In Los Angeles there were whole public-access channels devoted to things like this, and home-made talkshows hosted by naked Encino witches, who sat in front of big paintings of the Goddess they’d done in their garages. Except you could watch that. The logic of these cut-ups, he supposed, was that by making one you could somehow push back at the medium. Maybe it was supposed to be something like treading water, a simple repetitive human activity that temporarily provided at least an illusion of parity with the sea. But to Laney, who had spent many of his waking hours down in the deeper realms of data that underlay the worlds of media, it only looked hopeless. And tedious, too, although he supposed that that boredom was somehow meant to be harnessed, here, another way of pushing back.
Why else would anyone have selected and edited all these bits of Lo and Rez, the Chinese guitarist and the half-Irish singer, saying stupid things in dozens of different television spots, most of them probably intended for translation? Greetings seemed to be a theme. “We’re happy to be here in Vladivostok, We hear you’ve got a great new aquarium!” “We congratulate you on your free elections and your successftil dengue-abatement campaign!” “We’ve always loved London!” “New York, you’re …pragmatic!”
Laney explored the remains of his breakfast, finding a half-eaten slice of cold brown toast under a steel plate cover. There was an inch of coffee lefr in the pot. He didn’t want to think about the call from Rydell or what it might mean. He’d thought he was done with Slitscan, done with the lawyers .
“Singapore, you’re beautiful!” Rez said, Lo chiming in with “Hell-o, Lion City!”
He picked up the remote and hopefully tried the last-forward, No. Mute? No. Yamazaki was having this stuff piped in for his bene 94 William Gibson fit. He considered unplugging the console, but he was afraid they’d be able to tell.
It was speeding up now, the cuts more frequent, the whole more content-free, a numbing blur. Rez’s grin was starting to look sinister, something with an agenda of its own that jumped unchanged from one cut to the next,
Suddenly it all slid away, into handheld shadow, highlights on rococo gilt. There was a clatter of glassware. The image had a peculiar flattened quality that he knew from Slitscan: the smallest lapel-cameras did that, the ones disguised as flecks of lint.
A restaurant? Club? Someone seated opposite the camera, beyond a phalanx of green bottles. The darkness and the bandwidth of the tiny camera making the features impossible to read. Then Rez leaned forward, recognizable in the new depth of focus. He gestured toward the camera with a glass of red wine.
“If we could ever once stop talking about the music, and the industry, and all the politics of that, I think I’d probably tell you that it’s easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.”
Someone, a woman, said something in French. Laney guessed that she was the one wearing the camera.
“Ease up, Rozzer. She doesn’t understand half you’re saying.” Laney sat forward. The voice had been Blackwell’s.
“Doesn’t she?” Rez receded, out of focus. “Because if she did, I think I’d tell her about the loneliness of being misunderstood. Or is it the loneliness of being afraid to allow ourselves to be understood?”
And the frame froze on the singer’s blurred face. A date and time-stamp. Two years earlier. The word “Misunderstood” appeared.
The phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Blackwell says there is a window of opportunity. The schedule has been moved up. You can access now.” It was Yamazaki.
0 2 95 “Good,” Laney said. “I don’t think I’m getting very far with this first video.”
“Rez’s quest for renewed artistic meaning? Don’t worry; we will screen it for you again, later.”
“I’m relieved,” Laney said. “Is the second one as good?”
“Second documentary is more conventionally structured. In-depth interviews, biographical detail, BBC, three years ago.”
“Wonderful.”
“Blackwell is on his way to the hotel. Goodbye.” 96 William Gibson The site Mitsuko’s chapter had erected for the meeting reminded Chia ofJapanese prints she’d seen on a school trip to the museum in Seattle; there was a brownish light that seemed to arrive through layers of ancient varnish. There were hills in the distance with twisted trees, their branches like quick black squiggles of ink. She came vectoring in, beside Mitsuko, toward a wooden house with deep overhanging eaves, its shape familiar from anime. It was the sort of house that ninjas crept into in the dark, to wake a sleeping heroine and tell her that all was not as she thought, that her uncle was in league with the evil warlord. She checked how she was presenting in a small peripheral window; put a nudge more depth into her lips.