retrospecting article on futurama

great..we're already getting retrospects..

http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Reviews/04Cook_Futurama.html

M M

M M wrote in message news:...

Too bad it's got so many errors in it. (It was "Single Female Lawyer", for instance.) Also, Philip K. Dick did write a book where there were ads that would follow you around, a la that Internet episode. I don't remember the name of the book right off, and it wasn't the main focus of the book. -- Christopher Heckman

Are you talking about the short story where the robots are trying to sell themselves and...

*SPOILER*

...they end up crashing into the sun or something?

I think that one was called "Sales Pitch." Seemed more a knock on door-to-door salesmen, although its critique could be applied to any pervasive advertising.

If Proginoskes is thinking of a book, it might be "Ubik," which has ads for Ubik in between chapters. I think Ubik also starts pervading the ever-degrading reality the protagonists find themselves in. http://www.philipkdick.com/works_novels_ubik.html

-Jay

"Jay G" wrote in message news:...

Nope. You're both wrong. 8-). It was _The Simulacra_ (1964). The following excerpt is from the middle of Chapter 4 (p. 41 in my book). If I remember correctly, there are a few other scenes that involved commercials.

Something sizzled to the right of him. A commercial, made by Theodorus
Nitz, the worst house of all, had attached itself to his car.
     "Get off," he warned it. But the commercial, well-adhered, began to
crawl, buffeted by the wind, toward the door and the entrance crack. It
would soon have squeezed in and would be haranguing him in the cranky,
garbagey fashion of the Nitz advertisements.
     He could, as it came through the crack, kill it. It was alive,
terribly mortal; the ad agencies, like nature, squandered hordes of them.
     The commercial, fly-sized, began to buzz out its message as soon as
it managed to force entry. "Say! Haven't you sometimes said to yourself,
I'll bet other people in restaurants can see me! And you're puzzled as to
what to do about this serious, baffling problem of being conspicuous,
especially---"
     Chic crushed it with his foot.

There was a quote by Stanislaw Lem which I used to put in my .sig, which asked how to handle a forum where everyone yells, and the truth becomes what is yelled the loudest, instead of what is correct. For some reason, this reminded me of the Internet (and Usenet), even though he wrote it in 1968. -- Christopher Heckman

"Proginoskes" wrote in message news:[email]...

Yes, those aliens were from Omicron Persei 8. Men are from 7 women are from 9!