Word: lentz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...themes is the bringing to life, and to independent awareness, of inert, nonhuman matter. The Galatea in this reworking of the myth is not a statue but an enormously complex network of computer circuitry, and the Pygmalions-there are a couple of them-are an acerbic cyber-scientist called Lentz and a becalmed writer named, sure enough, Richard Powers...
...personal note here: a minor reason for the imaginary Powers' revulsion is that Lentz and several colleagues cackle mercilessly over a newsmagazine's qualified praise for Operation Wandering Soul, the real and fictional author's fourth novel. This modified rapture (written in real life by this reviewer) pomposifies: "a prodigiously talented manufacturer of literary astonishments, which is not exactly the same as being a good writer, though he is that...
Well, whatever it takes. Giving up writing frees the hero to throw himself passionately into the absurdly difficult task of helping Lentz win a bet: that within a year, he can program a computer to construe any literary text at least as well as a human, 21-year-old undergraduate lit major. When he is being cynical, which is more than half the time, Lentz intends merely to stuff "the most complex and extensive neural simulator ever trained" with prepackaged, fake hermeneutics and suitably foggy lit-crit catchphrases. What he secretly hopes for is consciousness...
...Santeria church, "but you can't kill a chicken for religious reasons." Santeria spokesmen insist that unlike the gruesome rituals still routinely performed in Cuba, their sacrifices are humane and no animals are tortured. But opponents disagree. "Carcasses are polluting our rivers and rotting in the streets," says ! Marian Lentz of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida. Pichardo admits that some offbeat cults may be responsible for the animals floating in canals. But he insists that his own group cooks and ritually eats most of its animals, gives leftovers to the homeless, and neatly disposes of any carcasses that cannot...
...quality in Southern California has improved substantially, the AQMD's record is mixed. For one thing, the agency has postponed its deadline for meeting federal standards from the original 2007 deadline. "We have made progress, and the air is much better than it was 20 years ago," says Lentz, "but this is still the dirtiest air in the nation...