sovay: (Rotwang)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2008-11-10 12:24 pm

The eyes in your radio

Finally I got more than five hours of sleep, so I had a boatload of dreams, most of which I cannot remember past an image or two. Ghosts, demons, a signed letter from Death, a garden made of rice raked into the maria and highlands of the moon. The very last one involved an AI named Christopher: I realized just as I started to wake up that he must be Turing's Morcom. What does that mean, awake? Was he a programmed re-creation? A ghost in the machine? An accidentally evolved consciousness? (You've made some changes since the virus caught you sleeping.) Between this and rakshasa Kipling and the dybbuk of John Adams—who I have never dreamed about, but for eight years I've wanted him to haunt this administration—I'm going to have to learn how to write historical fiction. Tell me it's not slash if the participants are historical and one of them is a thought experiment.

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Highlands of the moon? Accidentally evolved consciousness (that one pulls at the heart...) Rakshasa Kipling?

I don't care what you call it; write it down, that's all!

[identity profile] handful-ofdust.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Rakshasa Kipling, eh?;)

[identity profile] timesygn.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
We are ALL thought experiments ...

[identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
If it is slash, I'm going to have to accpet a paradigm shift.
I was pursued by ghouls last night, through the tunnel between my elementary and middle school (no such thing exists, except in the stories of my fellow students from that time), but I could fly at points and that was good enough.

[identity profile] stsisyphus.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm really curious in what manner and in what style Death signs its correspondence.

[identity profile] fleurdelis28.livejournal.com 2008-11-10 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)
My legal history professor told us that the Romans had been visiting him in his dreams and criticizing our handling of Hurricane Katrina.

[identity profile] teenybuffalo.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
Historical fiction? That's that thing that gives me about 90% of the kicks I get from fantasy, plus 10% of unexpected other kicks. You already write it sometimes, as far as I'm a judge. Just because a story has fantasy doesn't mean the historical elements aren't there too.

Tell me it's not slash

Come to the dark side. We have Oscar.

[identity profile] teenybuffalo.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 04:21 am (UTC)(link)
I'm foggy here--Kipling was a Rakshasa, or Kipling was accompanied by a Rakshasa?

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
Did he happen to say which Romans? Or was it only random un-identified stern-looking guys in togas?

[identity profile] fleurdelis28.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
My notes read: "One of the effects of studying Roman law is that the Romans have been visiting me [in my dreams]. And they're very, very critical about the way we've been handling the New Orleans thing."

It seems entirely likely to me that this entailed specific Romans (particularly since his attention had presumably been focused on Rome by the fact that we were on that unit in class), but he didn't name names.

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
Fascinating.

Rice raked into the maria and highlands, that's particularly striking, to me.

Although the AI is striking as well, of course. On the subject of Turing, did you ever read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon? Turing was a minor character therein.

Tell me it's not slash if the participants are historical and one of them is a thought experiment.

Will you write it if we tell you so? ;-)

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 06:32 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you.

Most welcome.

My dreams have a much better visual sensibility than my waking life.

Interesting.

Have you read or seen Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code (1986)?

No, I've not. Should I? (And which option would you recommend?)

[identity profile] ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com 2008-11-11 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting.

It seems entirely likely to me that this entailed specific Romans (particularly since his attention had presumably been focused on Rome by the fact that we were on that unit in class), but he didn't name names.

A pity that he didn't name them. It would be interesting to know.