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"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
 |
| Pretentionists | ||
| People who took refuge in the past with their customs and lives. |
| "It's a lot of work, I understand. You decide on the period
you'd like to pretend you are living in. Then you must read up on the period and write your diary and it must be a full account of each day's activities and
not just a sentence or two. You
must make it interesting and, if
you can, exciting..."
He remembered the two women who had talked in the bus seat behind him and he wondered momentarily what illusory satisfaction the Pretentionist living back in Pepys' time might get out of it. There was, of course, Pepys' well filled life, the scurrying about, the meetings with many people, the little taverns where there were cheese and wine, the theatres, the good companionship and the midnight talks, the many interests that had kept Pepys as naturally full of life as these Pretentionists were empty. There were Pretentionists, hiding from the actuality of today, playing dollhouse with the past.
 ('Ring Around the Sun' by Clifford Simak) Cynicism had run out and flippancy had never been more than a temporary shield. So now the people fled to the drug of pretense, identifying themselves with another life and another time and place-at the movie theater or on the television screen or in the Pretentionist movement. For so long as you were someone else, you need not be yourself, vulnerable and afraid. |
| Technovelgy from Ring Around the Sun,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the Perky Pat layout from The Days of Perky Pat (1963) by Philip K. Dick.
Thanks to SFFAudio for the tip on this item.
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'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
