CITY JOURNAL READS [ BY JOE WIEBE ]
1970s, breaking through with his genre-defining cyberpunk novel Neuromancer in 1984. He followed that with five more well- regarded sci-fi novels. Ten he traded tomorrow for today with a trilogy of ultra-contemporary noir thrillers: Pattern Recognition (2003), Spook Country (2007) and Zero History (2010). Gibson’s science fiction novels
Distrust Tat Particular Flavor Penguin Putnam, $26.95 272 pages
Longtime Kitsilano resident Wil- liam Gibson arrived in Vancouver as a draft dodger in 1968. He began writing science fiction in the late
present compellingly prescient visions of a near future that seems just around the corner. It is undeniably our future, but one in which the world has been altered by a voracious hybrid of consumerism and technology gone out of control. Gibson has always seemed to have the ability to imagine and describe how technological advances will affect society in the near future—he even coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in an early short story, envisioning the types of virtual environments the Internet now encourages long before the Worldwide Web even
GET THIS PARTY STARTED [ BY DAVID BROATCH ]
Vancouver View recently began ask- ing the city’s best DJ’s for a list of
their top 10 ‘get this party started’ tunes— the tried-and-true, if-this-doesn’t-get-‘em- dancing-nothing-will floor-fillers that never fail to ignite the room and make the crowd go insane.
Tis month we’re featuring DJ Kemo—a
recording artist, producer and DJ who has led the way for other Vancouver jocks by breaking into other markets, producing hit records and performing all over the globe. In 1991, Kemo—along with Red 1, Sol Guy, MisFit, Zebroc and Dedos—formed the group Ragga Muffin Rascalz (later renamed the Rascalz) and with the help of BMG Canada/Vik Recordings released three suc- cessful and classic Canadian hip hop albums. Since then Kemo has toured with the boys, won Juno, Socan, Ascap and Much Music awards, produced and remixed hit songs for
a multitude of other artists, worked on music videos, video games and commercials and brought his latin-influenced sound to venues from Africa to Abbotsford. You can find Kemo at various venues throughout the city, on tour across the country or around the world, or taking care of business with his new produc- tion group, Vanguards Music.
KEMO’S TOP TEN ALL-TIME ‘GET THIS PARTY STARTED’ SONGS
1.”JUICY” - NOTORIOUS BIG 2.”WATCH OUT NOW” - BEATNUTS 3.”BIG PIMPIN’” - JAY Z 4.”COULD YOU BE LOVED?” - BOB MARLEY 5.”HIP HOP” - DEAD PRESIDENTS 6.”EXXXPLOSIVE” - DR. DRE 7.”RED RED WINE” - UB40 8.”EVERYDAY PEOPLE” - ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT 9.”ANTE UP” - M.O.P. 10.”BRING ‘EM OUT” - T.I.
existed in the public consciousness. But his writing has not been con- fined to fiction exclusively. Over his 30-year career, Gibson has also of- fered his insights into contemporary culture in the form of non-fiction essays, articles and speeches writ- ten for a variety of publications, including Wired, the New York Times and Rolling Stone. Tis new book collects 25 of these pieces into one volume for the first time.
Each contribution is supple- mented with a comment
from Gibson, which in many cases is just as interesting as the original article itself—such as when he finds his own writing cringe-worthy, look- ing back from today’s perspective. Even more meaningful to fans of his novels are the insights provided into his own writing process, such as the story he offers about a short essay he wrote two weeks after the tragic events of 9/11. He describes how he was struggling with a novel in progress at the time and consid-
PHOTO: WILLIAM GIBSON
ered abandoning it, but the act of writing the essay actually helped him stick to the project—which evolved into Pattern Recognition, the breakthrough novel that ex- panded his audience far beyond the science fiction community and into more mainstream (and thus considerably larger) terri- tory.
april 2012 VANCOUVER VIEW 15
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