Wednesday, 14 September 2011

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London, My London I’ve stayed my pen about the riots in London because they’re happening in what I consider to be my London. What I mean is: when that Eyjafjallajoekull erupted andtrapped me in England, I spent about 80 percent of the time staying with a friend in Crouch End, and while my friend taught or held office hours or sat through faculty meetings, I would wander the streets of North London. So strong is my affinity for the area that I ended up supporting Tottenham—and you can see where this is going. I’ve invested in the area in the way that only an idle victim of circumstance can: fully cognizant of the illegitimacy of his claim upon it, but feeling an abiding connection to it anyway. Knowing this, Michael Sayeau—who wrote eloquently about his experience for n+1—recommended I follow the riots via Twitter, and so I spent an anxious evening reading about the destruction of a place I have no right to care for as greatly as I do. One of the most surreal aspects of watching the riots unfold on Twitter and a grid of Twitpics was that it quickly became apparent that people weren’t simply commenting on the looting, they were actively coordinating it. ”We should hit this shop next,” one person would write, only to be shouted down by a group of people who thought it more prudent to hit another shop instead. It quickly became apparent that an unusual organization had emerged through the clutter of social media: it operated openly and encouraged criminality, all while imposing order on a what otherwise would’ve appeared to be the random development of a conflagration. This use of technology to outwit and outstrip a government’s ability to react to escalating unrest should have immediately struck me as familiar, being that it’s the premise of Adam Roberts‘s novel New Model Army—a book in which I’m not only thanked in the acknowledgments, but in which I believe I make an appearance. (Adam denies it, but if the crazy academic in a brown suit and a Watchmen t-shirt isn’t me, he at least belongs to my tribe.) Point being: the connection between the acephalous organization of Adam’s radically democratic military organizations and what I was witnessed on Twitter last week speaks to the power of speculative fiction and, more frighteningly, the pace at which contemporary society makes good on its speculations.
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An Auspicious Beginning to the New School Year SEK is departing from an undisclosed location in the Pacific Northwest. He saunters up to the Alaska Airlines counter. SEK: Hi! I'm four-and-a-half hours early for my flight to Orange County. TICKET AGENT: Can I see your ID? (SEK hands it to her.) Here you go sir, enjoy your time in Seattle. SEK: Seattle? TICKET AGENT: You better hurry up, sir. Your flight's already started boarding. SEK: But I'm not going to Seattle. (Checks his boarding pass.) Why am I going to Seattle? TICKET AGENT: Your flight was overbooked, sir. SEK: So you're sending me to Seattle? TICKET AGENT: Yes sir. SEK: You realize that's in the opposite direction of Orange County, don't you? TICKET AGENT: I'm sorry, sir, but you need to hurry or you'll miss your flight. SEK stands there, dazed, in front of the Alaska Airlines counter. Right there, completely flabbergasted, in front of the Alaska Airlines counter. SEK: Will I be able to find a flight to Orange County from Seattle? TICKET AGENT: It will cost $100 to transfer the ticket, but you can take care of that when you get there. SEK: You can't just send someone somewhere and then charge them a transfer fee. What kind of airline is Alaska Airlines anyway? TICKET AGENT: Sir, if you miss your flight, you'll need to transfer two tickets. SEK considers his options. The flight to Orange County from his undisclosed location is overbooked four-and-a-half hours before check-in. Seattle has a more robust airport ... so he rushes to and through security and boards a tin-can-of-death to Seattle, where he currently sits typing this on free Google wifi. Will he make it home? Only time will tell.

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