A 1993 dystopian novel imagined the world in 2024. It’s eerily accurate – the Washington Post
Excerpt:
Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ predicted devastating climate change, inequality, space travel and ‘Make America great again’
This is life in 2024.
Or at least it’s life in 2024 as imagined by the writer Octavia Butler 31 years ago.
“Parable of the Sower,” a 1993 novel by the late science fiction writer and MacArthur Fellow, depicts a future America ravaged by ecological collapse and civil unrest. The book’s narrator, African American teenager Lauren Olamina, begins writing a journal in July 2024 documenting the upheaval.
In the time it’s taken us to reach 2024 for real, Butler’s story has been adapted as an opera and a graphic novel; a movie adaptation is also in the works. In 2017, director Melina Matsoukas cited Butler among the Black thinkers who inspired her “Formation” video from Beyoncé’s award-winning album “Lemonade.”
In September 2020 — perhaps fueled by an interest in apocalyptic fiction prompted by covid-19 lockdowns — “Parable” appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time, 27 years after publication.
Butler didn’t live to see the renewed interest in her ninth novel — she died in 2006 — but she indicated that the issues faced by the characters in “Parable” and by the United States today were inevitable…
ADDITIONAL READING . . .
How Octavia Butler Told the Future - the Atlantic
Excerpt:
At SXSW, a documentary traces the arc of plastics in our lives, and highlights evolving research of the potential harm of its presence in our bodies.
It’s been more than five decades since Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was offered a kernel of wisdom about the path to prosperity.
“Plastics,” he’s told by Mr. McGuire, the starched corporate executive who offers the advice. “There’s a great future in plastics.”
Plastics have indeed been a game changer for humanity, and the enormous range of cheap, durable plastic goods, from food containers and PVC pipes to polyester clothing and single-use medical products, have inarguably improved life.
The problem, as nearly everyone knows, is that plastics are forever and very little of it has been recycled. The U.N. has estimated that most of the 400 million metric tons churned out annually — a doubling of production since 2000 — will remain on Earth in some form as they are broken down into teeny specks by sunlight, wind and the sea…
“We know microplastics are everywhere, we know they are harmful to marine life and to our fisheries, but the research side of how they impact humans is still catching up,” said Imari Walker-Franklin, an environmental engineer and chemistry researcher at RTI International who studies microplastics.
“Plastic People,” a new documentary directed by Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong, surveys the emerging science on microplastics and arrives at a troubling conclusion: The potential health risks associated with plastic pollution are becoming hard to ignore.
The film, which debuts Saturday at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, follows the work of microplastic researchers in a half-dozen countries, including a pair of Turkish scientists who said they recently discovered microplastics inside the human brain. Some of the particles were found deep inside the tissue of cancerous brain tumors…
Patagonia (04-29-2024)
The Shitthropocene | Full Film | Welcome to the Age of Cheap Crap
Excerpt:
Warning: Contains explicit language (if you hadn’t guessed that from the title)
The Shitthropocene is a mock anthropological view of humanity’s consumption habits, turning a satirical (yet brutally honest) eye on how everything is turning to shit and why the impulse towards more might destroy us all.
You might have noticed that a lot of things seem to suck right now. This film isn’t about all the things that suck—that would be a really long film. But it is about consumption, which is both a cause and a symptom of the suckiness. For a bunch of reasons, pretty much everyone is making and buying too much stuff, which we are evolutionarily programmed to want. What was once an advantage (more! = better!) is now contributing to the destruction of the planet.
The Shitthropocene is a journey from the cellular origins of our lack of impulse control to the ways our central nervous systems have been hacked in the name of capital. It’s also about how we might begin to save us from ourselves. Plus there are dancing cavemen…
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The Visions of Octavia Butler | Interactive - the New York Times
Excerpt:
At SXSW, a documentary traces the arc of plastics in our lives, and highlights evolving research of the potential harm of its presence in our bodies.
It’s been more than five decades since Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was offered a kernel of wisdom about the path to prosperity.
“Plastics,” he’s told by Mr. McGuire, the starched corporate executive who offers the advice. “There’s a great future in plastics.”
Plastics have indeed been a game changer for humanity, and the enormous range of cheap, durable plastic goods, from food containers and PVC pipes to polyester clothing and single-use medical products, have inarguably improved life.
The problem, as nearly everyone knows, is that plastics are forever and very little of it has been recycled. The U.N. has estimated that most of the 400 million metric tons churned out annually — a doubling of production since 2000 — will remain on Earth in some form as they are broken down into teeny specks by sunlight, wind and the sea…
“We know microplastics are everywhere, we know they are harmful to marine life and to our fisheries, but the research side of how they impact humans is still catching up,” said Imari Walker-Franklin, an environmental engineer and chemistry researcher at RTI International who studies microplastics.
“Plastic People,” a new documentary directed by Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong, surveys the emerging science on microplastics and arrives at a troubling conclusion: The potential health risks associated with plastic pollution are becoming hard to ignore.
The film, which debuts Saturday at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, follows the work of microplastic researchers in a half-dozen countries, including a pair of Turkish scientists who said they recently discovered microplastics inside the human brain. Some of the particles were found deep inside the tissue of cancerous brain tumors…
Patagonia (04-29-2024)
The Shitthropocene | Full Film | Welcome to the Age of Cheap Crap
Excerpt:
Warning: Contains explicit language (if you hadn’t guessed that from the title)
The Shitthropocene is a mock anthropological view of humanity’s consumption habits, turning a satirical (yet brutally honest) eye on how everything is turning to shit and why the impulse towards more might destroy us all.
You might have noticed that a lot of things seem to suck right now. This film isn’t about all the things that suck—that would be a really long film. But it is about consumption, which is both a cause and a symptom of the suckiness. For a bunch of reasons, pretty much everyone is making and buying too much stuff, which we are evolutionarily programmed to want. What was once an advantage (more! = better!) is now contributing to the destruction of the planet.
The Shitthropocene is a journey from the cellular origins of our lack of impulse control to the ways our central nervous systems have been hacked in the name of capital. It’s also about how we might begin to save us from ourselves. Plus there are dancing cavemen…
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ALSO OF INTEREST . . .
TED-Ed (02-25-2019):
Why should you read sci-fi superstar Octavia E. Butler?
Much science fiction features white male heroes who blast aliens or become saviors of brown people. Octavia E. Butler knew she could tell a better story. She built stunning worlds rife with diverse characters, and brought nuance and depth to the representation of their experiences…
Storied – PBS (06-29-2021):
Octavia Butler, The Grand Dame of Science Fiction | It’s Lit
If you are a fan of science fiction a name you should be familiar with is Octavia E. Butler. One of the most prolific and important Black authors in the genre, Butler’s storytelling pushed the boundaries of what Black people were allowed to be in science fiction…Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes..
EXHIBITION:
Hyde Park Art Center (Exhibit runs from 11-11-2023 through 03-03-2024):
Candace Hunter: The Alien‐Nations and Sovereign States of Octavia E Butler
In The Alien‐Nations and Sovereign States of Octavia E Butler, Candace Hunter presents new works created with synthetic plants, remnants of a sustainable food experiment, a reading nook, and painted doors as imagined portals to other worlds to create what she describes as an “alien lush space.” The exhibition addresses the concepts of nationhood. Candace Hunter poses questions about who is other, and in what situations do we see people as other to ourselves? How do we become universal?
