For the hour or two after I read the wonderful book, I had the strangest feeling.. was Hubertus merely inventing all of the espionage action for the benefit of several talented young musicians? Clearly a Chinese car commercial couldn't really cost as much as was mentioned; perhaps all that money went towards putting a show on for everyone in the eventual (hopeful) outcome that they would then agree to do the recording. It doesn't seem that unlikely in today's world of reality games and mail-order fantasies; those radioactive loads that went into the cargo didn't actually have to be radioactive and no one ever actually saw the money in it, did they? I have to read the damn thing again to figure out Milgrim's part in all of this.. I believe he is the key..

The old man killed somebody.

Wouldn't that be going a bit too far just for a recording?

A man who knows where the curtain is knows it cannot be pulled down. The most you can hope for is a peek behind it.

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:
A man who knows where the curtain is knows it cannot be pulled down. The most you can hope for is a peek behind it.

What was that again, Protagoras?

Milgrim, the name, rings a bell in the Gibson compartment of my mind. I'm thinking of that urbane ninja from All Tomorrow's Parties, the fella so elegant with a knife.

Anyone remember?

Konrad?

I fergits. But I now realize the 'Milgrim' I'm thinking of is Stanley Milgram of the famous experiments. Which kind of fits, because Milgrim had a good idea he was allowing Brown to use authority to assist him in injuring others. But Milgrim was bowing to the authority of imminent torture via withdrawal, so he gets some slack, eh?

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:
I fergits. But I now realize the 'Milgrim' I'm thinking of is Stanley Milgram of the famous experiments. Which kind of fits, because Milgrim had a good idea he was allowing Brown to use authority to assist him in injuring others. But Milgrim was bowing to the authority of imminent torture via withdrawal, so he gets some slack, eh?

I thought it was a reference to milligram.

"I thought it was a reference to milligram."

And we havawinnah!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Keen:
Clearly a Chinese car commercial couldn't really cost as much as was mentioned; perhaps all that money went towards putting a show on for everyone in the eventual (hopeful) outcome that they would then agree to do the recording.

it wasn't a chinese car commercial, in that you make it sound like it was making a commercial to show in china.
it was a chinese company that was making a car, and the campaign was to take that new, unknown, chinese product and sell it to the world.
the budgets involved for those two ideas are undoubtedly entirely different things.

Well, one wonders how Bigend would think that the way to reunite surviving members of Curfew was to put Hollis on a potentially dangerous chase of Bobby Chombo?

No makee sense-a me.

Bigend seems to have an intuitive sense of "nodal points" along the continuum of advertising, which really is everything I suppose, in a similar fashion to Laney and Cayce. He follows instict and where it takes him.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
Bigend seems to have an intuitive sense of "nodal points" along the continuum of advertising, which really is everything I suppose, in a similar fashion to Laney and Cayce. He follows instict and where it takes him.

Fine and well, but in this context you might as well say 'because he has magical powers'. Which is also fine and well, but this is a novel. It is bound to Twain's old dictum whereby fiction is bound to be reasonable.

When Tito is 'possessed' by his guardian saints, there's a rational connection between them and their effect on his behavior.

Likewise, when Milgrim has dreams from taking Rize, which vaguely echo his new-found detachment from his plight which paradoxically gives him greater latitude in plotting some escape. The rationality is more diffuse and more tenuous, but it's still there.

But by the time you say that Bigend might have placed these players together regarding a severely covert op that would never see the light of day because he has uncanny marketing instincts, there's no rational connexion left, just raw unexplained magic.

So much easier just to get them together (they're not 'disappeared') and explain that he wants to pay them gazillions to redo a song for his new ad campaign. Occam rules.

But by the time you say that Bigend might have placed these players together regarding a severely covert op that would never see the light of day because he has uncanny marketing instincts, there's no rational connexion left, just raw unexplained magic.

No, I didn't mean that at all. I'm saying that Gibson paints Bigend in a fashion that Gibson himself creates as: he follows instinct without having any idea where it will lead. Bigend's issue is that while he has this intuintive nose for the "next big thing" he seems to execute it in the most banal ways and, having done so, embarks off on the next adventure like a bored child. He is, in his own way, completely amoral while at the same time being completly mundane at the end of the day.

quote:

No, I didn't mean that at all. I'm saying that Gibson paints Bigend in a fashion that Gibson himself creates as: he follows instinct without having any idea where it will lead. Bigend's issue is that while he has this intuintive nose for the "next big thing" he seems to execute it in the most banal ways and, having done so, embarks off on the next adventure like a bored child. He is, in his own way, completely amoral while at the same time being completly mundane at the end of the day.

Ah. That I get. Just didn't see how we could apply it rationally to notions that Bigend somehow had the pieces visionarily together beforehand. The Chinese commercial angle.

Incidentally, I don't see Bigend as amoral. I see him as one who's extremely good at minding his own business while sticking his nose into others. In other words: honestly curious, period.

Genuine honesty often seems amoral because it doesn't kiss anyone's ass and often turns on friends, since most of us are dishonest, biased, prejudiced, compromised...

Bigend seems well on his way to becoming one of Gib's greatest characters. Bigger than life without implants, massive family wealth, bizarre precognitive skills via exquisite psychotropics, et cetera. He's just hugely himself and willing to poke his nose wherever it leads him.

quote:

He is, in his own way, completely amoral while at the same time being completly mundane at the end of the day.

But is he? Bigend seems to know more about the container, its movements and its contents than any of the other characters. I get the feeling he could be the money behind the the irradiating of the cash. He just gets Hollis involved as an impartial witness to ensure his spooks are doing what he's paying them to do.

More than the old man? However, early on I asked myself how Bigend knows about iPods, et cetera.

It's really interesting how these threads reveal what a difference your own particular brain makes when reading a book. Almost everything I read sounds nothing like what I read. Partly because I miss things, partly because I picture things differently, partly because I sort of rearrange and highlight and tweak things as I'm reading to fit my taste, I suppose.

But like, man, I just can't imagine Bigend doing any of the things I've read you guys speculating he does. Speak Russian? Intuitively sense nodal points like Laney or Cayce? Bankroll the whole irradiation scheme? It's like you're talking about a completely different dude.

I hope this doesn't sound like a criticism of your readings. I think it's great.

I can see bIGEND SPEAKING rUSSIAN. tHE REST SEEMS UNLIKELY. hOWEVER, ONE THING WE ALL SEEM TO AGREE ON IS THAT WE DON'T REALLY KNOW MUV(Caps oops) much about Bigend. He's this huge surface containing ????

When I first finished the book, I thought the Russian on the pone was the old man. AT this point, I can't remember whether the cell Hollis lost was one provided by Garret/Old Man or Bigend, but I;m assuming that my impression that it was from Old Man is wrong and it's the one Bigend gave her. Yeah. Milgrim threw away a scrambler after he stole it, yes?

If Bigend speaks Russian he is very good at hiding it or a really fast learner. In Pattern Recognition he speaks French with Volkov or uses a translator.

The phone belongs to Hollis.