Tag Archives: Fiction
In an alternate universe, John lives, and the Beatles sing on
What if, in 1976 — six years after their breakup — the Beatles had actually accepted producer Lorne Michaels’ jokey invitation to get back together and perform on Saturday Night Live? Blogger MightyGodKing takes this as a starting point and … Continue reading
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“Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved”
Psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle expresses perfectly some of the qualms I have about our plugged-in, always-online, invasively interconnected lives: The transcript is worth quoting at length (boldface mine): We expect more from technology and less from each other. And … Continue reading
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“For learning, against usefulness”: The Phantom Tollbooth and the purpose of education
My mind has been on education a lot these days, as we take our fifth-grade daughter to visit middle school after middle school, analyzing and comparing notes, trying to decide which ones to apply to next year. It’s funny — … Continue reading
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The case for optimism, cont’d: The need for vision, and letting visionaries soar
Echoing Philip Reeve, Neal Stephenson calls on science fiction writers to once again imagine a bold future — “an over-arching narrative” that provides “a shared vision” — that can inspire scientists to make it real: Good SF supplies a plausible, … Continue reading
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Miscellany: Waiting for Irene; Neil Gaiman kicks my lazy ass; girl scientists rock (and so does Kirsten Gillibrand); Harry Potter ends; more atheist fun
Well, I’m back (and wishing I could have brought Idaho’s clear night sky back with me). And now we’re hunkering down in our apartment, bracing for the flooding from Hurricane Irene, which is due to hit New York later tonight: … Continue reading
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The case for optimism, cont’d: On dystopian YA fiction and our missing utopian futures
Though his very excellent Mortal Engines series (drop everything and go read it now; you’re welcome) itself has strongly dystopian elements, Philip Reeve nevertheless criticizes the pervasiveness and unrelenting grimness of dystopian YA fiction today: Half of the science-fiction stories … Continue reading
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On identity beyond ethnicity, cont’d: “I am a Japanese writer”
From Dany Laferrière’s novel I Am a Japanese Writer: The space police help identify you (Where do you come from?). Born in the Caribbean, I automatically became a Caribbean writer. The bookstore, the library and the university rushed to pin … Continue reading
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Happy Towel Day!
Douglas Adams (with fan video assist) explains: Be a frood today. Know where your towel is!
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Douglas Adams knew what was coming
Emily Asher-Perrin links to a Sunday Times article that Douglas Adams wrote about the Internet in 1999, which demonstrates just how prescient Adams was about where the world was heading: I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this … Continue reading
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There are no girls in Mordor
8:00 this morning: “Ramble On” is blasting out of our stereo. Our daughter stops practicing her ballroom dance steps to listen to Robert Plant wail: T’was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair But Gollum … Continue reading
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