Sunday, February 20, 2011

All the World's a Stage

"The color, the grace and levitation, the structural pattern in motion, the quick interplay of live beings, suspended like fitful lightning in a cloud, these things are the play, not words on paper, nor thoughts and ideas of an author, those shabby things snatched off basement counters at Gimbel's."

-Tennessee Williams, from the Afterword to Camino Real

The Black Box in the Nursery

When HAL 9000 calmly informed Dave Bowman that the mission was too important to allow human interference, Arthur C. Clarke wasn’t merely pre...