Reasons for joy, no. 732

That we live in a society where people have their bodies permanently inked with tattooed images of Patrick Swayze (circa Road House) as a Chippendale Centaur, swathed in rainbow. Roll over, Chiron.

Telegraph, courtesy of the sleepless wanderings of Lawrence Person.

What you need: A post-apocalyptic SUV for Lunar Gurkhas from the future

In yesterday's junk mail, I received a copy of the duPont Registry, which I had never "read" before. As best I can tell, it is basically the mother of all shopper rags ("the world's premier luxury marketplace"), exclusively featuring ads for slightly used supercars, Eastern European mail order brides, hideous houses with pools for the newly bored Ukrainian harem to hang at, and watches that cost more than my truck.

What this delivery says about my demographic placement, I prefer not to ponder.

Flipping through this artifact of a world of idle wealth that is hopefully slipping into the past, my eye caughht a full page ad for the insane vehicle pictured above. The Conquest Vehicles KNIGHT XV.

Conquest Vehicle Inc's flagship vehicle, the KNIGHT XV defines the future of the ultra-luxurious, handcrafted fully armoured SUV. This one-of-a-kind, V10, 6.8-litre, Bio-fuel powered SUV was inspired by the Gurkha military vehicle (built by Armet Armored Vehicles Ltd.) and features security appointments that are unrivaled in today's SUV marketplace. The production of the KNIGHT XV will be limited to 100 vehicles.

Are you ready to be Knighted?

MSRP: $295,000.

(If you want an actual Gurkha vehicle, look here.)


[Pic: Armet Armored Vehicles' GURKHA LAPV.]

Like the Gurkha rigs, this thing is basically the mother of all Ford trucks, an F350 chassis repurposed by some psychotic grandchild of Gerry Anderson. What more perfect expression of the dark GWOT-era manifestations of Anglo-American cultural convergence than an armored SUV that marries Captain Scarlet into the Dixie Chicks? And actually produces this memetic insanity into a luxury product that appears in consensus reality?

The target market? Per the NY Times review:

The Knight XV is aimed at an exclusive international clientele of “high net-worth individuals,” the company said, including “entertainers, professional athletes, politicians and members of Middle Eastern royal families.” Saudi Arabia was specifically mentioned.




I bet some bored member of the Saudi royal family could even afford to load the sucker up with some of these sweet options:

Interior Appointments

Leather 6 way electric conference and cabin seating, total 6 passengers, in hand crafted Andrew Muirhead leather
Wilton Wool luxury carpeting
Spacious extended interior
Alpine AM, FM, CD, DVD, Navigation and Bluetooth equipment
Front power windows
Ultra Suede interior finish throughout
Leather-wrapped steering wheel
Interior lighting, map/courtesy and ambient
Dual screen rear console (remote controlled inputs)
Personal rear seat side mounted laptop stations



Exterior Appointments

Stainless steel running boards (side and rear mounted)
Knight XV 20" polished rims, forged from 6061 aluminum
Mickey Thompson 40" Baja tires
Fascia mounted PIAA dual mode fog and driving lamps
Heated, telescoping side view mirrors

Security Appointments

FLIR night vision cameras*** mounted front and rear, on individual screens
Roof mounted rear view camera
Keyless entry system
Transparent, tinted, armour glass throughout
Tandem tinted moon roof panels (transparent armour) with privacy shades
ASC Ballistic run flat system on all tires
Securilok** passive anti theft key system

** Torqshift and Securilok are registered trademarks of Ford Motor Co.

*** The PathfindIR Thermal imaging Camera offers dramatically better performance compared to traditional Night Vision Cameras.The FLIR Systems PathFindIR is a compact thermal imaging camera that significantly reduces the hazards of night time driving. This Automotive Night Vision Systems enable drivers to see much further, with improved clarity, than with standard headlights. Drivers can detect and monitor pedestrians, animals, or objects on or near the road, allowing more time to react to any potential danger. PathFindIR Thermal imager helps to detect and recognize potential hazards in total darkness, smoke, rain and snow.

FLIR PathFindIR is standard equipment on all Knight XV vehicles sold in North America.



What does it say about our world that there are "grown men" who produce and purchase vehicles that simulate the fantastic Dinky toys of their childhoods, vehicles on loan from SHADO? Wonderful crazy things, I suppose, and I look forward to our reunion on the moon base.

Shotgun!

Actively deny *this*

Don't worry. It's non-lethal.

At Danger Room, recap of the GAO report on the above-pictured Active Denial System pain ray and other non-lethal and non-fiscally viable next generation weapons programs. Soon to be used at a Mexican border near you.

Even less lethal, and maybe even pleasurable, Subterranean Press just announced its publication of the Collected Stories of Lew Shiner. Pre-order your copy today!

New messages from Spiral Jetty

Brilliant memoir of Ballard by the amazing artist Tacita Dean at The Guardian, drawing out connections I was previously unaware of, like the fact that a copy of Ballard's Voices of Time is on the picnic blanket in the Eames's Powers of Ten, which I pondered countless times in book form as a kid:

My relationship to Ballard had begun a little earlier, with our mutual interest in the work of the US artist Robert Smithson. In 1997, I tried to find Smithson's famous 1970 earthwork, Spiral Jetty, in the Great Salt Lake of Utah. I had directions faxed to me from the Utah Arts Council, which I supposed had been written by Smithson himself. I only knew what I was looking for from what I could remember of art school lectures: the iconic aerial photograph of the basalt spiral formation unfurling into a lake. In the end, I never found it; it was either submerged at the time, or I wasn't looking in the right place. But the journey had a marked impact on me, and I made a sound work about my attempt to find it. Ballard must have read about it, because he sent me a short text he had written on Smithson, for an exhibition catalogue.


It was the writer, curator and artist Jeremy Millar who became convinced Smithson knew of Ballard's short story, The Voices of Time, before building his jetty. All Smithson's books had been listed after his death in a plane crash in 1973 - and The Voices of Time was among them. The story ends with the scientist Powers building a cement mandala or "gigantic cipher" in the dried-up bed of a salt lake in a place that feels, by description, to be on the very borders of civilisation: a cosmic clock counting down our human time. It is no surprise that it is a copy of The Voices of Time that lies beneath the hand of the sleeping man on the picnic rug in the opening scenes of Powers of Ten, Charles and Ray Eames' classic 1977 film about the relative size of things in the universe.

Smithson understood the prehistory of his site. Beneath the Great Salt Lake was, for some, the centre of an ancient universe, and his jetty could have been an elaborate means to bore down to get to it. As if understanding this, Ballard wrote in the catalogue text: "What cargo might have berthed at the Spiral Jetty?" He elaborated later to me in a letter: "My guess is that the cargo was a clock, of a very special kind. In their way, all clocks are labyrinths, and can be risky to enter." The two men had a lot in common, and Ballard believed him to be the most important and most mysterious of postwar US artists. My interest in time, cosmic and human, future and past, as well as the analogue spooling of the now, has Ballard at its core.


[Video: Charles and Ray Eames, "Powers of Ten"]

Time to try it yourself:

Odometer readings vary with each vehicle. The distances given below are only approximations. The Department of Natural Resources has posted signs at each turn/fork to indicate directions to the Jetty. PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THESE SIGNS AS SOUVENIRS.

1. Go to Golden Spike National Historic Site (GSNHS), 30 miles west of Brigham City, Utah. Spiral Jetty is 15.5 dirt road miles southwest of GSNHS's visitor center.

To get there (from Salt Lake City) take I-15 north approximately 65 miles to the Corinne exit (exit 365), just west of Brigham City, Utah. Exit and turn right onto Route 13 to Corinne. LAST GAS before Spiral Jetty is in Corinne at the Sinclair truck stop.

Past Corinne, continue heading west and veer left on Highway 83 for 17.7 miles.

3. Turn left onto "Golden Spike Road" and continue 7.7 miles up the east side of Promontory Pass to GSNHS. LAST BATHROOMS before Spiral Jetty are at the GSNHS’s Visitor Center.

2. From the Visitor Center, drive 5.6 miles west on the main gravel road to a fork in the road. Continue left, heading west. (From this vantage, the low foothills that make up Rozel Point are visible to the Southwest.)

5. Immediately you cross a cattle guard. Call this cattle guard #1. Including this one, you cross four cattle guards before you reach Rozel Point and Spiral Jetty.

6. Drive 1.3 miles south to a second fork in the road. Turn right onto the southwest fork, and proceed 1.7 miles to cattle guard #2.

8. Continue southeast 1.2 miles to cattle guard #3.

9. Continue straight 2.8 miles south-southwest to cattle guard #4 and an iron-pipe gate.

11. At this gate the Class D (gravel) road designation ends. From here, four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicles are strongly recommended.

If you choose to continue, drive south for another 2.7 miles, and around the east side of Rozel Point, you will see the Lake and a jetty (not Spiral Jetty) left by oil drilling explorations that ended in the 1980s.

12. Southwest beyond the site of the oil jetty, turn right onto a two-track trail that contours above the oil-drilling debris below. Travel slowly--the road is narrow, brush might scratch your vehicle, and the rocks, if not properly negotiated, could high center your vehicle or blow out your tires. Don't hesitate to park and walk. Spiral Jetty is just around the corner.

13. Drive or walk 6/10th of a mile west around Rozel Point and look toward the Lake. Spiral Jetty may be in sight. The lake’s levels vary several feet from year-to-year and from season to season, so Spiral Jetty is not always visible above the water line.




For more, track down a copy of Ballard's essay for the 2001 Tacita Dean show at the Tate.

Joss Whedon's Bradbury Award acceptance

SFWA announces 2008 Nebula Awards® winners

SFWA announces 2008 Nebula Awards® winners

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., has announced the Nebula Awards® winners for 2008.

The Nebula Awards® are voted on, and presented by, active members of SFWA. The awards were announced at the Nebula Awards® Banquet held at the Grand Horizon Room on the University of California-Los Angeles campus the evening of April 25.

2008 Nebula Award Winners
Novels
Powers - Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt, Sept. 2007)

Novellas
The Spacetime Pool - Catherine Asaro (Analog, March 2008)

Novelettes
Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan. 2008)

Short Stories
Trophy Wives - Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic, Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, eds., DAW Books, January 2008)

Scripts
WALL-E - Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon. Original story by Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter (Pixar, June 2008)

Andre Norton Award
Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) - Ysabeau S. Wilce, (Harcourt, Sept. 2008)

Additional Honors
During the ceremonies, Harry Harrison was honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master, while M.J. Engh was honored as Author Emerita. Joss Whedon was named recipient of the Bradbury Award for excellence in screenwriting and Victoria Strauss was honored with 2009 SFWA Service Award for her work with Writer Beware.

Additionally, SFWA inaugurated the new Solstice Award, bestowed upon individuals who have made a significant impact on the science fiction or fantasy landscape, and is particularly intended for those who have consistently made a major, positive difference within the speculative fiction field. Honorees for 2009 were Kate Wilhelm, Martin H. Greenberg and the late Algis Budrys. Singer/songwriter Janis Ian served as toastmistress.

About SFWA
Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

Coming soon: Taliban with nukes

NYT: Taliban have seized control of Buner District (and may also be occupying the cyberspace of Butner District), 70 miles from Islamabad.

Analysis from the dark prognosticators at Austin-based Stratfor (which is selling some pretty cheap promotional subscriptions right now, if you are looking for three meals a day of geopolitical red meat):

The Pakistanis either can fight the jihadists now, seeking to limit the conflict to the Pashtun regions of the northwest, or wait to fight — while the jihadists move to strengthen their ability to strike in Punjab province, the heart of Pakistan. The state is being pushed toward taking action by both the deteriorating security situation at home and mounting pressure from the United States. But it is not clear whether there is sufficient political will in Islamabad to go on the offensive.

Much of this is because the state is caught between the contradictory needs to combat the “bad” Taliban (those that fight in Pakistan) while still maintaining influence over the “good” ones (those that fight in Afghanistan). This distinction itself is a problem: The jihadist landscape is far more complicated than such neat binary categorizations would seem to allow. The problems Islamabad faces in this regard offer a glimpse of what the Obama administration can expect in its efforts to distinguish between what Washington sees as Taliban it can deal with versus Taliban it cannot deal with.

Overall, Pakistan’s situation is far more dire than the situation the United States will face in Afghanistan as it increases troop commitments and seeks out pragmatic Taliban with whom to negotiate. For Islamabad, the war is hitting home now more than ever.

May you live in interesting times.