Mega future pop/simstim star Tally Isham is one of my fave characters in the Sprawl trilogy. That said I could never quite picture her, however, this globally adored, wholesome yet necessarily racy star. Someone able to stand out in a media-saturated future. Was she a sort of Julia Roberts? Madonna? Audrey Hepburn? No, no, no, not right. Tally Isham - it's a play on talisman, isn't it? Gotta be magical, suffused with supernatural pop charm.

Flipping through YouTube on AppleTV last night I stumbled across a video by a European pop star --one so sugary and megapop it made Abba look and sound like Black Sabbath-- and I immediately found myself thinking, "hey - that's Tally!"

The character would not likely be part of any Neuromancer film, but if one were tasked with casting 'Mona Lisa Overdrive', well, look no further folks because Tally Isham is almost certainly Alizée Jacotey:

She sings
She dances
She photographs like a billion dollars

Alizée wiki:
She has number one hits in Hong Kong, Japan and Italy simultaneously

Anybody think they got a better Tally? The gauntlet is officially thrown.

Give her blonde hair and sparkling blue Zeiss eyes, and maybe...

Brother, here in the future those sparkling blue eyes won't even require surgery.

Still, I'd say skip the contacts and green screen her natural eye color before CGI-ing in that authentic, gold-flecked, mid-21st century Zeiss Ikon sparkle.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nightspore,

Would you consider suggesting Britney Spears as Tally Isham?

I know I wouldn't even toy with the idea of it.

Alizée is the French translation of Britney.
The same product with a slightly altered visual.

Describing her as magical, suffused with supernatural pop charm.

She's just a blank. And already a hasbeen.

And whether she's a vacant hasbeen or not, as long as she hangs around with other hasbeens in the same class who don't get it yet that their ride has been shunted to the sidelines.

I'm sure there's a market for a B-list Isham; cheaper vids, you know. For people with lowered aspirations.

[edited for spelling -- sensitive issue]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: duncan s.,

B-list Ishams abound.
Like low-grade idorus.

Not all pop stars can be as big as Ayumi Hamasaki, and last as long as Madonna.

Even if Alizee is a has-been, at least she hasn't gone insane.

Who knows...

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
Who knows...

True. But judging from the lack of bad news around her, her PR crew is probably airtight and bulletproof, unlike other starlets we could mention.

Unlike the other starlets, Alizée's mediated career was very short.

I'm not on top of the people news, but I am under the impression that she hasn't been appealing to anyone for at least 2 years.

I imagine Tally Isham as a slightly less batty Bjork, but that's just my skewed perception.

You see these girls all the time. It's kind of unfortunate. For a brief moment it seems like now, finally, the future has arrived in all its shiny culture-bending glory, and then they fade out and disappear as quickly as they had appeared. And maybe that's really what the future of pop is about, at least the multi-national content-free pretty girl (and probably pretty boy, too) part of it.

A few responses:

Alizée != Britney. Britney Spears always, always seemed like a completely vacuous ditz whereas Alizée comes across as much more self-aware and knowing. And yeah, Alizée retains a squeaky clean public image whereas Britney...

Alizée's career may not be over from what I understand. She had a kid and took a couple of years off. New album expected by the end of the year sounds like if you parse the rumors/public comments of people she's worked with.

As far as Alizée being simply a classic, of-the-moment idoru --yet another in an endless chain-- this is hard to argue against. What I would say is that, just as Angie Mitchell replaced Tally, Alizée is herself a creation of aged pop megastar Mylène Farmer.

I think the utter unconvincingness of entirely manufactured pop phenoms like Britney Spears actually makes Gibson's point; Alizée demonstrates that it does in fact take an idoru to know an idoru.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nightspore,

I always envision someone more experienced and controlled. Someone perfect even when they are not. As if current days Nicole Kidman were to host a TV program. Or joining her for a fashion parade in Paris before tasting the red carpet and Cannes, followed by scuba diving in the Dodecanese.

Nicole Kidman. That's a pretty good candidate. And it does bring up the elephant in the room which is Tally's age. Tally was both a global megastar and a serious businesswoman. She may have been 22 circa 'Johnny Mnemonic' but she sure wasn't in 'Mona Lisa Overdrive'. That said, to be Tally Isham at all you'd better be able to effortlessly irrigate the knickers of the hoi polloi at 100 yards when you are 22. Both Kidman and Alizée meet that criteria at least.

It's difficult to imagine the mediasphere of 'Neuromancer' being appreciably less youth-obsessed than our own. Tally may well have had a Madonna-length (or Kidman-length, in fact) run at the top, but it seems somewhat doubtful. How many years passed between 'Johnny...' and MLO anyway? ---Answering my own quesiton--- Angie Mitchell replaced Tally Isham after Tally's 15-year run as Net (that'd be SenseNet) megastar. So if you can't ever buy Alizée as Tally she could be still be your perpetually renewable Angie/Mona.

Ah well, Fred Vermorel called pop stars "miracles of banality" in 'Starlust', and that about sums it up. Watching Alizée show up at a suburban birthday party to surprise a sobbing teen fan, you've got both the miracle and the banality on full display.

So there's no contradiction in being both a megastar and banal, but you had better fucking well be miraculous when the lights are on and the cameras turn to you.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nightspore,

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
Would you consider suggesting Britney Spears as Tally Isham?

I know I wouldn't even toy with the idea of it.

Alizée is the French translation of Britney.
.

I completely agree.
Britney Spears seems to be a Madonna wannabe. Well, here we already have one: Mylène Farmer. And Alizée (if anybody ever remembers her) is M. Farmer's breed.
Which makes her a second generation wannabe ?

Not really T. Isham.

quote:

Originally posted by Limulus:
Britney Spears seems to be a Madonna wannabe. Well, here we already have one: Mylène Farmer. And Alizée (if anybody ever remembers her) is M. Farmer's breed.
Which makes her a second generation wannabe ?

Not really T. Isham.

Yes, but if Gibson was trying to imply that Tally Isham was a Madonna figure (we all know he insists Neuromancer is a book about the 1980's so it's hard to imagine he was thinking of anyone else) then it sort of make sense that these Madonna epigones would bring Tally to mind. I don't live in France, so to me someone like the Corsican Alizee remains fairly exotic whereas a Britney Spears is completely devoid of any genuine charisma.

Also, Alizee is 22 years old. Wanna bet she has at least another number one record before all is said and done?

In France, she's precisely what Arkan said: already a hasbeen.

And no, I won't bet anything about the music industry.

quote:

Originally posted by Nightspore:
Mega future pop/simstim star Tally Isham is one of my fave characters in the Sprawl trilogy. That said I could never quite picture her, however, this globally adored, wholesome yet necessarily racy star. Someone able to stand out in a media-saturated future. Was she a sort of Julia Roberts? Madonna? Audrey Hepburn? No, no, no, not right. Tally Isham - it's a play on talisman, isn't it? Gotta be magical, suffused with supernatural pop charm.

Are you looking for a face, or rather for a public media figure?