"'But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'"
-- Lewis Carroll, writer
Links:
- Eugene Robinson on the Saturday GOP debate.
- Kasich blames George Bush for blowing the surplus.
- The Week: Conservatives have failed Donald Trump’s Supporters
- Bible Bitch: Hebrews 12
- Vox: I've spent years trying to get skinny. Oprah's Weight Watchers ads convinced me to stop.
- Bill Scher: Republican primaries are part of the SCOTUS resistance.
5 comments:
About Trump telling the truth.
I contend that Trump did not tell the truth because he has any regard for the truth; rather, it just so happened that the truth about George W. Bush was the best tool at hand for bludgeoning JEB!. As far as Trump is concerned, that it just happened to be the truth is incidental and irrelevant.
I enjoyed the Science Fiction University segment. I had long forgotten 'Arena' sinced I read it during the 'Golden Age' of science fiction (i.e. I was 12). Also liked Fran's comment about anti-heroes like Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man. Made me realize they seem to be in short supply these days. Being a rebel has be deprecated.
I applied the recall test to myself, and of the ones I remember, 'Flowers for Algernon' is a story nobody forgets. I think that's close to a universal one. (yes, I have seen the movie starring Cliff Robertson).
Asimov's 'The Last Question' seems like another universal recall, although it's not one of my personal favorites.
I have vivid memories of 'A Colder War' by Charles Stross (disqualified because its a novelette, not a short story) and 'Radiant Doors' by Swanwick (but I remember it more for its horror aspect than SF aspect). Hat tip to 'The Pacific Mystery' by S. Baxter too.
I looked up the trailer to 'Hardcore Henry' too on your mention. It looks like it has promise. At some point the gamer audience will be large enough to make the FPS style profitable, and then we will see an explosion of that style. Successful movies have been made in a similar style (Blair Witch Project), but it still gives older audiences a headache. Seeing it in a 3D stadium seating theater would give me a migraine.
I applaud your mentoring the 'Golden Age' readers. I vividly remember imagining paddling down the river like I was with Frodo and Samwise, and I cried when the mob killed Valentine Michael Smith, and I cried again when a computer stopped responding to questions in 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
Links:
Hardcore Henry Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96EChBYVFhU
Little Big Man Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLlt3Vl3Zc
A Colder War full text (author approves of this) http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
Radiant Doors on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_Doors
The Last Question on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question
Flowers for Algernon on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon
The Pacific Mystery http://tentoinfinity.com/2013/04/24/the-pacific-mystery-by-stephen-baxter/
The Arena on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_%28short_story%29
About the 12 common themes found in literature, would Moby Dick be Man Against Nature or Man Against Himself?
I also enjoyed the new look of sci-fi university.
In my capacity as officious twit, I feel the need to mention that, while it was corrected later in the broadcast, when "Find the Girl" was properly identified as a common plot, "Find the Girl" is not, as originally identified, the theme of Chinatown.
Plot is what happens or what drives the narrative; theme is a more elusive customer, but may be simply defined as " the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work."
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