brunojordao

** spoiler alert ** When Coupland wrote 'Generation X', he created and crazy-glued a label onto an entire generation that can't be ripped or torn off. In 'Player One', Coupland goes further, teasing us with what lies ahead in the not-so-far-away future known as 'the New Normal.' 'Player One' is full of huge, prophetic ideas, but it's not a sprawling,eclectic mix of tales of an accelerated culture told by burnout slackers. This is minimalist theater played out in a dirtbag airport lounge, where four desperate, and very different, souls happen to crash into each other, just as life-as-we-know-it circles the drain, as oil prices rising to $350 a barrel. While the main cast are all having their own personal crisis inside, civilization outside is entering messy and chaotic birth pangs of a monumental global shift. The ideas, motifs, and wit are all classic Coupland. There's a disembodies narrator (Player One, like the ghost in GFinaCom and HeyNostradus), autism, planes, and a handy glossary at the back, dubbed the Future Legend. 'Player One' is a short and sweet but brimming with insight, emotion, wit, and ideas. It's kind of the Coupland Singularity, collecting ideas from all over the place about space-time and identity into one concentrated tome. [It's also the perfect book to read in the Cancun airport, next to a chain of the American diner Johnny Rocket, staffed with Mexicans trying to look like 50's-era greasers.] Future Legend: -achronogeneritropicspaces: nowhere/everywhere/timeless places such as airports. -ninetenicillin; a pill that makes one feel as if the events of 9/11 never happened Or, the book, in a three-paragraphed nutshell: "I do remember the sensation, especially after 9/11, that time had stopped feeling like time. Society collectively lost the sense that an era feels like an era... "Information overload triggered a crisis in the way people saw their lives. It sped up the way we locate, cross-reference, and focus the questions that define our essence, our roles -- our stories. The crux seems to be that our lives stopped being stories. And if we are no longer to have lives that are stories, what will our lives become? "Life does not need to be a story, but it does need to be an adventure." bonus quote that i dug: "...And if you don't have the courage to face the truth about how we are made, then you don't deserve the wonder that comes with being alive, regardless of how your particular slot machine generated you." - 210 "t

2023-07-20 00:51