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"I was wholly addicted to watching Kojack, for as long as it was on television."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Mechanotherapy | ||
| A mechanism or device-based therapy that cures (or palliates) alcoholism. |
Elwood Caswell has a number of problems, but sales clerks have their own ideas.
| "Now this," the clerk said, "is the new Alcoholic Reliever, built by IBM and advertised in the leading magazines. A handsome piece of furniture, I think you will agree, and not out of place in any home. It opens into a television set."
 (Mechanotherapy devices from 'Bad Medicine') With a flick of his narrow wrist, the clerk opened the alcoholic receiver, revealing a 52 inch screen. "I need-" Caswell began. "Therapy," the clerk finished it for him. "Of course. I just wanted to point out that this model meet never cause embarrassment for yourself, your friends or loved ones. Notice, if you will, the recessed dial which controls the desired degree of drinking. See? If you do not wish total abstinence, you can set it to heavy, moderate, social or light. That is a new feature, unique in mechanotherapy." |
| Technovelgy from Bad Medicine,
by Robert Sheckley. Published by Galaxy in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Perhaps a session with one of these computer therapists would do you a world of good; consider the Sigfrid von Shrink from Frederik Pohl's 1970 novel Gateway, Dr. Smile from Philip K. Dick's 1965 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the machine psychologists from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight.
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
