I’m not going to be answering many questions here, about Apple TV’s adaptation of Neuromancer. I’ll have to be answering too many elsewhere, and doing my part on the production. So I thought I’d try to describe that, my part.
2) I answer showrunner’s and director’s questions about the source material. I read drafts and make suggestions. And that’s it, really, though my previous experience has been that that winds up being quite a lot of work in itself.
3) I don’t have veto power. The showrunner and director do, because the adaptation’s their creation, not mine. A novel is a solitary creation. An adaptation is a fundamentally collaborative creation, so first of all isn’t going to “be the book”.
4) Particularly not the one you saw behind your forehead when you read the book, because that one is yours alone. So for now let’s leave it at that.
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1) “For a long time after the Industrial revolution the design of many mass-produced objects followed traditional lines, but gradually the inevitable spoon-feeding of a mechanized system has coddled the creative impetus out of almost everybody;
2) today, mass production makes its own traditional arts, inspired less and less by the consumers — I cannot believe that there has been public clamour for streamlined perambulators or square clocks.
3) Soon these things will acquire at least period charm; the cycle of taste, revolving ever faster, will quickly bring them, with cinema posters and jazz lino within our range of aesthetic appreciation; but they are not really pleasing just yet.
1) Things I’m pleasantly obsessed with: Panzer tape, as in this translation from German Wikipedia: “Panzerband or Panzertape is a special fabric tape that is used in the German armed forces, but also in other areas. The term comes from the soldiers' language of the Bundeswehr.”
2) “The word armor expresses stability and durability (heat-resistant, water-resistant, etc.). Armored tape consists of a durable fabric structure with a strong adhesive mass, which, in contrast to normal adhesive tapes…”
3) “has good adhesion properties on mineral substrates such as stone. Another explanation for the origin of the name: if you twist it together to a suitable length, you can use this “rope” to tow a small tank.”
1) Children of the Confederacy, an auxiliary of
United Daughters of the Confederacy, met in an older house, adjacent to ours, across the side street. At some point the shallow grave of a murdered Union soldier was discovered in the side garden.
2) He was identified by the metal buttons on his uniform.
3) When the girls in Children of the Confederacy turned 18, they became fully-fledged Daughters of the Confederacy. That must have happened many times, so near that covert grave.
1) I saw Ruby assassinate Oswald on live coverage. Called out to my mother, in the next room, and she stormed in, utterly furious that I'd try to fool her that way.
2) The television had a wooden case, faux mahogany, its speaker covered in beige fabric with a bit of metallic foil woven in, knobs of the new-fangled stuff called plastic.
3) A friend just said that whatever happened in Epstein's cell is the historic equivalent of that.