SciFi Cali

I've been reading BLDGBLOG for I don't know how long. Like Kottke, it's an original blog, steadfast despite the churn around it, and focused on something very specific, which, considering the diversity of the "content," could be categorized as that which delights. At least, that's my experience of it. In any case, Geoff Manaugh has a delightful post up today about a class he's teaching at my alma mater, UC Berkeley, and how California is science fiction incarnate.

"Robinson explained to Boom that, in the blink of an eye, California became a 'completely different landscape. At that same time I started reading science fiction (…) and it struck me that it was an accurate literature, that it was what my life felt like; so I thought science fiction was the literature of California. I still think California is a science fictional place. The desert has been terraformed. The whole water system is unnatural and artificial. This place shouldn’t look like it looks, so it all comes together for me. I’m a science fiction person, and I’m a Californian.'"