“The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.”
~ Jackson Pollock, b. 28 January 1912
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463551910/
“The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.”
~ Jackson Pollock, b. 28 January 1912
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463551910/
“One must not make oneself cheap here – that is a cardinal point – or else one is done. Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, b. 27 January 1756
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“Find out who you are and be that person. That’s what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come.”
~ Ellen DeGeneres, b. 26 January 1958
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463533443/
“I love kick boxing. It’s a lot of fun. It gives you a lot of confidence when you can kick somebody in the head.”
~ Alicia Keys, b. 25 January 1981
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463528690/
“I guess happiness is not a state you want to be in all the time.”
~ John Belushi, b. 24 January 1949
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“You’ve got to kick fear to the side, because the payoff is huge.”
~ Mariska Hargitay, b 23 January 1964
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463515409/
“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”
~ Sir Francis Bacon, b. 22 January 1561
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463508922/
“I got more guts than brains, and that’s my problem.”
~ Cat Power, b. 21 January 1972
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463502086/
“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.”
~ Bill Maher, b. 20 January 1956
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463494984/
If either the author or his publisher had subscribed to truth in advertising, this book should have been titled Zero Story.
Once upon a time, after reading Neuromancer a couple of decades ago, I thought William Gibson was a SF genius for the brilliance with which he’d described a wired world of the future.
A couple of years ago I read Spook County and was horribly disappointed with a vaguely-futuristic novel that appeared to have no plot. Since then, Gibson has apparently been pushing the limits of his ability to anesthetize unsuspecting readers with more of the same.
In all fairness, Gibson is a fine craftsman of prose. It was pleasurable and effortless to read Zero History, at least insomuch as I could feign an interest in the latest fashions in clothing, architecture, vehicles and interior design, to which he devoted an inordinate percentage of word count in this tiresome excuse for a novel.
For the life of me, I struggle to recount what Zero History was all about. Essentially, a bunch of characterless nerds trying to determine the identity of a designer of leading edge military clothing. But if I looked for a plot, I was out of luck. I felt like I was downtown on a Saturday night, endlessly circling the block in front of a popular restaurant, looking for a parking spot that never materialized.
I was fed up with this novel in less than 40 pages. I persisted to the end (400 pp) only in the vain hope that perhaps this once-esteemed writer would show some purpose and redeem himself in the next chapter… or maybe the next… or maybe the last. Never happened.
In the acknowledgements section, Gibson went to great pains to thank his wife and daughter, editor and literary agent, and a dozen others who supposedly helped to midwife this bastard. Of those, shame on his agent and editor, who didn’t have the stones to tell him, this is an insubstantial piece of crap and you can do better.
If ever I reach this stage in my writing, I can only pray I have more honest people in my life to counsel me.
~~~