In Part 1 of Greg Bear’s science fiction novel “Darwin’s Children,” Kaye Rafelson, a scientist, virologist, and mother of a so-called “virus child” (a child born through a pregnancy induced by the SHEVA virus and therefore a mutant, a freak, a potentially dangerous creature) is reviewing a paper where she tries not only to demystify the myths and prejudices about viruses, but also to suggest and demonstrate their utility and necessity for the evolution of human beings and the emergence of new species on earth:

The vernacular form of digital poetics is, surely, the videogame. Invented in the 1970s as a pastime of bored Pentagon researchers, this whimsical creation has over thirty years become the basis of one of the fastest growing of advanced capitalism’s cultural industries.

When I was young, I half-believed that the voices emanating from the radio were the voices of the little people who lived inside. Turn on the radio, the little people begin to talk, change the station and they change their voices. I imagined the radio people waited inside while the receiver was off, ever ready to perform at the click of the dial.