Modern Proverb: The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Sep 7 00:22:24 UTC 2010


At 7:57 PM -0400 9/6/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Garson, I may have mixed up two or more shorts.
>
>Here's the right one. The quote starts at 8:44, but don't hesitate to watch
>from the beginning!
>
>http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=25034
>
>JL

Very nice.  Does MST3K also have a clip for "The past is not dead.
It's not even past." (attrib
Wm. Faulkner)
I can imagine an appropriately spooky scene in the background, maybe
a zombie or two from Mississippi...

LH

>
>On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Garson O'Toole
><adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: Modern Proverb: The future is already here, it's just
>>               unevenly distributed (attrib William Gibson 1995 Sept 1)
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Many thanks for finding and posting that fascinating cite, Fred. I
>>  have never heard the name Doug Kalish associated with the quotation.
>>  Spurred by your fine result I located an attribution to Gibson in
>>  1994:
>>
>>  1994 April 3, The Seattle Times, Job Opportunities Along the
>>  Information Superhighway by Steven Spenser, Seattle, Washington.
>>
>>  Ultimately, cyberpunk science-fiction author William Gibson may have
>>  the best assessment of what's going on: "The future has arrived - it's
>>  just not evenly distributed yet."
>  >
>>
>>  Thanks to Jon for the reference to MST3K. I did find a 1998 episode
>>  with a short feature set at a World's Fair that includes a monorail
>>  ride and "futuristic" telephone features. But it is not the episode
>  > you mention because there are no moving sidewalks:

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