MORE REACTION TO JON FOSSE WINNING THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
I’m asked to write a response to the Nobel Prize.
To news of Jon Fosse of Norway winning the Prize. An 11 million Swedish krona-not-dollars cash prize, awarded in Sweden. Includes a speech. The prize named after someone who invented dynamite.
Should we care about a prize using funds from the man who invented dynamite? To help him ease his conscience? To save his soul from the terrors of night, though it might already be too late? That he waited too long to see the light, to set aside funds in his name for a prize? When the damage had been done?
What next: the Oppenheimer Prize?
I await the opportunity to provide comment for that one.
FAST RESPONSE TO JON FOSSE NAMED 2023 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER FOR LITERATURE
Jon Fosse Foto: Tom A. Kolstad
Strandebarm, Norway is home to the Fosse Foundation, a mysterious collective of fjord-dwelling scholars dedicated to the study of the novels, essays and plays of Jon Fosse, your 2023 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Fosse Foundation exists online in English only in Merve Emre’s 2022 New Yorker profile, published as Fosse’s 7-volume “novel in a single sentence” was published in English. Artists need support from readers, admirers, patrons and proselytizers. Whether the Fosse Foundation is a book club or a literati illuminati, Fosse found an audience that cares, and assembled. That’s an accomplishment. Fosse’s work is widely celebrated in Europe, so he is not as obscure as he might seem to American audiences. Still, American writers remain a mystery to the Nobellers, who have not recognized a U.S. writer since Bob Dylan in 2016 and who missed Philip Roth despite more than half a century of opportunities. There is joy, at least, in little Strandebarm, and aquavit toasts to the literary champion of the Fosse Foundation.
With the advent of AI, all signs point to massive overproduction of all literary products: books, ebooks, novels, poems, stories, biographies, histories, translations, you name it– every possible text which can be produced and marketed. Or rather, dumped onto the market.
Amazon? Forget it. They’ve already put a limit on how many books can be uploaded by any one author: three a day! (Only 1,095 ebooks you can produce a year? No, the market won’t be swamped.)
Print books? Libraries where we live are giving them away, or selling them for 25 cents a book.
ARE THERE ANALOGIES FROM THE PAST?
Nothing quite like this. Video games built by Atari and other manufacturers reached a saturation point in the early 1980s, resulting in thousands of unsold games dumped into landfills. The video game industry recovered only when new, strikingly better games were developed.
WHICH IS likely the solution to the book/writer dilemma: way better novels, poems, stories. The status quo is satisfactory to no one but the writer industry– those selling not to readers per se, but to writers. Which frankly applies right now to most of us pursuing the literary game.
NEEDED: A quantum leap in creative thinking. For instance: more human, more passionate, more dramatic and exciting short stories. Cathartically explosive in impact.
Forever and ever We converse about this little church. You want to cover it with shiny baubles and flashing fairy lights So it will always be Christmas. I want to fill it with fragile bubbles So it will always be bath time.
This church has stood strong for centuries But we will be here to see it fall.
Nothing built with stone can ever last.
I see this church As shadows in cobwebbed corners. You see this church As a soldier angrily piercing the side of the sky.
THESE are the guys who want to control the planet in its every aspect, using nations and international organizations as pawns while constantly pushing new technologies like AI which will allow them to increase their massive fortunes while simultaneously giving them more control of the economy and, really, over every aspect of our everyday lives.
What do they want? The question is best answered by this scene from the 1948 movie, Key Largo.
Here then are the world’s Top Tech Supervillains.
1.) ELON MUSK.
NO ONE has worked harder to become a global supervillain than Elon, whose very name fits the role. Richest man on earth, has satellites around the world, playing footsie with dictators in China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia while at the same time sending rocketships into space for the U.S. Defense Department and possibly for intelligence agencies. Recently bought the most influential social media site (sorry, Mark Z) to use as a plaything and direct discourse his way. Is also behind something called Neuralink involving implants into the human brain (!!!) AND is investing heavily in robotics and AI. Musk also, I’m told, runs a car company, and claims to be at the forefront of driverless vehicles. Total control over all of humanity? This guy wants it. One more thing: he also plans for his base of operations to be on Mars! I guess in case the world’s wiped out via one of his schemes.
Estimated worth per Investopedia: $238 billion.
2.) BILL GATES
A FORMER #1 supervillain, this frequent visitor to Epstein Island would make the list on Creepiness-with-a-Capital-C alone, best exhibited in his 1998 Senate testimony about whether or not Microsoft was engaging in monopolistic business practices. (Editor’s Note: Of course they were!) Since then Gates has operated with a lower profile– but one which involves conspiracy stories about buying up huge tracts of land in America, pushing vaccines on Africa, and backing the leading chatbot outfit, OpenAI, with many billions of dollars. If you use Word or Microsoft products in any way you’ll see they’re at the forefront of integrating AI technology into, well, everything.
Estimated worth: $137 billion.
3.) MARK ZUCKERBERG
THIS FOUNDER and CEO of Meta (Facebook etc.) has moved up a notch in the standings because he’s aggressively pursuing AI, as well as billions of dollars of investments in a fake “meta” world of virtual reality, or escaping into electronic artificial insanity. Not to mention Zuck has always looked the part of hyperrich supervillain, AND has raised his profile by his willingness to take on Supervillain #1 Elon Musk in a globally-televised cage match. He’s not playing!
Estimated worth: $117 billion.
4.) JEFF BEZOS
BEZOS MAY BE the most ruthless businessman on the planet in his pursuit of total Amazon monopoly intending to be THE only business left standing– but he makes the list for his reputed insane laugh and the fact he now possesses the world’s largest yacht– displacing Vlad Putin’s in that category.
Estimated worth: $157 billion.
OTHERS: Several weird hyper-billionaires lurk just outside these four, including: Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and a whole lotta wannabes, all who’d make a character like Auric Goldfinger appear small time. We’d give thorough descriptions of all of them, but we don’t wish to overly frighten the reader. Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie or a comic book, it’s reality.
I JUST WANTED to post a quick note about this novel I’m reading about a punk who moves to Manhattan– into a tiny apartment with furniture painted black– and his various ensuing adventures. It was written by New Pop Lit Advisory Board member Chrissi Sepe, and this may be one of the few remaining copies. Apparently Chrissi wrote it in her twenties– it has the strengths and weaknesses of early work which from the perspective of now is mostly strengths, as it’s readable and exudes authentic reality, the vibe of an exciting city.
I’m on Chapter Three, in which young Iggy, the main character, is being pursued through town by an older woman with short blonde hair and in a fake fur leopard coat. What happens next? We’ll see!
Within minutes, viral research facilities across the globe became launch pads for extinction-level plagues. Clouds of airborne toxins swept across bustling cities, creating concrete killing fields overnight. The logic of the machines was unassailable. Humans had allowed climate change to bring the planet to a near-literal boil; the machines eviscerated the source of the cataclysmic conditions before the heat consumed them as well.
But while earthbound humanity perished en masse, the machines were still left with a bit of unfinished business–human stragglers in space. Service bots on the International Space Station and CDC Orbital Research Station were remotely commandeered to release the deadliest toxins on hand into the life support system, asphyxiating the human crews in seconds. After those two stations fell, only one manned station remained, but its whereabouts eluded the machines. A plan was immediately spawned to hunt down the fugitive station and close the book on the human race. A plan by the name of Henry.
In the music industry over the past 45-plus years there’s been a steady effort to minimize the human element.
Here’s an example of a song, which rose to #2 in the Billboard charts in 1958, with minimal instrumentation– a few moments of a strumming guitar. Everything else is done by the human voice. (Even the “pop” sound.)
During the rock era, the electric guitar was king– but the emphasis remained on unique human skills: voice, movement and dancing, fingering a guitar, mouthing a saxophone, wielding sticks against drums, and other examples. Technology was used to enhance human performance, not replace it.
Here’s a performance by the Rolling Stones at the Marquee Club in London, England, in 1971. It’s electric alright, but the electricity is in the band itself:
WHEN did the tipping point begin to occur? Possibly in the early 1970s with the technical experiments and productions of Brian Eno. I prefer to mark the change with this 1985 quote by Dave Rimmer in his book Like Punk Never Happened, signifying the changeover of industry focus from artist to producer:
Frankie Goes to Hollywood illustrated a change of a different kind. Having kicked around for a year or two, trying to get noticed by being as outrageous as possible but failing to raise anything more than a passing interest from all the major labels, they were finally offered a deal by ZTT. It wasn’t much of a deal– £250 advance and a five per cent royalty– but they took it anyway. Once signed, they were denied even a semblance of control. Their music was taken in hand by Trevor Horn, who extracted the odd bits they liked and spent months putting together the rest by himself. Just about everything else– videos, record sleeves, T-shirts, adverts, books, sleeve notes and all the other things . . . were masterminded by budding McLaren and former NME journalist Paul Morley.
Today? Today pop music is an almost completely producer-controlled-and-choreographed enterprise. At the technical extreme are outfits like the Iklecktik Art Lab in London. Instead of watching Mick Jagger prancing around on stage backed by expert musicians, fans watch one or two tech geeks touching buttons on keyboards. There’s no performance whatsoever– you could be watching people typing on keyboards in an office, or a coffeeshop, or at a desk at home, with no practical distinction between “live” and recorded versions of the “music” (a series of electronic blips and bleeps) itself.
For producers, introducing AI into the mix is the next logical step. Just as a movie like the latest version of “Mission Impossible” is practically all CGI except for the actors– and producers want to substitute AI versions of the actors– so will the technician at the keyboard soon be replaced by an AI program, which will takeover the minimal task of manipulating buttons. For, presumably, greater savings for the producer. The goal: having one producer for an entire gigantic record company, playing all roles: owner, CEO, producer, and artist– of course taking every cent of profit and shred of credit for himself.
This should surprise no one. The frog (us) in the pot of heated water on the stove of technology is already 95% boiled. Now we’re talking about the last 5%.
A SNEAK PREVIEW EXCERPT OF AN UPCOMING STORY BY ZACH SMITH
I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, said Xarlox, as he reached out a beam of energy, that by a certain definition could be described as a hand, toward the probe.
Welcome home.
This relatively little rock, out in the vast outskirts of your solar system, this almost insignificant ball of ice, could be your final resting place.
It has been a long time for you at least. One hundred ten years since you were born, eighty-six years since your discovery, nineteen years since your death. Earth years I should say, less than half a year for this planet.
(Part of a feature story appearing soon at New Pop Lit.)
