters, good dialog, and the Gibsonian specialty- the culture technology intersection. Gibson’s knack is recognizing where technology and culture have created something unique. Where as with his novels previous to Pattern Recognition he was writing in what he dubbed as speculative fiction, we would call it science-fiction. He moved into the present with Pattern Recognition and is firmly fixed there for Spook Country as well. The move to the present did not jar or upset me with Pattern Recognition.

Cayce Pollard and her allergic reactions to poor branding was in complete synch with where we were at as a culture. Globalization, marketing, brand recognition, and the interference or inevitability of anything and everything become merchandise or marketable spoke to me. I wish I’d thought of the character with the allergic reaction to Tommy Hilfiger first. But he also spookily worked in 9/11 in a way that did not seem hokey, or overworked. A character walked into the tower, and a ghost walked out to haunt Cayce. It was subtle and effective. Cayce’s zen statement to ward off bad mojo has stuck with me since reading the novel, “he took a duck in the face at 200 knots.” Also no one can ever forget, L-O-M-B-A-R-D. Loads of money but a real dickhead, which referred to Hubertus Bigend. Hubertus was a gift of a character, sinister in all the ways one might imagine a real person to be, but with a pearly white Tom Cruise smile.

I was pleasantly surprised by Bigend’s triumphant Belgian return. However the three intertwined narratives of Tito, Hollis Henry, and Milgrim don’t really compliment or contrast each other. The whole novel never really gels. We do have a few good moments where Gibson makes us chuckle at his cleverness. But his characters don’t pop, the narrative never reaches that point where the book created an inner moment for me the way his other books have. This failure is probably due to a few things. The first is not the lack of cyberpunkness, but the fact that the author’s knack of finding the precise moment to comment on a unique cultural technological nodal point (to use the Gibson term for a paradigm shift) was missing. The use of the i-pod as a storage device was unsurprising and commonplace. The idea that art could be locative and part of blended reality was also sort of commonplace and unsurprising. I never got that spooked feeling about seeing River Phoenix’s ghostly corpse outside the viper room. And for anyone who has used google maps street view, it just wouldn’t surprise the reader.

His commentary on the finances of the Iraq war and the intelligence community are also interesting, but hardly earth shattering.

Milgrim as a Junkie seemed to be purely a passenger for the novel and a vehicle for Brown, who was far more interesting as a character but lacked the definition the reader wished to see. His sermonizing was if anything was “under the top” and could have acted as more of a counter point to the “old man” to act as yin-and-yang, but alas this never developed.

Tito and Bobby Chombo were both alas pale comparisons to Bobby from Count Zero, or the Vat Grown Ninja Assassin from Neuromancer.

Hollis seems to be more of an archetype from Gibson now. He seems to be developing a pattern for his female characters now where they are delicate and sensitive, slightly daring, but rely on an older wiser male for their insight into the world’s inner mechanics. For Pattern Recognition Cayce relied on the not quite film maker boyfriend, and Hollis seems to rely on Inchmale.

The reveal at the end of the novel, just didn’t offer the payoff for the effort spent reading through the three disparate narratives. And Bigend as a result of his inclusion somehow seemed less sinister and more banal.

Hopefully Gibson finds his stride again, providing he feels he’s lost it. Certainly this book is not representative of his other works. Idoru and Pattern Recognition are still two of my favorites.

James Joyce
White, Irish and dead. Famous for Ulysses, a great thematic work of one single day in Dublin through the eyes of a Jewish Ad Man and his alter ego Stephen Dedalus, there are some juicy bits sprinkled throughout that got him in trouble. His book of short stories, Dubliners usually gets read by more college students. I like it all, it’s basically a great ride.

I watched Born into this last night. It is a documentary about the late poet Henry Charles Bukowski Jr.

I sometimes forget how much I really loved this guy. There are times I am sure I would have hated to have him as a friend. But as a poet, what he stood for, what he endured, his courage, and his art, he is the shining example of a poet.

This poem below was not one I had in my collection. He read the poem below during the film and it really struck me. I remember as a young man that this is exactly how I felt about myself and my place in the world.

I think I have gained some perspective and think more benevolently of my fellow man for the most part, but you have to give it to Charles Bukowski for being able to put this to paper. And this to me speaks to an America where people only care about themselves. Everything is down to the bottom line. All that matters is wealth, cars, how big your house is, how big your piece of the pie is. We don’t care about the little guy. We don’t care about things that enhance life. We only care about things that sustain life.

There will always be a need for folks who are able to enhance the meaning of life rather than just sustain it. You have to have something to make the ride worth it. Poetry enhances life, gives meaning to the little things, and clarifies the big things with the one thing that separates us from the baboons with the coconut bikini’s… poetry. Bukowski was one of the best.

The Genius Of The Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Last post got me to thinking about the defining moments in any young man’s life. I am blessed in my own way to know what that moment was in my father’s life, or at least what he has told me that moment was. And in sharing that moment with me, I have a better grasp on what it means.

My dad, born in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1946 to Keith Gordon Wikle and Lucille Poole Wikle September 14th. My grandfather was pursuing his Phd at the University of Minnesota in Metalurgical Engineering. After completing his studies the family finally settled in Oak Harbor Ohio. My dad had what I would call the prototypical late 50’s early 60’s small town experience. He decided to pursue the Navy and an engineering degree like his father at the University of Michigan. But pretty soon he realized that he had neither the inclination or the interest in engineering and switched to business. Joined a fraternity (sigh), Sigma Chi, now banned on campus in Ann Arbor. He met my mom Sandra Reimer, from Gross Pointe Michigan, his freshman year. And they began dating pretty quickly.

In the summer preceding his senior year, 1967 the summer of love. The year before he would ship out as an ensign in the US Navy to Vietnam, my dad decided to ride cross country on his 1962 Triumph T100. He left Ann Arbor in late May with my grandpa’s gas card and a change of clothes. He set out like Ulyssess into the west. And this trip is the one I always hear him talk about. Those moments from the trip that come first in his mind, at least from all outward appearances. The long flat expanse of the plains on the first few days, the climb through the rockies, or ultimately; riding across death valley through a sandstorm. He always describes with particular relish how he left the desert with one side of his body sunburnt. He watched in slow wonder as the sand blasted the british racing green paint off the gas tank during that long day in the sun.

I’m sure there’s more to it than this… But all young people have that one road trip that stands out like no other, and his from the sounds of it was one heck of a road trip. He always talks about doing it again when he’s retired. I hope he gets to do it.

What those moments mean to him I can only speculate. But I can say what I think they meant. He got to roar over the country on a sweet bike for a summer before life took over. He got to be a rebel for a short while before becoming Lieutenant K Wikle for four years. Not that I think he regretted his military decision. But he’s always been a respectable rebel in a lot of ways. And maybe I want that too. His views on life always crack me up, he votes republican categorically but is socially liberal in every way that makes people who are republican cringe. I guess I am pretty far left of the line, but what do you expect from a guy who read Gramsci?

If I ask myself what my defining moments were prior to family, responsibility, jobs, houses, wives anything, I’m not sure what I would list at the moment. It seems there are so many lost moments prior to Laura, Gabriel, and Isabella. Certainly the time I spent abroad stands out as one of my biggies, but maybe they just set me up for later events.

Maybe another list is in order I dunno?

In the icelandic sagas, the characters have particular concern for the thinning of the blood from their fathers. Sons tried to measure up to fathers. And it was considered very grave if men failed the muster of their genealogy. Or if their fathers were particularly bad men, they did everything possible to break the bad blood with some great deed.

We all wonder if we measure up to the deeds and feats of our parents. Or if maybe we are the runt of the breed. My drive for certain physical and intellectual accomplishments has grounds in this.

My father turns 60 this year, and I can’t say if I measure up or not? Certainly I feel like I have some things under my belt. But I wonder if there is some final accomplishment that will put me at ease with myself, or if I will always feel as if I am a visitor in Valhalla?

What feat will grant me acceptance into that personal valhalla?
A marathon under 3:30?
An elbow roll?
Surfing the biggest waves out there?
Another book?
Raising a decent family?

I don’t know?

I’ve been reading the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, of the Master and Commander Far Side of the World movie fame. I can truthfully say I like the movie. Though the story in the film has an incindental if not tangential relationship to the texts it purports to be translated from. But the actual novel, Far Side of the World, 10th in the series, has one great line I’ve been mulling over for the last week or so, “Jack liked others and expected to be liked in return.” This speaks to a virtue in character I hope I possess. Whether or not that virtue is returned in kind is another matter. This line while trivial, speaks to me in particular.

Jack Aubrey in the novels is an indomitably cheerful man. Despite hordes of personal setbacks, troves of financial difficulties and the general stress of being in command of a Frigate during time of war; he generally is kind and good natured and very difficult to discourage.

Granted Jack can be dimwitted on land, but in his own habitat he is very capable, and often very successful. I wonder if in my own small way, I am the same as Jack, a blundering buffoon on land, ready to shoot himself socially, fiscally, and politically in the foot at any given opportunity. But with wind in his rigging, and blue sea underneath him, there is no one who can stop him.

I hope to find plenty of blue water soon and to hear the hum of the wind in the rigging.