Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

A Modern Frankenstein by Madison Levinson

The infamous novel Frankenstein was published by Mary Shelley in 1818. It is now 2017, but 199 years later this novel is still so relevant. Why? Mary Shelley, as an author in 1818, was able to create a stunning masterpiece that touches upon medical and technological innovations, innovations currently happening as you read this. Yet, I can't help but wonder how the story of Frankenstein would have changed dramatically if Frankenstein and his monster were alive today. In this post, I will attempt to recreate the scene of Frankenstein's monster's entrance back into the human world.

"Classic" Frankenstein 
It was a dark and stormy night (cliche, I know, but just keep reading). Thunder and lightning rattled the frame of the lab. If this were an old-time horror movie there would be trees shaking and scraping the windows and probably some really bad graphics. The lab was crisp white except for the thing that lay on the table. That horrid, wretched monster. I mean, who even likes hairless cats? Why was it even in the lab? Oh, there was also multiple corpses sewn together to make one corpse which was also pretty terrifying. Victoria Frankenstein (yes, he's a girl now) sat on her swivel chair at her mac book, which was sitting atop her minimalist glass desk. A small ping erupted and Victoria glanced at her Apple Watch. Her round, green, go button app had finally downloaded (the storm was slowing down the WiFi). She let her finger hit the button.

An electric zap sounded but it was unclear as to whether it was the lightning or the monster's reanimation process. Initially, nothing happened. But as Victoria moved closer she could see small twitches and spasms in the being's musculature. The body seemed to regain color and life before her eyes as the ligaments received oxygenated blood. It was so quiet Victoria swore she could hear the soft beat of a weak heart, whether it was her's or the monster's she was unsure. The monster's eyes popped open with such intensity, Victoria screamed and stared, one eye blue and one eye green. Horrifyingly gorgeous.

Franny Moe 
Once she had looked past the monster's unique feature she noticed the pure grotesqueness of her creation. Nothing was proportional or coherent. Terror flowed over Victoria. The giver of life questioned what she had done and debated abandoning the monster, until brilliance struck.

Her Apple Watch notified her that Kim Kardashain had just posted a photo to Instagram. Of Course! Kim Kardashian! The Queen of Contour! Victoria grabbed her makeup bag and with a couple sweeps of a brush she transformed the monster.

The monster had defined cheekbones, her eyebrows were on fleek, and her smoky eye was fire (no pun intended). Victoria named her new wing-woman Franny Moe. The pair watched The Notebook until the storm passed and then cried each other to sleep. There was no murder or resentment between Vicky and her monster, only a lot of feels and sleepovers.


Monday, October 3, 2016

Brave New World: Foreshadowing the Real New World by Simon Levien




Recently I've been reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. This dystopian (or rather utopian?) novel delves into the concept of genetic engineering and its ramifications on humans to a great extent. Huxley describes a future world much like the Indian caste system but each person is prescribed their caste. Regulation heights, regulation intelligence, regulation, thoughts. Humans are no longer viviparous, but instead formed in labs with each person in each caste the same as the next. The lower castes (Gammas through Epsilons) are engineered to be subservient. Hypnosis methods at early ages enable higher castes to not only prevent a Spartacus-esque uprising, but eliminate unwanted thoughts altogether. Each caste member is told there's no caste better for them, and they are happy, even though only the Alpha-Plus' understand the truth of the world before everything was 'perfect.' Aside from a compelling plot (I highly recommend reading this book), Huxley raised questions in the 1930s about genetic engineering, ethics, and eugenics that humans have just begun to ponder now. In fact, within a few hundred years of scientific advancements, Brave New World will no longer be fiction. As much of a far-off science fiction land this book seems to take place in, human genetics engineering is closer than you think. Perhaps the ideas Huxley presents of conformity, a new world order, and mind control are purely fiction, other elements are not. My thoughts may seem outlandish now, but watch this video that perfectly illustrates how truly close humans are to a truly brave, new world. In short, the video describes a new method of identifying specific strands of DNA with 100% accuracy called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or whatever that means) and can essentially edit the DNA of a cell. Although this method is in its infancy, it's future implications on what makes humans human will no doubt have effect on upcoming generations.

If the embedded video does not work: Click here