Monthlies

So it seems I am only capable of writing a blogpoint once a month now. Following a predictable trend, I wrote regularly for about three months, then in bursts, and now I'm lucky if a sanguine moment occurs each month. But then my full-time work overspills into my weekends now, and the three girls are spiralling off into the ether with their plans and crazes, and I get dragged in their tailspin from time to time, plus Joe, plus the needs of the house....

Let alone the fact that when you write for a living, finding something unique to say that you haven't already put in print elsewhere, occurs only at unreliable erratic moments, like 3am, when the laptop is sleeping three floors away downstairs in the dark.

Hmm. How will I ever finish the three/four novels, one filmscript, one play? In fact, do I even want to finish them? Isn't their ongoing process the best bit about writing?

I can see why some writers only make it posthumously.

What Next?

So they've invented see-through frogs. I must be having a menopausal limber up because the idea of a 'team of scientists' (bastards! It's always them, isn't it) deciding jointly to invent frogs with transparent skin, makes my skin crawl. Presumably these frogs will be highly susceptible to changes in heat and light which may damage their exposed internal organs. Well, I presume that's why we're not all see-through, isn't it?
And why clear frogs? Because they will not have to be dissected to be useful in experiments. Scientists can simply watch their organs, to see whether the disease they have been given is shrivelling them, or causing heart failure, or respiratory problems.
How handy – now they can avoid problems from those noisy anti-vivisection protestors. Never mind that the frogs may be suffering from life with see-through skin.

This triggers a memory of reading on the internet about the outrageous Eduardo Kac. Kac (pronounced Katz) is a Brazilian-American artist who persuaded a French laboratory to create a rabbit crossed with jellyfish genes that glows green in the dark. ‘Alba Bunny GPS’ then became an art exhibit. He wanted to get her out of the lab afterwards, but the mad scientists refused. Perhaps he wanted her in his hallway to save on lamps.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of avant-garde artists. And I LURVE crazy ole scientists (when they are doing something useful for the rest of the human race) but what is going on here?? After five minutes on Kac’s website, my brain hurt from trying to comprehend his ‘Plant that grows solely on light emitted by a computer triggered by art-lover’s and the unfathomable ‘bee doing a bee dance’ idea. His ideas are fantastic. And I suppose only by putting them into practise can he claim them as ART. But I felt the need to scream “Was the frog thing your idea too?”

So what is the logical conclusion of all this tampering? I feel my next sci-fi novel coming on. ... “I would like to thank my mother, Eduardo Kac and the godlike Margaret Atwood when I accept this Oscar for the screenplay of Green Rabbits and Clear Frogs: The Movie.”

Seriously, can anyone surmise where the world is going with this ‘livestock-could-eat -livestock Mad Cow theme? Will genetically tampered vermin roam the sewers of Madrid, happily glowing in the sludge? Will it be see-through babies next, to make it easier to spot when they swallow a pentop?

Sci-fi Wi-Fi and Utopia

Margaret Atwood once said: “More than one commentator has mentioned that science fiction as a form is where theological narrative went after Paradise Lost, and this is undoubtedly true..... Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime, but a necessity; because increasingly, if we can imagine it, we'll be able to do it”

And this is why I want to defend videogames. Science fiction films are now huge at the box office as entertainment, but videogames are demonised as triggers for serial killers, when they could instead play a vital role.

Our world is embracing technology faster than you can say Wi-Fi. Statistics (those old chestnuts) suggest that by 2049 a 1,000 dollar computer will exceed the thinking capacity of the human race. The amount of new technological information is currently doubling every two years and will double every two hours by 2010. And that’s not far away.

Videogames are programmed simulations of life. Some even come close to affecting real life on a large scale – look at Second Life, and its list of pioneering firsts, like the recently announced link-up with Google Earth, or it’s first real-world millionaire as a result of her virtual-world business. This is the training ground where we will plan our future, and that future is racing fast towards us. We are talking research and development for the human race.

Writers, game designers and the entertainment industry already accept that all of their artforms are valid, crucial development even, but so far the mass media has lagged behind. Get with the program! Bizarrely, the United States may have a real part to play in saving the human race. Nintendo spent more money on R&D last year than the federal government spent on education. Perhaps we have to look at education in a different sense. I am not advocating that we let children become numbed with handheld game machines. But I am arguing that science-fiction has become science fact, and unless this generation of parents learns to welcome technology then we will be left in the hands of our children, who can already make global decisions at the flick of a mouse. Banking, policing and healthcare are joining hands globally through the internet. Travel is moving into the galactic sphere, since we can already traverse the globe in less than a day. These changes are just the forerunners of what will come, quicker than the final Harry Potter film. Unless we understand that we can explore our future choices now, using entertainment media like movies, novels or online gaming, we risk leaving the shape of things to come to a handful of media moguls, with the financial savvy to see the future before we do.

We can discuss and disseminate the conclusions that we draw instantly, democratically and globally through the blog world. So let’s get our best and brightest brains on the case, so that what we’re racing towards is the human race finally realising its potential.

The long way home...

The strangest things occur to you when blog-hopping.

I love checking out other parents blogs, for sadistic reasons - I hope they struggle from time to time as I do. This means I'm not a freak of nature in my parent troubles.

And I spot recurring phenomena. For instance, the first six months to a year as a new parent are full of 'firsts'. Every stage documented - solid food, tottering steps, saying mama - or referred to obliquely by the media-savvy bloggers who know how intrusive blogs can be. But then there is invariably a hiatus. Around one year, many parents hit a kind of mental barrier. I think your own life begins to come back, choices about work and childcare loom, the novelty wears off, or baby two could be on the horizon. Whatever the reason, parent bloggers often go quiet as stresses take their toll. Then, when the problem has been surmounted, back the blog entries come in a flurry of excitement.

I am interested in the patterns. Some of us blog like crazy to deal with issues as they arise. Others take a period of solitude to process thoughts before committing them to blogdom. Which are you? A blog-first, think later? Or a concrete blogger - I know what I'm saying, man!

And I bet some of this is gender based. There's probably a course on the psychology of blogging at a university near you right now. But here in the boondocks (can a village in the mountains be in the boondocks?) I don't have a course tutor, and I'm just winging it. Hey, you out there! Tell me what you think.

Meanwhile, the kids have found Clan TVE cartoons and are filling their heads with multi-coloured pixillated images that seem to send them haywire later. Gotta close down and go do parenty things with poster paints, breadsticks and baby wipes.

The Mother Mystery

It struck me today, that I've been complicit in a deceit.

The continuing deceit, in fact, of generations of girls by their mothers.

If I paint you a picture, it may seem familiar. My mum worked in the home - made dinners, cleaned the house, organised everyone, - and, at times, took on variously paid work out of the home. She didn't complain. (That was the arena for the next generation of feminists.) My mum's feminism never sat still - it involved supporting kids, husband and home in a never-ending whirl of activity. She listened to my father, endured our constant queries, gave late-night telephone support to countless female friends as they divorced, dated, and divorced again. She found time to join in the divorce boom herself, and subsequently listened as my sister and I contemplated lives that would avoid marriages and mortgages.

Now, I work silently in the home, bringing up my three kids, coaxing my partner through the daily tribulations of his own business, and putting in the maximum hours in my paid job that childminders and Easter playschemes will allow.

Am I telling my girls the secret truths of what I've learned? Do I dash their hopes by telling them they will work harder for less money than their male counterparts? Do I tell them now that they will breastfeed through the night while their partner sleeps soundly? Do I counsel celibacy or life on a Kibbutz? Do I remind them that Spanish law was changed recently to give equal responsibility for housework to both partners, the failure of which can be cited in divorce proceedings, even though in our house it's just females who hoover and polish?

Or do I rant in the blogosphere... and keep my girls in blissful ignorance for a while longer.

Perhaps some mothers of boys out there are busy instilling new values in their offspring, that will bring about a true revolution... I can't see how they could do this? Maybe by paying childcarers as much as minders? By citing empathy and love for your children as really manly traits?

My mum also used to say 'Be careful what you wish for - for you will get it.' Hmmmm.