-- and the fundamental absurdity of the change -- makes it increasingly challenging to do what he does, to imagine a future somehow off-kilter from the present. He recalls another writer sending him a note with the news that Michael Jackson had married Lisa-Marie Presley. "This makes your work harder," read the note. ... Gibson believes modern life is inseparable from mediated interpretations of that life. The Internet is well on its way to becoming the vehicle by which all media is distributed or at least somehow refracted. So Gibson's current preoccupation with "media" rather than cool hackers zipping through virtual realities makes perfect sense."