| August 13, 1997 | Geeky Reads |
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According to whatis.com -- an electronic reference site I admittedly visit too many times each day (if you must know, I'm interested in, or more accurately, obsessed with words and meanings, particularly Net lingo -- but, please, I implore you, keep this factoid on the down-low) -- the term "geek" refers to someone with technological know-how and also "dedication and weirdness." This particular definition also points out that "recent use of the term suggests greater social acceptance and tolerance for geeks." No, duh! Most '80s movies that included characters with scientific or technological intelligence portrayed those characters as the stereotypical pocket-protector-sporting dorks (think 1985's "Weird Science"). The only characters I can imagine that marginally merged science/techno-literacy and social "coolness" were Val Kilmer's funky physicist in 1985's "Real Genius" and Matthew Broderick's high school hacker in 1983's "War Games." (Well, there are also some people who will argue that Anthony Michael Hall's "Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles" geeks added some coolness cachet to being a brainy geek, but I'm not so sure about that.) Our popular culture seemed to say that intelligence was something to be feared and mocked. Examples of semi-cool science/techno-literate female characters in '80s movies is an even more challenging trivia category. After engaging the brainstorming energy of my entire Interactive department, we could only come up with two female characters -- Jordan (played by Michelle Meyrink) in "Real Genius" and Wynona Ryder's Rina in "Lucas" (1986). Other names that were tossed around and discarded include Ally Sheedy's "Breakfast Club" character (she was really more of a "basket case" than a geek) and Mary Stuart Masterson as Watts in 1987's "Some Kind of Wonderful" who was more of a loner/tomboy than smartie-pants geek. Positive representations of science and/or techno-literate characters in mainstream film and literature seems to be a minor '90s trend. Finally a trend worth praising! Well, at least in the genre of literature. So far, the pro-techno-geek films have been thoroughly annoying. Think of 1995's "Hackers," with its false representation of the hacker lifestyle -- complete with eye candy actors, "cyberpunk" fashions, and gratuitous Apple Powerbook close-ups. Two books I've read recently, however, have given me hope that geeky characters can be portrayed humanly, accurately and honestly. And the result is often more emotionally engaging as well as laugh-out-loud hysterical than the stereotypes and caricatures of geeks we're accustomed to encountering in the realm of popular arts and entertainment. Steven J. Frank's "Uncertainty Principle" is a fabulous first novel from a promising writer. Set at MIT (if I need to tell you that stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology then you're certainly not a geek), "The Uncertainty Principle" is the tale of Paul Bustamante, an undergraduate who may have discovered a new statistics program/chaos theory which he believes will allow people to more accurately forecast worldwide weather patterns. There is speculation that Paul's research may even enable man to unlock the equally elusive mysteries of human behavior patterns as well. Winner of the 1996 Pocket Rocket Prize, "The Uncertainty Principle" has all the elements that make reading a novel worthwhile -- smart, authentic dialogue, multifaceted provocative characters and a self-deprecating narrator with a great sense of humor. Paul is constantly trying to stop himself from over intellectualizing everything and trying to turn his observations about day-to-day life into scientific theories. For instance, in one scene Paul has been invited back to the dorm room of a girl who he's about to be involved with and as he's lying in bed with her he relates: Rita didn't own a fan. She did, however, own a shelf-top stereo unit. She pressed the "scan" button and the obedient digital circuitry stepped through Aerosmith's erudite analysis of libidinous juvenile appetites and then Madonna's examination of egocentric post-consumerist piety .... I promised myself I wouldn't get uptight. I vowed to modulate the cerebral activity. But it didn't matter, in the end. I would have been right at home. This was no primeval carnal wilderness. This was sex in nerdland. Rita Dorfman, Paul's sex/love interest and the primary female character in this novel, was drawn well. Rita is a whipsmart psycholinguistics student at MIT She wears only gray sweatpants and sweatshirts, she is obsessed with communications redundancy, and she diagrams complex sexual positions on the white-board over her bed. Frank also really "gets" the whole "relationship" (really, this is the right word) that we have with technology today. For instance, Paul describes MIT's mainframe computer, EDGAR, as the other sentient entity (besides his roommate) who inhabits their dorm room. Between sorting his e-mail, keeping his calendar, and clocking his laundry, EDGAR is also able to learn from Paul's online behavior and adapt to his individual technological needs. After a session of intimate interface with EDGAR, Paul says: "EDGAR cares. It understands me thoroughly. EDGAR is my biggest fan. " "The Uncertainty Principle" is published by Permeable Press and is available online at amazon.com. "Microserfs," Douglas Coupland's 1995 peek inside the high-tech geek culture in Seattle and Silicon Valley, leaves the reader with a slightly more optimistic outlook than his 1991 slacker culture novel, "Generation X." Coupland takes a lot of flack from critics who claim that he exploits these "hot" subcultural niches to sell books. As I see it, it's no crime for Coupland to be a novelist whose stories are also somewhat anthropological and journalistic. It's almost scary how he gets the details so right. "Microserfs" is the story of a group of twentysomething Microsoft coders who get fed up with their alienating, oppressive lifestyle on "the Seattle campus" and decide to leave Bill Gates to strike out to Silicon Valley, our generation's cultural mecca, and form a start-up company with the money some of them received by cashing in their Microsoft stock options. We follow them as they toil on the technological frontier and struggle to reinvent themselves and "get lives." It's an American story similar to Jay Gatsby's, but instead of driving 1920's convertible roadsters, the kids are driving silver Lexus' (or Lexi) and Taurus' (or Tauri); in lieu of Gatsby's white linen, they're wearing Gap outfits; and instead of a grandiose mansion on the shore, they've got hip Bay Area apartments stocked with countless appliances. This book is laugh out loud funny. And though it might seem that today's technological lifestyle is inherently cold, Coupland's Microserfs have more downright emotional moments than his Gen-X slackers. Coupland's characters always report what they see in unique and eclectic ways. In "Microserfs," the story comes to us through the electronic diary of Daniel Underwood. Daniel describes his friends by providing each character's dream "Jeopardy!" categories. For example, Daniel begins describing his housemate and coworker Susan: Susan is 26 and works in Mac applications. If Susan were a Jeopardy! contestant, her dream board would be: Certain pages of the diary are written by Daniel to serve as a hypothetical subconscious for his Powerbook. The computer's thoughts are generally comprised of American cultural signposts, brand names, and phrases. One train of thought from the Powerbook includes perfume scent strips from magazines, Bell Atlantic, phone jacks, F-16, Calvin Klein and bourgeois decay images. Daniel is another smart, vulnerable and funny character. Right away, he tells us that his login password is "hellojed" -- a kind of wishful contact with his younger brother, Jed, who drowned as a child. He also admits that long days sitting in front of a computer have caused him to neglect his body. He says, "I feel like my body is a station wagon in which I drive my brain around, like a suburban mother taking the kids to hockey practice." Karla, Daniel's love interest is another fabulous female character. Not only is she an outspoken conversationalist and multidisciplinary thinker, but she also has a physical and bodily self-awareness that makes her one of the most important characters in this novel. She teaches Daniel shiatsu massage to get him back in tune with his neglected body. After massaging each other, the two have some fabulous conversations (with talk this good, who needs sex?). For example, Daniel/Coupland writes: We did spoons for a while, and then she said, "I remember being young in school, being told that our bodies would yield enough carbon for 2,000 pencils and enough calcium for 30 sticks of chalk, as well as enough iron for one nail. What a weird thing to tell kids. We should be told that our bodies can transmutate into diamonds and wine goblets and teacups and balloons." As is true in the conversations of workers in Interactive companies I've worked for, there is an excessive amount of postmodern deconstruction and analysis of pop culture going on in "Microserfs." Daniel and Karla use the dry-erase board to list "decadent" cereals. Cap'n Crunch tops the list because of the "colonialist exploiter pursuing naive Crunchberry cultures to plunder; and also drunkenness, torture, and debauchery implicit in long ocean cruises." Both "Microserfs" and "The Uncertainty Principle" explore what it means to be human in an age of technology. These novels invite us to get personal with some smart characters with strong human/emotional sides. Although both books present a positive view of technology, the authors do not conclude that technology will be able to solve all of humanity's questions and problems, rather Frank and Coupland both seem to emphasize the importance of reaching out physically and emotionally to friends and family. Labels: book, reading, technology posted by Jess Barron @ 7:42 PM 
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