Mona Lisa Overpod

• MLOP 21: BLAME!

  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 '80s and they break down its 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!Does cyberpunk storytelling require dialogue and exposition? Even more than mainstream sci-fi, the cyberpunk genre has complicated concepts and themes it needs to communicate to the reader. But Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! defies convention with a taciturn protagonist and a silent world. An architect by training and a mangaka by trade, Nihei lets his intricate and somber illustrations drive the story of a lone wanderer in an impossibly gargantuan and hostile space.  In this episode, we discuss how the influences that shaped Nihei's work, the somber mood created by his detailed landscapes, the manga's liminal spaces, the story's unconscious criticism of conspicuous consumption, what defines a neo-cyberpunk tale, and the permeable boundaries of transhumanism. We also talk about gettin' Biblical, "worm-infected birds", the horse snack gap, Making BLAME! Great Again, adding more shoe leather, nemotopia, OMG poststructuralism, projected negativity, original flavor DNA, Wesley and the Drug Planet, coelacanths, treks and silence, and taking a trippy-trip through a strange land!YOU GOT BLAMED!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/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

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  1:54:19
• MLOP 20: Snow Crash

  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 '80s and they break down its 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!Was Snow Crash the annunciation of a new era of the cyberpunk genre or its epitaph? Upon its release in 1992, Neal Stephenson's third novel entered a literary world that had grown tired of the pessimistic speculations of tech noir fiction. The public was ready for tales of a future that promised hope and adventure, a little "high life" to go with the "high tech". Snow Crash has been lauded by contemporary critics (and tech CEOs) as a visionary, biting satire of consumerism and cyberpunk tropes in equal measure. But is Stephenson's tale of pizza-delivering hackers a postcyberpunk, postmodernist masterpiece, or is it just a bunch of babble? In this episode, we discuss the environment into which Snow Crash was born, its comic origins, the contiguity of cyberpunk and satire, Stephenson's evolving career, postcyberpunk, the book's eerie prescience, civilization as a virus, the book's influence on our current world, and a "culture medium for a medium culture." We also talk about the Seattle of the Midwest, missing the "meme", baby luaus, doing your own research, repeating bad information, A Irony, Ed Meece bucks, commentainment, status symbol books, boomer hackers and zoomer slackers, hipster sword fights, loving a crapsack world, subverting the "punk", notes of libertarianism, "Sushi K, Tran, and the Rat Things: The Spinoff", AskJeeves+, Wikipedia OMEGA, "skipping the memo", and only reading the second part of Snow Crash?!I love Y.T.! uh...like a little sister...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/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

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  1:54:12
• MLOP 19: Bubblegum Crisis

  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 '80s and they break down its 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!Cyberpunk is not solely an American phenomenon, and even as Western works like Blade Runner and Neuromancer were releasing in the 1980s, Japan was already well on its way to becoming a wellspring of high-tech-low-life science fiction. Part Charlie's Angels, part Iron Man, and all attitude, Bubblegum Crisis exploded onto Japanese screens in 1987 to smash the glass ceiling of female representation in bad ass anime. Squealing tires and squealing guitars provide the soundtrack to this techno-thriller that prefigures the direction anime and Western animation would take for the next two decades. In this episode, we discuss how Bubblegum Crisis came to be and why it may never be again, the cross-pollination that informed the development of cyberpunk on both sides of the Pacific, the economic conditions in Showa Japan that created the OVA boom and modern anime, putting female characters front-and-center, and the unique Japanese flavor of cyberpunk media. We also talk about ChatGPT drinking all our water, Top Gun maps, Chris Nolan: Anime Fan, getting your ball back, Lupin the Murderer, distilling liquid 1987, feminism blankets, missing the yaoi, an exoskeleton for your exoskeleton, Grimace Hulk, and it's not anime...it's HBO!THE BABY SITUATION IS BAD!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/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

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  1:34:59
• MLOP 18: "Reality" in Cyberpunk

  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 '80s and they break down its 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!In our modern world of digital landscapes and virtual reality, the concept of the "real" can be as tenuous as ever. Is the Internet a real place? What does it mean that fictional characters and augmented worlds seem as real as what's outside your door? And what do we do when reality as we know it becomes optional?  In this episode, we discuss how the digital revolution put reality on trial and how "reality" as a concept is explored in cyberpunk fiction. We also talk about the abacus vs. Excel, the fall of Google, being a human AI detector, the mystery of memory and identity, editing yourself, '90s movies about reality, the way that popular media lags behind science fiction, the worlds of Philip K Dick, poopooing the woowooing, the other side of the dream, trying to get rich as a sci-fi author, horrible virtual grocery stores, how data manipulation shapes reality, getting Kojima on you, incentivizing meanness, and Making America Real Again!Help AI help you!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/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

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  1:43:43
• MLOP 17: Two Truths and a Lie with Cory O'Brien

  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 '80s and they break down its 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!Cyberpunk is alive and well in the 21st century and today we're talking with the author of the latest addition to the cyberpunk canon: author Cory O'Brien! In the watery streets of future LA, data is the only currency, and Infodrip fact-checker Orr Vue will find himself at the center of a twisted murder mystery that could cost him his mind, his freedom, and his life! In this episode, we talk with Cory about the origins of the novel's premise, the connections between cyberpunk and noir fiction, the difference between 20th century and 21st century cyberpunk, the literal information economy presented in the book, the gross incompetence of our techno-overlords, how humans contextualize knowledge better than AI, the limits of current AI models, why corporations "let" you be gay, and when the aesthetic overwhelms the genre. We also talk about rogue AI, losing the "punk", stacking your demos, jealously guarding your cat pictures, monetizing fun, digital beastmastering, messing around with Eliza, the home Voight-Kampff test, William Gibson poems, making cyberpunk literally juicy, and an interruption from Alexa!Telepathy would never work!Pre-order Two Truths and a Lie, available March 4th!https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741701/two-truths-and-a-lie-by-cory-obrien/See Cory on the web!http://bettermyths.comThe 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/justenoughtropePut Just Enough Trope merch on your body!http://justenoughtrope.threadless.comMLOP 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/monalisaoverpodhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpodhttps://discord.gg/7E6wUayqBuy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

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  1:34:45

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