Oy, the dead people

When someone tells you that a dead person "came to" them, say "Oh, you mean you had a dream?"

And when they further explain themselves, say, "Oh, you mean you had a dream?"

And when they're done, say "You know, one night I dreamt I was Golda Meir."

So funny

Ed Brayton's right. This one's comedy gold. It's a for-real Christian saying things that he believes -- not a comedy routine or a prank. Honestly, it's astounding that religious people can get out of bed in the morning. You'd think it would be too complicated for them.

Turn it on and hope

For some reason, Amazon only shows me things I'm not interested in. I've been shopping with them for two decades and they still have no clue what I like. How is that possible? Aren't there these things called algorithms that could help them suggest items I might actually, you know, buy? Never happens.

Anyway, they keep showing me this radio lately and every time I see it, I'm filled with memories. In the days before clear transmission (of any kind!) we used to listen to radios that looked like this. (At least the later ones did. They were bigger and clunkier at first.) You'd have to bend the antenna this way and that, searching for the music. It was somewhere in that cloud of static. There! Gotcha!

Thinking of old radios brings back the beach, the park, the stoop and endless, hot summer nights. We would huddle around our little radios, listening to tinny music sparkling with static, and we would dream. The world offered endless possibilities then. Nothing was ruined; it was all still fresh -- the water, the air and our plans for the future.

I remember dreaming as I listened to the radio.

The Goldilocks Zone

As readers know, I've written two sci-fi books (and haven't yet submitted them to a publisher; more on that in a future post).  One of the concepts you have to consider when writing sci-fi is how far in the future you want to set your story.

I have always adored sci-fi.  I can't even imagine how many sci-fi books I've read.  Tons is as close as I can come to a figure.  Some of the stories took place in our century, or even the last century.  Others took the reader on a journey that stretched thousands of years into the future.

The thing is, although it's great fun to imagine the distant future, it's sometimes hard to connect our lives to those of the characters.  It may be a great tale, but as a reader I note that this will not be my future.  I think it's more exciting to read something that seems like it could happen to us -- the people alive today.  When a story holds out a carrot like that, I grab it.

So I set "The Worlds" in the year 2030, not so far off that we can't relate to it, yet not so close that we have trouble believing there could be such an amazing new technology discovered within that timeframe.  It's the sci-fi Goldilocks zone.

The thing I hope people will say when they read The Worlds is,
"I want that!"  I think the book delivers on this score.  It does indeed seem like something that could come along one day.  Maybe 2030 is a bit optimistic but at some point in time we will be able to experience a scientific wonder like the one I made up -- a technology that revolutionizes the very concept of life itself.

I want my worlds to seem reachable. I want us to long for them. I want us to dream.

Politics of the day

For me, this is the iconic image for our era.  It says it all. (Removed photo of the "morans" guy.)

For the most part, this blog won't be a place for politics, at least not from my end.  Enough good people are covering it all, in intensely nauseating detail.  I commend them but I don't have the stomach for it.  When things change and there are some good guys too root for again, I may change my tune.

But for now, there's nothing to say.  I see no light at the end of the tunnel.  It's disheartening but it's also the very thing that drives me to the computer to write.  If the world is going to be a huge disappointment, I'll just have to make some other reality so I can spend my time there.  Makes sense to me.

Writing fiction is the way I keep myself sane.