MISCmedia for 7/7/00
What The Hell Happened?

AFTER THE LAST ISSUE of our MISCmedia print magazine discussed various variations on the theme of "Utopias," it seemed only proper to follow with a "Dystopias" theme.

Only thing is, I couldn't find folks who wanted to write about nightmare worlds--other than ones they'd personally lived through.

Perhaps I just didn't ask the right people.

Perhaps all the dystopia fans were heartbroken when Y2K failed to instantly end Civilization As We Know It.

Perhaps economic times really are good enough (or enough people believe they're good enough) that they couldn't imagine things ever getting really scary.

Perhaps everybody's just so taken in by the talk about global corporate power representing the "End of History" (i.e., the world's final and permanent socioeconomic configuration) that even those who protest against it can't imagine any other system (let alone any other dysfunctional system).

Indeed, the cheap and easy way to construct a fictional nightmare future has been to predict the future will be exactly like the present, only more so.

In the past three or four decades, there have been fictional evil futures constructed wholly around single dominant trends of all types: air pollution, oil shortages, overpopulation, fundamentalist religion, nuclear war, the dehumanizing effects associated with big old mainframe computers, radical feminists, radical anti-feminists, humorless liberals, repressive conservatives, Communists, Fascists, Thatcherists, and (just about every dystopian writer's all-purpose bad guy, in either a lead or supporting role) television.

Just maybe, all these authors' different wrongnesses add up to one big accuracy--that any future elaborated from a single aspect of the present would be a dystopia.

History seldom flows in a single, linear progression or regression. There are multiple, competing influences in the course of events everywhere. There are trends, backlashes, and backlashes to the backlashes. There are intercene fights, palace struggles, wars, and rumors of wars. There are serendipities, happy accidents, and unplanned disasters.

Life is oscillation and vibration. Death is stasis. A static culture, no matter what it was, would be a living death.

MONDAY: Would "open media" do for (or to) journalists what Napster might do for (or to) musicians?

IN OTHER NEWS: Shopping malls are losing sales fast. Some analysts say half the nation's current suburban shopping centers may be gone within 10 years. How does a crafty mall operator survive? Make the place look more like a 'real' downtown!...

ELSEWHERE:

• Sage advice for the inexperienced lover: "Don't take etiquette advice from porno films...."
• Are CNBC's choice of stock-pickers and their recommendations "rigged against the retail investor?"...

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Who needs industry anymore?
• What the heck is Microsoft.NET anyway?
• The state of the American politick.
• Another local landmark gets defaced by its owners.
• Parts one and two of a random rumination about the Experience Music Project.
• A few buildings refitted for dot-commers' work and/or play.
• As the tech stocks churn, a fantasy about a potential post-dot-com society.
• Parts one and two of an appreciation of the great Irish wit Flann O'Brien.
• Will the real Idiots please stand up?
• Mulling a possible new format for this site.
• Differences between the real world and the world of movies.
• That other monopoly Paul Allen used to co-own.
• Results from yet another of our fun little questionnaires.
• What you're reading, besides this site.
• Will WTO-protest nostalgia become as tiresome as Woodstock nostalgia? It's easy to foresee....
• Some activities that just aren't as much fun in one's forties.
• How rap music morphed from celebrating black intelligence to white stupidity.
• Some more possible Microsoft penalties.
• Never mind Never Mind Nirvana.
• A few things you might think are true but which are not.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia