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"No one has ever produced a statement of fact that was technically true. The most accurate statements of science we have today are accurate to only 15 decimal places."
- Bart Kosko
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| Environmental Happening | ||
| Weather created as a work of art. |
In Varley's future moon, there are many disneylands - enormous caverns carved from the rock and sealed, duplicating environments once found on Earth. They are so large that even the weather becomes a work of art created by man.
| An Environmental happening has no opening chords like a musical symphony. It is already in progress when you arrive and will still be going on when you leave. The weather in disneyland is a continuous process and we merely shape a few hours of it to our wills...
You experience the symphony with all five senses and several that you are not aware of. Most people do not realize the effect of a gigantic low-pressure area sweeping over them, but they feel it all the same... Cyclone has a definite beginning, however. At least to the audience. It begins with the opening bolt of lightning. I worked on it a long time, and designed it to shatter nerves. There is the slow building of thunderheads ... then it hits. It crashes in at seventeen points in a ring around the audience, none further away than a half a kilometer. It is poperly called chain lightning, because after the initial discharge it keeps flashing for a full seven seconds. It's designed to take the hair right off your scalp... ...Weather is an experiential thing, and that's why tapes and films of my work sell few copies. You have to be there and have the wind actually whipping your face and feel the oppressive weight of a tornado as it passes overhead like a vermiform freight train... |
| Technovelgy from The Phantom of Kansas,
by John Varley. Published by Unknown in 1976 Additional resources -
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- Weather As Art
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| Do Aliens Have A 'Non-Interference' Prime Directive? |
| Collie Dog Suit Fulfills His Dream - Of Walking In Public As A Dog |
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
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'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
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'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
