(no subject)

[pantryslut]

1. Reading an SF book this week, I was struck by this question: why is there no dust in the future? I am talking about shiny post-industrial futures, of course, not post-apocalyptic futures, where there is plenty of dust. Thanks to G. for pointing out the distinction. G. has also already pointed up the handwave solution of self-replicating nanobots who feed themselves on dust particles. But still.

2. In regards to Deborah Jeane Palfrey, I am choosing the path of total denial and telling myself the Thelma and Louise version of her story. That is, clearly she faked her own death and has now run off to Mexico.

Comments

[uke.livejournal.com]

In re #1, if you assume there is no dust just because it's not mentioned, then nobody ever takes a crap either! etc. I must be missing something.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're missing something. It's not just an absence. When surfaces are lovingly described as smooth, shiny, sleek, without corners (to gather dust in), on and on and on and on...and then there is no dust mentioned, the absence is conspicuous. Just as if someone described a house, room by room by room, so that you could sketch the floorplan, wall to wall...but not only didn't mention a bathroom, but didn't leave any space for it. Then your analogy would be more on point.

[lnghnds.livejournal.com]

I think Bruce Sterling had cockroaches in the space ships that would eat all the flakes of skin that normally make up dust.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

cf. nanobots, above.

[wingedcorset.livejournal.com]

Related to nothing, I was reading a book yesterday and the phrase "the intersection of tea and gay porn" leapt off the page and made me think of you.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

That would be my front room, eh? :)

[alibi-shop.livejournal.com]

I think it's in Delany's Nova where he makes a point of the characters walking around with dirty bare feet and the spaceship floors being all cruddy. He says something about how people stopped worrying about germs because of modern medicine, but I kind of thought that might just be a rationalization because there was something a little fetishy about the descriptions.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Yes, there *was* something a little fetishy in those descriptions...

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

Heinlein did it way back in the 50's, in some short story about a couple who live on the moon, and she comments that her white dress never gets dirty because of the wonderful air filtering.

Me, I'm always wondering who maintains the systems that run those giant cities or whathaveyou.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm always wondering who maintains the systems that run those giant cities or whathaveyou.

Bingo!