Tik-Tok/F...J - Revision history

Eb at 08:09, 25 January 2025

2025-01-25T08:09:35Z

Eb: use template

2017-02-13T03:01:33Z

use template

Eb: /* It always seemed to work .... applauding at every insult */

2017-02-05T07:33:24Z

It always seemed to work .... applauding at every insult

Eb: /* Summary */ collapse summary

2017-02-05T07:31:22Z

Summary: collapse summary

Eb: /* Summary */

2016-11-21T07:50:20Z

Summary

Eb at 06:31, 21 November 2016

2016-11-21T06:31:26Z

Eb: /* not even Hornby can afford real servants */

2016-11-20T06:39:06Z

not even Hornby can afford real servants

Eb: /* the Darkblaze Travel Agency */

2016-11-20T06:19:43Z

the Darkblaze Travel Agency

Eb: /* a Mogul miniature painted about 1600 */

2016-11-20T06:17:29Z

a Mogul miniature painted about 1600

Eb: /* a Mogul miniature painted about 1600 */

2016-08-25T04:34:41Z

a Mogul miniature painted about 1600

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:09, 25 January 2025
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	''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.		''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.

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-== Summary ==
+{{SummaryCollapsed |
-<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
+''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
-''In the more distant past:'' Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.</div>
+''In the more distant past:'' Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.
 == F ==

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 === It always seemed to work .... applauding at every insult ===
-I suspect that Tik-Tok's strategy of brutally mocking the student groups who invite him to speak is based on either a real speech by a Black Power activist in the 1970s, or a contemporary parody of the same, although I don't know if his speech (here and in the chapter before last) contains any specific callbacks to real texts. To someone of Sladek's generation, this scene would clearly stand for a white student audience applauding the confrontational rhetoric of an angry Black man.
+I suspect that Tik-Tok's strategy of brutally mocking the student groups who invite him to speak (here and in the chapter before last) is based on either a real speech by a Black Power activist in the 1970s, or a contemporary parody of the same. To someone of Sladek's generation, this scene would clearly stand for a white student audience applauding the confrontational rhetoric of an angry Black man.
 Although Sladek depicts the suffering of robots as real and the robot rights movement as totally justified, Tik-Tok himself has no real interest in the movement and only knows that the human beings who support the cause can be manipulated through guilt. Tik-Tok has more or less accepted the belief that was popularized by Tom Wolfe's 1970 essay "Radical Chic" (and that continues to be a popular view among right-wing commentators), that middle-class liberals are drawn to minority radical figures strictly for the thrill of danger and shallow anti-establishmentism rather than out of any real political concern. As Sladek didn't hesitate to portray college students in general as idiots in ''[[Roderick]]'', it may be that this is basically true of Tik-Tok's audience here. Even so, Sybilla and Harry point out that the movement is in fact making real legal progress—so that Tik-Tok might, if he cared at all, have actually improved the world.
 {{Tik-Tok nav}}

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 == Summary ==
-''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
+<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
-''In the more distant past:'' Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.
+''In the more distant past:'' Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.</div>
 == F ==

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 == Summary ==
-''In the recent past'': Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
+''In the recent past:'' Tik-Tok's new art-world fame brings him into contact with various society figures: the politically ambitious Colonel Cord, who hires him as a portraitist, and the philosophy professor Dr. Riley, one of whose students is forming a "Wages for Robots" activist group. At the "rohobo" camp, he starts recruiting more robot employees, including the military explosives expert Blojob, who helps to pull off a robbery and a terrorist bombing based on Tik-Tok's vague assurances that these actions aren't what they seem. Suddenly, Tik-Tok is confronted by figures from his past: the Jord Family.
-''In the more distant past'': Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.
+''In the more distant past:'' Leaving Colonel Jitney's restaurant, Tik-Tok is bought by the insane Judge Arnott, who destroys robots for fun. Arnott fails to finish him off completely; he is found and repaired by Reverend Flint Orifice, who disguises him as a human to play the part of a newly converted sinner. After Orifice's assassination, the church sends Tik-Tok to assist a missionary on a spaceship to Mars, but the ship is hijacked by pirates: the Jord Family.
 == F ==

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 === It is meat to be here ===
-A joke on ''meet'' in the archaic sense of "appropriate". James Joyce in ''Ulysses'':
+A joke on ''meet'' in the archaic sense of "appropriate". James Joyce in [http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/7/ ''Ulysses'']:
-<blockquote>The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps ... gazed about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset.[http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/7/]</blockquote>
+<blockquote>The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman who follows in his footsteps ... gazed about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a watercloset.</blockquote>
 === Honest Engine ===

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 === not even Hornby can afford real servants ===
-Although the extravagant lifestyles of many of the human characters in ''Tik-Tok'' (the Studebakers, an only slightly upper-middle-class suburban couple, live in pampered luxury; the Culpeppers have money to burn far beyond the wildest dreams of the plantation owners they're imitating) could be seen as just typical satirical exaggeration, there's also a practical angle: in this world, robots are much cheaper than human employees—and probably even cheaper than human slaves, since they can be mass-produced.
+Although the extravagant lifestyles of many of the human characters in ''Tik-Tok'' (the Studebakers, an only slightly upper-middle-class suburban couple, live in pampered luxury; the Culpeppers have money to burn far beyond the wildest dreams of the plantation owners they're imitating) could be seen as just typical satirical exaggeration, there's also a practical angle: in this world, robots are much cheaper than human employees—and probably even cheaper than human slaves, since they can be mass-produced—leaving more money available for other extravagances.
 === It is meat to be here ===

@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 There's no way this name isn't a reference to something, but all I can find so far is an obscure poem by {{wp|McDonald Clarke}}, "Lord Byron", which ends with these somewhat appropriate lines:
-<blockquote>Guiding wild Genius on his way,<br>—By Passion's whirlwinds hurled astray—<br>And, by the dark blaze of its ray,<br>The Soul will steer her course, aright.</blockquote>
+<poem>
 === a woman comes up and pours some expensive after-shave over him ===

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 === a Mogul miniature painted about 1600 ===
-Mogal or {{wp|Mughal painting}} is a South Asian style generally done in a small size on paper, with literary, historical, or religious subjects.
+Mogul or {{wp|Mughal painting}} is a South Asian style generally done in a small size on paper, with literary, historical, or religious subjects.
 === the caustic Ruritanian cartoonist ===