“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” — William Gibson
Growing up, I remember when I discovered Gibson and the shock that this sentence sent through me. It felt like he had plugged into my brain and saw what was in there. He did that for a lot of us, frankly. But that sentence…
Well it doesn’t work anymore, does it?
TVs without signal don’t go to static often anymore. They go blue. Sometimes black. “Tuned” doesn’t even mean the same thing since we went to digital signals only in the US.
We knew, then, that he meant the sky to be that flat, lifeless grey that drains all hope from a day. But now, it means the sky was a bright happy blue.
Technology marches on and in its wake it messes with all sorts of things, doesn’t it?
Eisner and Harvey award winning editor, writer and tired person. Novelist, comic writer, cat owner, NY'er.
“The sky above the port was the color of a movie screen in the half hour before the trailers start.”
“The gun was as large and heavy as my telephone.”
And so on.
HAhahah yeah.