Mona Lisa Overpod

MLOP 31: Down For The Count Zero

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today! William Gibson's Neuromancer crystallized--if not created--the burgeoning genre of cyberpunk and he's been running from that label ever since. The sequel to his debut novel presents an expansion of his singular and evocative cyberpunk world, following the experiences and actions of a trio of protagonists, caught up in a globe-spanning conflict between the human forces of capital and the nascent and puissant influence of mysterious cyberspace "gods." Not content to simply replicate the noir-tinged heist of his first work, Gibson shows us an increasingly chaotic world where class is an identity, art is a commodity, and human ingenuity is on borrowed time. In this episode, we discuss Gibson's inspirations behind Count Zero and his views on art, the limits of iconoclasty, how science fiction requires precision in metaphor, "Japonification" in cyberpunk, updating the Cold War for the 21st century, the flawed heroes of cyberpunk, literal ghosts in the machine, technology as a tool for immortality, and the fusion of the technical and the traditional in Gibson's work. We also talk about "spyberpunk", asking the ceiling for the answer, "higherly", being a mercury-filled spider, "Heinleining", going biopunk, villains touching grass, money as its own AI, fetal VR soap opera syndrome, reducing your motherf*cker count, being invited to the voodoo cookout, the importance of Joseph Cornell to Gibson's work, cyber colonialism, protagonist energy, and Kal goes after millennials! CHAPTER 14?! NEWS UPDATE: Anthropic settles! https://www.theverge.com/news/766311/anthropic-class-action-ai-piracy-authors-settlement The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now! https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/ Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour! http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body! http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord! http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod http://www.justenoughtrope.com http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

MLOP 30: The Long Tomorrow is Cyberpunk's Yesterday

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today! Dense cityscapes, exotic fashions, humans sharing the streets with robots and cyborgs...the visual aspects of cyberpunk worlds are readily detectable and typically anticipated by the average sci-fi consumer. But the Blade Runners and Neuromancers and tech noir tales of science fiction owe their most anticipated signifiers to a seldom discussed comic story created by two titans of genre fiction and published in a broadly influential magazine that created from whole cloth the genre we think of as "Cyberpunk".   In this episode, we discuss The Long Tomorrow and the story of its creators' collaboration, the powerful influence of Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal on 1970s science fiction, the heady combination of the bandes dessinées art style and American noir, Moebius's arresting creations and Dan O'Bannon's fertile imagination, and whether or not cyberpunk is a matured genre. We also talk about the "cyberpunk purity test", bromine poisoning, hi-tech Furbies, #RIPAOL, "older brother magazines", the Shinders backroom right of passage, Moebius FM, Jodorowsky's Dune, cultural dandelions, sex panels, the first cyberpunk POC main character, tempered edgelordiness, the leveling effect of streaming on culture, and The Bonfire of the Vanities gets a beatdown! Le pied? NEWS UPDATE: Anthropic settles! https://www.theverge.com/news/766311/anthropic-class-action-ai-piracy-authors-settlement Check out the totally real(?) Long Tomorrow TV pitch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvKj_kYTMuk The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now! https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/ Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour! http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body! http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord! http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod http://www.justenoughtrope.com http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

MLOP 29: The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Resurrections

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today! The first Matrix film revolutionized the world of sci-fi action films and its sequel amped up the spectacle and nearly doubled the box office returns. So, when The Matrix Revolutions premiered in October 2003, audiences expected a pulse-pounding conclusion to the trilogy. What they got instead was a film more concerned about bringing completion to its deeply contemplated philosophical themes than providing an apocalypse of kung fu. Fast forward 18 years, and history repeats itself, as The Matrix Resurrections hits theaters (and HBO Max) and once again subverts expectations, as a filmmaker attempts to comment on the legacy of her work and how it changed the way we view the modern blockbuster.   In this episode, we discuss the two "bad" Matrix films and their impact on culture, the full court press of the 00's Matrix franchise, the way in which the philosophy of the series informs its action, the impossible task of encoring The Matrix, the fourth film's trans identity and its rebuke of internet culture, how getting older changes an artist, and why our choices may be illusions. We also talk about bad faith censorship, Agent Smith's invisible hand, believing in government the French Revolution way, getting Lockblocked, Big Baby God, the "Jaws" of '99, crappy cable-knit sweater world, kicking and causality, your boss is a dick robot, caring about the Sense8 gang, coming for Tolstoy, the suspenders of disbelief, skipping Tom Bombadil, noodle moments, and unlikeable kids! Oops! I'm a rock guy! Sign the petition to send a message to Itch.io! https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-what-we-can-watch-read-or-play The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now! https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/ Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour! http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body! http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord! http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod http://www.justenoughtrope.com http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

MLOP 28: Wild Palms is Real(ity)

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today! Before Netflix, before the Matrix, before Y2K, the viewing public of the late 20th century knew that computers would be important in the future, somehow, and Hollywood studios scrambled to try and produce TV shows and films that capitalized on and read into that unexplored digital frontier. The result was a 1990s that was awash with stories about how the Internet would change everything, from Keanu Reeves having an 80GB brain implant to Sandra Bullock ordering a pizza...from her computer! (gasp!) Most of these efforts followed the template established by the authors of the early Cyberpunk movement, providing paranoiac thrillers in the style of William Gibson. But one series broke from that mold to attempt to integrate the technothrills of tomorrow with the soapy, prime-time thrills of today: Wild Palms.   In this episode, we discuss the "weirdness" of '90s TV and the long shot that was the series' production, the viability of cyberpunk soap opera, the complicated alchemy of going off the TV formula, the intersection of culture and fame in LA, the chilling parallels between Wild Palms and our new millennium, human weakness in the face of technology's temptations, subverting the "Blade Runner aesthetic", how media is used to control us, and what cyberpunk tells us about the media's affect on culture. We also talk about Nazi gas-lighting robots, grading the Turing test on a curve, Stacked Clippy, Brisco County Jr., future = Edwardian collars, Cyberpunk Jim Belushi, postmodern law firms, not understanding your mantra, Patriots vs. Quakers vs. Solid Snake, the tacky harbinger of the Apocalypse, writing off into the sunset, and cyberpunk vampires! Hitler, take the wheel! The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now! https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/ Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour! http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body! http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord! http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod http://www.justenoughtrope.com http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

MLOP 27: American Flagg!

Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today! Comic books haven't been kids stuff for decades, but in the early 1980s the rise of the direct market model of comics distribution combined with social turmoil to inspire creators to explore darker, more relevant themes on the comic page. One prominent work from the early Modern Age of Comics is Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, a scattershot futuristic satire where forcibly retired porn actor Reuben Flagg is drafted into the Plexus Rangers, a corporate police force that protects the residential megamalls of a blasted America from the vicious GoGangs that cycle through the detritus of civilization. When Flagg is shown that the Plex may not be the benevolent dictatorship it advertises itself as, he'll have to choose between defending the status quo and fighting to reinitiate the experiment that was the American Dream.   In this episode, we discuss Chaykin's oeuvre and his self-assured visual style, the enduring influence of the pulps on cyberpunk, the mature appeal of the indie comics market, making excuses for your utopia, reframing the political chaos of the '80s in fiction, the misinterpretation of satirical characters by audiences, wallowing in cultural acceleration, the drawbacks to political syncretism, satirizing political heterodoxy, and the limits of the effectiveness of ridiculousness. We also talk about baby edgelords, "Kal saying, 'I didn't like this'", too much Frank Miller talk, loving zip-a-tone, the sesame chicken of social commentary, cat thumbs, sexual copaganda, 3-minute gigolo, being haunted by Harlan Ellison, Nazi Democrats, spaghetti on every wall, "theme cop", relying on white men for representation, and TWO Birth of a Nation references?! Because of continued success, we've failed! 8-Bit "Fortunate Son" composed by MartinGuinz https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zVOu7am2_qo The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now! https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/ Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour! http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body! http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord! http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod http://www.justenoughtrope.com http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope