Bookkake

Last night saw the fifth installment of Bad Idea Magazine‘s Butcher’s Shop writers’ workshop, wherein the editors and invited guests have a stab at “live editing” 350-word submissions from the attendees, in the appropriately grisly environs of Bankside’s Old Operating Theatre.

The theme of the event – FUTURE HUMAN – was transhumanism, with submissions invited on the subject of “re-imagining the human body through literature and science, and exploring the utopian possibilities of technological enhancement.” The suitably S.F. guests included BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow, Gwyneth Jones (author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award winning Bold As Love), Ian Watson (co-author of the screenplay for A.I., and a former Stanley Kubrick collaborator) and Matthew de Abaitua (author of the Clarke-nominated The Red Men).

First up was The Angina Monologues by Philippa Moore, a tale of elective, electric heart surgery, in which a depressed narrator took up the services of VirtualHeart.com, choosing between “the ‘iPod’ – slick, clean and user friendly, or the Rolls Royce, with extra roomy chambers.” The story ended with a meditation on the surprising accuracy of James Cameron’s Terminator predictions: “He knew the revolution was coming. And you don’t necessarily destroy the human race with guns and fire. You go for the heart.” Bad Idea’s editors took this as a jumping-off point for a discussion of cognitive enhancement, and possible futures on offworld colonies – fascinating, if a little far from the original narrative.

Next, Matthew De Abaitua (above) used your humble editor’s own story The Nose (reprinted below) to begin an exercise in world-building, delving into the the history of canine domestication and envisioning a future of pampered pets bought vintage wines by their devoted owners, and going on to elaborate on the capitalist forces that shape our destiny, regardless of our utopian ideals. He quoted an old professor who had asked him to point to where we do our thinking; as the audience raised their hands to their temples and brows, he reminded us that we do our thinking in the world around us; we are, like it or not, symbiotes with our environment.

Finally, the special guests took the floor for a panel discussion on the themes of the night. Despite Ian Watson’s exegesis on Man After Man, Dougal Dixon’s 1990 work of speculative anthropology; Gwyneth Jones’ catalogue of human functions – digestion, excresence – performed by alien microflora; and Cory’s insistence that Transhumanism is already here – in the form of major-league baseball’s elbow surgery and laser eye enhancements – the consensus seemed to be that we as a species are too messy, too bedded into the world to make the great leap envisioned by Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity. The very concept is a form of millenarianism common to all epochs of humanity, and which predates our modern obsessions with technology and human potential.

All in all, an excellent night, and I look forward to the next one. And for the sake of vanity completeness, here is your editor’s story, as read on the night:

THE NOSE

“We are going to increase the number of nerves in your nose,” Professor Bohr had told me. “We take the olfactory epithelium from a canine subject and layer it over your existing, respiratory epithelium. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to breathe. But you’ll also have the sense of smell of a Weimeraner.”

I was nervous. Not about my new-found hybridity, despite its strangeness, but about the potential damage to my nose. I am a master winemaker, and my nose can pick a single grape from any blend, identify soil and sunlight by smell, and sense the merest hint of taint in a 300 hectalitre vat. I have made wine on six continents. In Afghanistan I found the mother vine of 500 European varieties, by smell alone. I have worked with chefs worldwide to invent new pairings and new blends, igniting revolutions in gastronomy.

Professor Bohr assured me the operation was safe. He had performed it over 100 times on burns patients and car crash victims. “But never,” he explained, “have I augmented a sense like yours.” Smell – olfaction – is unique: it is the only human sense where the nerves make direct contact with the world, unprotected by skin drums, aqueous humours or cilia. It is where we are most raw, and truly sensitive.

As they removed the sterilised wax plugs from my nose, it began. First, the odour of the hospital – dry, metallic, laced with chemicals, blood, bile and faecal matter. I could smell the doctors round my bed, their underarm odour, their breath and sexes. I could smell the man dying in the next room, and the menstruation of the nurse attending him. I could smell the street beneath the window; the people passing on it; the river beyond them. A cacophany of smells. And just when I thought it was all too much, that I would never be able to tell one thing from another, I smelled, clear, clean and crisp like freshly cut grass, the lychee and passionfuit bouquet of a chilled glass of Alsatian Gewurztraminer on a cafe table two blocks away, and I smiled.