This Magnetic Fields song is perfect for Valentine’s Day.
And this one makes me happy.
(Good job, Washington. New Jersey looks good. I don’t have much hope for Pennsylvania, I’m afraid.)
Fun stuff
Wonderful
This is the second-most-wonderful interview with Maurice Sendak ever. You might want headphones if you have kids or sensitive co-workers.
The Colbert Report
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The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
I’m in Albany for work, and have been working very hard until a few minutes ago. I may eventually get caught up on email and things-to-post, but I had to start with Mr. Sendak.
Let’s go for a ride
In a nice warm enclosed-atmosphere sleigh.
One of the most fascinating things about this, beyond the obvious “It’s another PLANET!!!!” thrill, is how useless terrestrial ideas of pattern and scale are. I spend a lot of time looking at satellite and aerial imagery, and still couldn’t tell you how large or what some of these features are.
The creators could have snuck some microscope images in there, for all I can tell.
All I want for Christmas
Is this tree.
There’s quite a bit of discussion on the Legos for girls I mentioned earlier.
Best bits I’ve seen:
This 1981 ad for Legos. Based on one data point, we’ve come a long way… backward.
And this article by Tansy Rayner Roberts, with my favorite quote on the topic: “Our girls should have toy options other than ‘everything is pink’ and ‘all the characters are boys.'”
You know, like they did in 1981.
Irkutsk
She said she was going to Irkutsk.
He didn’t believe her.
She said she wanted to travel, to find something new, to understand the world a little better.
After 27 years of marriage, he knew when she was lying.
She went anyway.
The suit he wore to the wedding was still in the closet, shoved way to the back. He hadn’t had it out for years, even though he used to wear it for other formal occasions. But his friends were having funerals instead of weddings, and the two of them hadn’t been invited to a formal party in… he couldn’t remember how long. It wasn’t that nice of a suit anyway.
He pulled it out, stripped off his sweatshirt and jeans and left them in a pile on the floor. She hated when he did that, but her opinion didn’t matter any more. The silk shirt fit nicely–it was considerably newer than the suit. He knotted a cashmere tie over it, standing in the middle of the room in shirt and socks and boxers, eyes closed as his fingers manipulated the soft dark wool. When they got married, they didn’t have much money. The shirt and tie he wore then were polyester or something else cheap. They didn’t care then. The two of them were so in love that they would have gotten married in burlap sacks, just for the ecstasy of saying “husband and wife.”
Irkutsk.
The jacket hung off his shoulders like a worn tablecloth. He’d lost weight since those days, turning into a scrawny old man. Not that he was all that old, of course, but today he felt ancient. He spun before the mirror, watching the fabric sag and ripple. Something interfered with the drape of the front pocket. He pulled out an old gift card, the coffee chain named on it long defunct. Nobody drank coffee anymore.
He skipped the shoes, padding down the carpeted hall and into the living room in his stockinged feet. Her favorite painting, “A Mysterious Stranger,” hung in the hall. It would be childish to turn it to face the wall. After so long, he barely saw it, never looked at it. A shadowy figure stood by a table, the oil lamp sitting on it providing the only illumination. The figure held something aloft. He’d always thought it might be an astrolabe, but he didn’t know what one of those was exactly. She’d tried to explain the symbolism to him once, but he still didn’t understand what the painting meant, or why she was so fascinated by the vaguely menacing form.
Her orchid still sat on the table, flowers wilting but not gone. He lined a row of shot glasses up before it, their edges precisely aligned with the bright woven runner. One shot from each bottle in the liquor cabinet: whiskey, gin, absinthe, vodka, catching the light in multicolored array.
He picked up a glass, turned it between his fingers admiring the play of light through the liquid and the glass. Contemplating what would happen if he tossed it back, tossed them all back one after the other. He set the glass down slowly, gently, back into its careful alignment with its neighbors.
He imagined sweeping them all off the table, scattering shards everywhere, the murky swirl of the mixing liquors. He imagined calling his travel agent and booking a ticket to Siberia to find her. He envisioned himself throwing the mysterious stranger and his astrolabe off the balcony, watching it sail down the stories and crash in the street, where it would be pulverized by a passing truck. He pictured the rest of his life without her, so unlike anything he’d ever imagined, even for a moment.
Irkutsk.
Friday flash… on Saturday!
Tonight’s twitter suggestions:
@qitou Cashmere and silk
@Calvin_cat “He could still get into the suit he was wore at his wedding 27 years ago, but you wouldn’t say it still fit him”.
@Marjorie73 a Mysterious Stranger. And some gin
@randomSpammer A Starbucks gift card
@fadeaccompli a dose of absinthe.
@notanyani astrolabe, orchids
@quasigeo Irkutsk
(I collect suggestions, then spend no more than an hour writing a story that incorporates all of them: no time for planning, no time for editing. This one took me right up to the wire.)
Neat stuff
I’ve been accumulating things. Time to pass them on.
The Moscow dogs and the Chicago coyotes: fascinating examples of canine adaptability to urban environments. The Moscow dogs have so far done a better job of fitting into urban patterns, possibly because they come from stock selected for dealing well with people over the past few millennia, or because they’ve had longer to practice. The coyotes mostly stay out of the way, but the dogs have learned to let the cute ones beg for food, and even to ride the Metro.
There’s a lot of ire about the “Futures in Nature” story I ranted about. This is my favorite commentary.
Laura has sent me several interesting things: an exploration of octopus psychology; Nathalie Miebach, an artist who turns scientific data into sculptures; and this video about making a coral reef. She shares my fascination with the art-science interface, though she’s a much better artist than I am.
Zombies are coming!
Last year, Tamie got me a zombie to celebrate the launch of Rigor Amortis. This year, she got him an undead girlfriend. (She obviously hasn’t read my story, or she would have gotten two girls instead.)
Zombie boy is courting her quite sweetly.
They even went on a date this afternoon.
And now they’re sitting in the candy bowl awaiting trick-or-treaters. (I hope they’re not oozing.)
Happy Halloween!
All the Tea in China
A tiny crescent moon, just past new, hovered in the west. Rick hadn’t seen so many stars in years. Ruined castles were a good place to escape light pollution, he supposed. And with no roof on this section, there was nothing to interfere with moongazing. Not that he had any interest in that himself. Of course, if he’d been the one to relocate an entire thirteenth-century ruined castle from Normandy to Newfoundland, he would have at least put the roof back on.
“How the fuck can you do that,” he asked? The object of his inquiry was sprawled on a folding lounge chair, a sidecar in one hand and a bowl of smarties at his side. Even as Rick watched, he popped a few more smarties into his mouth, and washed them down with his cocktail.
“Do what, my dear?” Arthur asked, not taking his gaze from the sky.
“Smarties and cocktails. Yuck.”
“Smarties improve brain function, thus the name. But only the blue ones.” Arthur looked down at his drink before returning his gaze to the sky. “And sidecars make me happy. Smart and content: I generate my best ideas that way.”
Rick hoped Arthur would choke on his smarties.
“And what the fuck are we doing way out here anyway?”
“I came for the peace and quiet,” Arthur replied. “And you came because I pay you. And you are interfering with the peace. And the quiet. Kindly cease.”
Rick scowled, but only because it was too dark for Arthur to see his expression.
Arthur leaned back, setting his drink down so he could point at the moon. “See that?” he asked, but Rick didn’t think his boss was really talking to him. “That’s the same crescent moon that shone over Sarajevo on the 28th of June, the night that this whole chain of events were set in motion.” He lifted his drink again, slugged it, then threw the glass into the darkness. It crashed against a crumbling wall that was faintly silhouetted against the stars and disturbing the geese who were roosting there. They were probably Canada geese, Rick supposed, or at least Canadian. “A war began that day, a global catastrophe that resulted in the love of my life never having been born.”
Rick knew better than to ask how Arthur could possibly know that some unborn woman would have been the love of his life. Or man, maybe. Rick had never seen Arthur in a relationship of any sort. Whatever.
All Rick knew is that he didn’t want to listen to this. He retreated quietly into one of the more intact rooms, where he could at least have a battery lantern. Some kind of hippie group had been living here, or reenactors, or some shit like that, and they’d left a bunch of crap. The lantern was resting on what he thought was probably a broken loom, or maybe a torture device, and there was a longbow hanging on the wall. That he recognized for sure. Fucking hippies. He fished a beer out of the cooler. The sandwiches were starting to look good, but he’d wait until Arthur came in to eat. He still didn’t know why there was five pounds of fresh ginger in the cooler. Maybe Arthur was expecting a serious stomach upset from all the Smarties. The ginger was better than the biohazard-marked package labeled monkey serum, though. Rick really didn’t want to know what that was.
“Rick,” called Arthur from the outer darkness. “I have an idea.”
Rick rolled his eyes, but set his bottle on the loom-thing next to the lamp and went back out.
Arthur was up from his chair, pacing back and forth. “The Hubble Space Telescope can see back in time, billions of years back. Right?”
Rick nodded. Arthur couldn’t see him do it, but kept going anyway. “So how far away do you have to get to see back in time a hundred years. I could see my lost love’s ancestors, if I could just get a telescope in the right place and pointed this way.”
Rick didn’t think that was how it worked, but what did he know?
“What about Cassini? No, that’s not far enough, quite. There must be something.” Arthur stopped abruptly. “I must go talk to my contacts at NASA. What are you waiting for, Rick? We must leave immediately. And be careful with the bioluminescent camouflage suit. It’s very fragile.”
Arthur stared up, his face limned faintly in silver. Rick went back in to pack. His boss might be a lunatic, but he paid very well.
—
This, as with all the Friday Flash stories, was based on prompts suggested on twitter. I ask for ideas, and then use all of them. I give myself an hour, no more. There’s no planning, little plotting, and absolutely no editing whatsoever. There might however be drinking.
The whole thing is rather fun.
Tonight’s prompts came from:
@thc1972 bioluminescent camouflage
@quasigeo Sarajevo 1914, a broken loom, five pounds of raw ginger.
@notmoro monkey serum
@quasigeo ruins of a 13th c Normandy castle, Cassini/Huygens probe, flock of canada geese
@carolelaine a space telescope
@ravenbait a tube of smarties, all blue
@marjorie73 unrequited love and a longbow
@qitou sidecar (the drink)
