For all that science-fiction does, whether it's great action, cool concepts, sleek environments, or probing social commentary, sometimes it can be rather lacking. Even when I first saw Independence Day, amidst the then-cool lines ("Is this glass bulletproof?") and the poignant image of Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith sharing a fag, there was the unsettling thought that the entire premise to the story was improbable. In one of the explanatory expositions in the movie, someone explains that the aliens go from planet to planet, destroying all life on the planet before harvesting its natural resources. Why? What does it need from Earth that it cannot get elsewhere? I wasn't sure, and I'm still not.
For any element or material that I can think of, they can be found on countless other worlds or asteroids that do not have life. For carbon-based compounds that result from life processes, such as crude oil and coal, they wouldn't be needed for energy, because the energy needed to cross the stars would be too high to rely on fossil fuels. It would be unlikely they would be needed to synthesize plastics or other materials, as a civilization with enough energy to cross the stars would likely have enough energy to synthesize materials akin to, if not better than, plastic. Aliens also would not likely seize us to be slaves, because if they can travel between stars, they are probably advanced enough that everything is automated. So, sorry ID4, and countless other movies (like Signs), I cannot take your basic premise.
There are several alien behaviors that seem likely, and several more that seem less likely but I'm willing to accept with reservations. Of course an alien civilization need not think in the same way, but I find I am making fewer assumptions than the more literally human-centered counterparts in Hollywood, conspiracy theories, and elsewhere.
Space is vast. Its vastness is inconceivable except in numbers, and even then is rather daunting. For the comfortable little space that the planets of our solar system rest in, and the larger Oort cloud where matter whirls about in long orbits, there is far more that is between us and any other star. There are still things out there, like bits of matter, stray extrasolar asteroids, and a lot of radiation. Then, that being set aside, there are many stars, and we are discovering that there are many planets. For a galaxy about 100,000 light years wide and 1,000 light years thick (our little dinner plate), there are over 200 billion stars. There are perhaps 100 billion galaxies. These are all interspersed in several tens of billion light years. Unless the space out there is teeming with life that we somehow have been unable to see, there is lots of room for everyone at present, and there needn't be concern for our solar system, let alone our planet, because someone needs something from the occasional planet that has life.
If they did come around anyway though, there could be a few reasons for it. The Star Trek excuse, as I call it, is to explore and observe. Life might well be curious about other life for any number of reasons, both scientific and ethical. They might do so from afar, monitoring our broadcasts and bugging our houses; they might do so close up, occasionally seizing a few people at a time; they might even do so by subtly changing the values of our civilization so that, while our lives would not be negatively impaired, they might observe what they want. I don't think the methods, or even their methodology, could be presumed, but I would like to think that anyone capable of traveling between stars would know the value of conserving life, and its similarities of conserving energy. I don't think this one is worth worrying about, any more than we worry about God or Satan interfering in our lives. They might and they might not (though I think not), but even if they do, we can't live life basing our decisions on apparitions that have nothing to do with what we immediately interact with.
Other reasons we can think of, and are perfectly human, and thus we cannot judge their likelihood on any other scale than practicality. Perhaps they just like killing other things. Maybe they like destroying other planets. Perhaps they just don't care to take the little bit of extra effort to manufacture that one amino acid that we happen to have. Perhaps they think in terms of conquering and making vassals of other sentients. Perhaps they want to spread their code of conduct to us, trading in exchange their technologies in order to create harmony in the stars. My problem is not with the premise, but with the practical question: why care about us? We are humans. If life is out there in any probability, there is lots of other life out there. If it is possible to travel between the stars, many probably do it. But they can get everything they want without wasting the energy to come here.
It makes for a decent story sometimes, and I'll suspend disbelief if the other parts of the story (action, humor, etc.) are good enough. But I wish that someone could really surprise me with a plausible premise for aliens to come here. It'd blow my mind.
Jun 30, 2009
Jun 22, 2009
Easy in Translation
1. As with French, the main word that means easy in Latin is facilis. We have the word as "facile," which is a word that is well-known but not often used except in its bureaurcratized uses "facility" and "facilitate," the terms appropriately nouned and verbed. (Ow. Ow. Ow.)
So I got curious. Where does English get its words for easiness from? After some brainstorming and an OED, this is what I've found.
What Anglo-Saxon turns up, from here: http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
So I got curious. Where does English get its words for easiness from? After some brainstorming and an OED, this is what I've found.
- Easy is from the Old French verb aiser or aisier, to put at ease. This verb may well be from the late Latin asia/asium, but at that point the etymology is obscure. I know it was around in Middle English.
- Cinch is from Spanish (ooooh) cinga, and refers to the saddle-girth. Cinch soon came to mean colloquially a sure hold or a sure thing from the late 19th century onward. It's sure to happen, so it's a cinch, and it's easy.
- Evident, obvious are both from Latin. Ex + vident means "seeing out," while ob + via is "in the way." They're out there, and they're too easy to miss.
- Manageable, through Italian or Spanish, and perhaps back to the Latin manus, meaning hand. So if something is manageable, it can be handled. Manageable though is less easy than "easy," having a weaker sense of ease or desirability.
- Simple is from the Latin, basically the same word over again. It can mean easy, in a few different ways. Probably better to call someone easy-going than simple-going though.
- Basic is again from the Latin, and it denotes a foundation or (with -ic) a fundamental part. Probably means easy in reference to a student learning the basics of a subject first, which will inevitably be easier than what comes afterward. It's something that should be known, and is thus judged easy. If someone has to explain something by saying, "Well, basically," they're appealing to what should be easier to know. And so on.
- Trifle comes from the Old French, but it's unclear where before that, whether it is Latinate, Gothic, or what not. It's apparently similar to the word truffle, but I don't know how.
What Anglo-Saxon turns up, from here: http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
"easy [] 1. adj íeðelic; íeðe pleasant; léoht trifling; ~-going léohtmód; ~ to believe? léafléoht; 2. ~ly adv íeðelíce; 3. make ~ wv/t
Iethelic, leoht... leoht is probably something that got transformed into light, in the sense of getting a little light (trifling) reading done. Light is a word that goes off into the Germanic tongues rather than anything Latinate.
Jun 21, 2009
Micro-story
A snowflake fell from the sky. This alarmed me, because it was the middle of the summer. More importantly, there was a roof over me.
A scoop of vanilla fell on my head, the net of what would turn out to be a series of desserts over the next few hours. At first I called maitenance, but they thought I was drunk and said that they could come by after they put this A/C unit in. Stay cool, they offered with a laugh.
Then I set out buckets where an ice cream sandwich had fallen before, but the orange sherbet would always fall onto my forehead anyway. Then a chocolate sundae would follow me, raining fudge and bananas.
So, c'est la vie. I went for a walk.
The children called me their messiah. A messiah of ice cream.
A scoop of vanilla fell on my head, the net of what would turn out to be a series of desserts over the next few hours. At first I called maitenance, but they thought I was drunk and said that they could come by after they put this A/C unit in. Stay cool, they offered with a laugh.
Then I set out buckets where an ice cream sandwich had fallen before, but the orange sherbet would always fall onto my forehead anyway. Then a chocolate sundae would follow me, raining fudge and bananas.
So, c'est la vie. I went for a walk.
The children called me their messiah. A messiah of ice cream.
Nigh Unplayable
So, after over a month of hiatus, I tried playing SimCity Societies. I've liked all of the SimCity games so far, and when I initially bught it I got it with SimCity 4, which I like.
SimCity Societies, rather than being a city-building simulation, has been described as a societal simulation. A societal simulation, rather than emphasizing zones, service coverage, and a population described solely through statistics, it emphasizes how buildings are used, what jobs are available, what forms of recreation are available, and so on. Instead of zones, the player seelcts specific buildings with different values. Cottages are more pleasing but house less people; condos less pleasing but more people. Some jobs emphasize artistic ability, while some venues rely on there already being an interest in book smarts in the city. Overall, a pretty cool idea.
However, there is a problem. The game speed, at levels faster than normal, goes faster than the Sims in the game move. The people move too, but not fast enough to keep up the pace. If I wanted to go on fastest to burn through a few days quickly, a Sim might have enough time to walk between home and work and get no sleep. They're unhappy, they don't work, and I get no money.
I've tried playing this game along another, so I don't have to sit there staring at the screen waiting for another workday to pass (it goes at probably a day every couple of minutes). But then I just feel like I'm not really playing. If it weren't for this, I would really enjoy it.
SimCity Societies, rather than being a city-building simulation, has been described as a societal simulation. A societal simulation, rather than emphasizing zones, service coverage, and a population described solely through statistics, it emphasizes how buildings are used, what jobs are available, what forms of recreation are available, and so on. Instead of zones, the player seelcts specific buildings with different values. Cottages are more pleasing but house less people; condos less pleasing but more people. Some jobs emphasize artistic ability, while some venues rely on there already being an interest in book smarts in the city. Overall, a pretty cool idea.
However, there is a problem. The game speed, at levels faster than normal, goes faster than the Sims in the game move. The people move too, but not fast enough to keep up the pace. If I wanted to go on fastest to burn through a few days quickly, a Sim might have enough time to walk between home and work and get no sleep. They're unhappy, they don't work, and I get no money.
I've tried playing this game along another, so I don't have to sit there staring at the screen waiting for another workday to pass (it goes at probably a day every couple of minutes). But then I just feel like I'm not really playing. If it weren't for this, I would really enjoy it.
Jun 19, 2009
I made lamb for the first time today...
It was delicious. I've had it before, but never where I've been in control. I pan-cooked it. With some blueberries and some leafy greens, it was pretty tasty.
Jun 16, 2009
Have a poet in your pocket - the modern version.
“You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.” John Adams.
Outside of the store whose clear glass windows were marked only by an ubiquitous frosted-white quill, the crowds lined up. There were two lines, each extending in opposite directions up and down the second floor of the mall. One security guard was stationed at the door, a broad man if not a tall one. Another, a tall woman with a severe ponytail, patrolled up and down the lines in fifteen-minute intervals, which basically amounted to walking around the inside and the outside of the mall. Luckily, the crowds were well-behaved and complacent, some chatting or texting, others reading or simply standing around.
The buzz had traveled from person to person, though the many billboards, a sizable internet presence, and several flash mobs didn’t hurt its progression either. It was the new model coming out, promising new features and upgrades to the already sleek performance. No one knew what it looked like. A few claimed it was going to be like a Kindle with video, while others said it would be an iPhone with more text. Most said with fierce loyalty that, if anything, those other toys were only derived from the light of the Poeta.
Some still twiddled with their older models as they waited. It was flat, nearly paper-thin, and came in models from transparent, through notebook paper, to the premium vellum model. They could type in a word, a phrase, a stanza, and words would pour out, waxing (per the name) poetic on the subject. Some experts initially called it a random word generator, but unlike those clunky artifacts, these made sense from start to finish. And it was not limited to poetry. By adjusting a few simple options, it could turn out prose of any sort or variety, dividable by genres ranging from romance novel to business report. So far the machines hadn’t been able to reproduce an individual author’s voice, but even more marvelously, it was a new voice whose only distinguishing characteristic was a tendency toward propriety. Its rap was renowned for its stilting hilarity, which spawned a new genre of its own. So it was a marvelous product, but its fans wanted to see what would change. And some just wanted to see what the big deal was.
A salesperson pushed a button, the doors opened, and the first fifteen people were let in. Each was met by a crisp, clean-cut man or woman standing next to a clear podium. The boxes were already below and behind each podium, and they gingerly asked questions to ascertain a best fit for their client: “What will you be using this for?” “Do you know any other languages?” “Would you carry yours in a purse or a pocket?” There were no questions about price. The cost was immaterial.
The first to get one was Sandy, 32, a single mother of a seven year old. She had driven from Tallahassee, FL to Miami just to make one of the premium outlets. The child was at home with a babysitter. Sandy wore a lime green t-shirt, tights, and sandals, the combination being quite in vogue and quite unstylish. She smiled with anticipation as she got asked the different questions, answered that she would like to do a trade-in, gave over her vellum sheet with the authentic-looking bookworm holes, and waited as the salesperson dug underneath the podium.
When the well-manicured hand came up, it was holding a little person in the palm. The salesperson smiled immaculately and set it down. Sandy saw a miniature version of Edgar Allen Poe, but all she knew as that she would be combing that hair when she got home. The salesperson demonstrated the controls, all voice-command. Soon the Edgar Allen Poe model was giving a spirited criticism of socialist health care. Sandy then tried a command of her own, and after seeming to listen the little Poe began to sing a pop hit, doing the accompaniment in falsetto. In the few minutes that they tried different genres, every one sounded a little like Edgar Allen Poe, but the genres were too disparate for him to manage more than the occasional bleak sentence, an ending sigh which sounded like "Nevermore."
When Sandy bought him with her debit card, she got a free chamois bag to keep him in. She happily placed the bag with Poe in it in her sack and walked out. She could hardly wait!
Outside of the store whose clear glass windows were marked only by an ubiquitous frosted-white quill, the crowds lined up. There were two lines, each extending in opposite directions up and down the second floor of the mall. One security guard was stationed at the door, a broad man if not a tall one. Another, a tall woman with a severe ponytail, patrolled up and down the lines in fifteen-minute intervals, which basically amounted to walking around the inside and the outside of the mall. Luckily, the crowds were well-behaved and complacent, some chatting or texting, others reading or simply standing around.
The buzz had traveled from person to person, though the many billboards, a sizable internet presence, and several flash mobs didn’t hurt its progression either. It was the new model coming out, promising new features and upgrades to the already sleek performance. No one knew what it looked like. A few claimed it was going to be like a Kindle with video, while others said it would be an iPhone with more text. Most said with fierce loyalty that, if anything, those other toys were only derived from the light of the Poeta.
Some still twiddled with their older models as they waited. It was flat, nearly paper-thin, and came in models from transparent, through notebook paper, to the premium vellum model. They could type in a word, a phrase, a stanza, and words would pour out, waxing (per the name) poetic on the subject. Some experts initially called it a random word generator, but unlike those clunky artifacts, these made sense from start to finish. And it was not limited to poetry. By adjusting a few simple options, it could turn out prose of any sort or variety, dividable by genres ranging from romance novel to business report. So far the machines hadn’t been able to reproduce an individual author’s voice, but even more marvelously, it was a new voice whose only distinguishing characteristic was a tendency toward propriety. Its rap was renowned for its stilting hilarity, which spawned a new genre of its own. So it was a marvelous product, but its fans wanted to see what would change. And some just wanted to see what the big deal was.
A salesperson pushed a button, the doors opened, and the first fifteen people were let in. Each was met by a crisp, clean-cut man or woman standing next to a clear podium. The boxes were already below and behind each podium, and they gingerly asked questions to ascertain a best fit for their client: “What will you be using this for?” “Do you know any other languages?” “Would you carry yours in a purse or a pocket?” There were no questions about price. The cost was immaterial.
The first to get one was Sandy, 32, a single mother of a seven year old. She had driven from Tallahassee, FL to Miami just to make one of the premium outlets. The child was at home with a babysitter. Sandy wore a lime green t-shirt, tights, and sandals, the combination being quite in vogue and quite unstylish. She smiled with anticipation as she got asked the different questions, answered that she would like to do a trade-in, gave over her vellum sheet with the authentic-looking bookworm holes, and waited as the salesperson dug underneath the podium.
When the well-manicured hand came up, it was holding a little person in the palm. The salesperson smiled immaculately and set it down. Sandy saw a miniature version of Edgar Allen Poe, but all she knew as that she would be combing that hair when she got home. The salesperson demonstrated the controls, all voice-command. Soon the Edgar Allen Poe model was giving a spirited criticism of socialist health care. Sandy then tried a command of her own, and after seeming to listen the little Poe began to sing a pop hit, doing the accompaniment in falsetto. In the few minutes that they tried different genres, every one sounded a little like Edgar Allen Poe, but the genres were too disparate for him to manage more than the occasional bleak sentence, an ending sigh which sounded like "Nevermore."
When Sandy bought him with her debit card, she got a free chamois bag to keep him in. She happily placed the bag with Poe in it in her sack and walked out. She could hardly wait!
Jun 15, 2009
It Didn't Really Even Make Sense at the Time
I just tried to write a short story. I don't think I quite succeeded. I started with an idea, but it had no end. It even had no middle. I just went from paragraph to paragraph, relying on whatever images came to mind. It didn't start as a dream, but it felt like one. It also feels a bit like a faerie tale whose moral is, "Expect nothing," and "Be careful you don't wish you lived in interesting times." A faerie tale that starts in the middle, after the person's already made the fateful bargain that they'll regret, anything for a wish.
Since I'm talking about it, I may as well post it.
Across the windswept street, along the white lines blurred under the water, Joseph ran. Drops blurred his glasses. His white dress shirt soaked against his long chest and paunch. Splashes followed his heavy feet like mines exploding in hostile waters. He reached the other side just as a red light turned green, and several cars drove by him, sending up a synchronous dance of grey water from the pools near the gutter.
Joseph had had worse days, but they weren’t coming to his mind. Partly that was because he hadn’t had a worse day in quite a long time. Partly it was because all the bad days just blended together lately in a fugue. And partly it was because his mind was singlehandedly on correcting the mistake, making it, if not better, no worse.
He was on the right block, he knew, but he’d never been to the office before, and the Google Street View did not display any obvious signs saying, “Luminate Services.” But he had a number, and he followed them the best he could past a mid-line boutique, a hairdresser’s, a subshop, a couple of nondescript store fronts, a parking lot. Then, just as he was muttering what he had to ask for once more, there was a long wall of steel and darkened glass, and a single revolving door marked off with slightly faded brass.
Joseph ran up and through, hitting himself against the also-dark glass as the door didn’t give way. He pushed again. After the third time, and stopping to rub his bruised chin, he noticed a sign, just below his eyelevel. “Perhaps you should push the other way,” it suggested in cursive which curled about and back into itself. A helpful arrow was below that. He wiped the water off of his glasses onto his shirt, tried using his equally wet hand, and finally gave up and looked close, squinting. Then he pushed the other way, and the door turned.
As he hurried in, saw the stairs and the sign above them marking where he was going with an arrow, and rushed toward them, Joseph didn’t notice the cherry-soda-brown-lacquered wall panels, the white marble floor cut in three-foot squares, the high ceiling with art-deco arches, the wall lamps suffusing the room in a golden glow, the desk with a brass-framed monitor and keyboard, or the woman currently staring at him from behind it. But he did hear her bellow, “Not so fast!”
Whoops, I guess I should mention an appointment, Joseph thought, so he stepped over to the desk, where the middle-aged woman was already looking back at her computer, typing away. “I… I have an appointment,” he offers, his voice wavering. “My name’s – “
“What is this?” She then asks, looking up from the screen and standing back up. The queen’s English lends her words formality, but something else lends them authority. Joseph pauses, silent with his mouth half-open. Then she clicks her tongue. “Ah. I just wanted you to walk slower. You are expected, Mr. Trau. Go the way you were going, but with decorum. Up the stairs, first door on your left.”
Joseph opened his mouth to say thanks, and something came out, but he didn’t hear it, and she didn’t correct him. He walked to the stairs, muttering softly in cadence with his steps. “Walk in… give them… ask them… offer up…” He wiped his wet hair from his eyes, reached the top of the stairs, and tapped on the left door with his knuckle. After no answer for a few moments, he hit the wood grain with his forehead. “Come in,” a light voice echoed from within.
Joseph opened the door and walked in, shutting the door behind him. Then he looked around. And gasped.
He was stepping on golden leaves. The light filtered through from somewhere on high, yellow from the leaves but also vaguely incandescent, and a slight spectral aura infused each shape, rainbow-like. The trees – and these were tall like an elm, sloped gracefully upward, each silver bough holding a dazzling number of ruby, gold, and amber leaves. Small birds flitted from bough to bough in blurs, singing and twittering their autumn songs.
In the middle of a grove fully illuminated by a round halo of light, Joseph saw a hunched over figure, brown and craggly like no person he had ever seen. Dryad and ent came to his mind simultaneously, but he was unsure. Was this the person he had called on the phone? How elaborate the decorations were.
Nonetheless, he still had his plan. He walked forward, stepping across the plain without care to his step. He entered the halo and his eyes watered; he had to cover them. The creature looked up with moss-green eyes. Joseph flinched, and looked at it as if looking for the strings or the puppet hand. From his back pocket Joseph pulled out a box, setting it down in front of him. “It’s not worth it. You sent it to me in the mail, but I change my mind. I don’t understand what’s inside. I thought it would just happen. Why is it in a box, and why’s it so small?”
“Hmm.” The figure, not really covered by bark or skin, wrung his shoulders freely, a motion which unnerved him. He thought the high-pitched voice was a woman over the phone, and now he didn’t know. “It is in a box because it can be in a box. And it’s small so that it can fit in the box. Were you expecting something large and unboxed?”
“I…” Joseph pauses and looks down at the box. “I thought the change was big, so the cause would be big.”
“That is material.”
“Immaterial? You mean, irrelevant?”
“No, material and irrelevant.” With a lilting patience in its tone the creature explains. “Size is tangible. This… defies size. Defies expectation. That is the only way there can be a change, because if you expect it, you don’t really change. You just become what you were going to become, like a tree free to grow.” The creature bends down to pick up the box. Then he frowns at something, looking closely at it. “Did you open the box?”
“I did, but I didn’t look. It was musty. Then I sneezed. And I closed the box. What does that - ”
The creature interrupts, speaking over him until he goes silent and continuing on without a beat. “Seeds! Seeds! Take these materials – small as hope, large as change! And of course you wouldn’t know them. They’re already spread now, and you cannot stop them. They will grow wherever you scattered them. They will grow from your nose. You cannot return it! It is too late.”
“Wh – what will they do?” Joseph asks, touching each nostril tentatively between finger and thumb.
“What did you want to change?” The creature asks in return, folding its arms impossibly behind it, both forearm and upper arm behind its neck.
“Everything. I wanted my kid back. I wanted my old job back. I wanted my apartment back. I wanted to feel good about life again.” But he swings his arms at everything around him. “But I got too much. I don’t want the dust, whatever was in the box, the things I’ve been seeing. I return it. I’ll pay for the seeds.”
The creature smiles, or at least appears to, its mouth opening wide and contorting in silent laughter. The light began to brighten, and Joseph covered his eyes. Just as he was blind, and a ringing grew too loud in his ears, he heard the creature’s voice, “There are no returns.”
Joseph awoke. His daughter was there, the toddler curled up next to him, as if she had sought shelter from a storm. He sat up in his bed. The window to outside cast red and yellow against the wall. Across the studio, on the computer, the window was up with the spreadsheets he had worked with for so long. Data and functions from here to the rainbow. A message was on his screen, an e-mail from his boss welcoming him back, giving him the project for the week. He sat down to work with a vague sense of relief.
The more he worked, the better he felt. He just needed something to do, he knew. He just needed to feel fulfilled. He glanced at the clock. The time was exactly the same as the last time he checked, except that it was AM instead of PM. He heard some clattering from a distance, but ignored it. He had to finish up. He didn’t even feel tired.
Four days later, there was a 911 call from a three-year old girl. She didn’t make much sense, only said, “Dad’s gone. He's a tree.” When the paramedics and the police arrived, they found a man, face down on the keyboard. The last twenty thousand characters typed, still flowing right on the screen, were a series of b’s. They flipped him up and back.
A silver sprout was beginning to grow from his nose. A golden leaf glimmered.
Since I'm talking about it, I may as well post it.
Across the windswept street, along the white lines blurred under the water, Joseph ran. Drops blurred his glasses. His white dress shirt soaked against his long chest and paunch. Splashes followed his heavy feet like mines exploding in hostile waters. He reached the other side just as a red light turned green, and several cars drove by him, sending up a synchronous dance of grey water from the pools near the gutter.
Joseph had had worse days, but they weren’t coming to his mind. Partly that was because he hadn’t had a worse day in quite a long time. Partly it was because all the bad days just blended together lately in a fugue. And partly it was because his mind was singlehandedly on correcting the mistake, making it, if not better, no worse.
He was on the right block, he knew, but he’d never been to the office before, and the Google Street View did not display any obvious signs saying, “Luminate Services.” But he had a number, and he followed them the best he could past a mid-line boutique, a hairdresser’s, a subshop, a couple of nondescript store fronts, a parking lot. Then, just as he was muttering what he had to ask for once more, there was a long wall of steel and darkened glass, and a single revolving door marked off with slightly faded brass.
Joseph ran up and through, hitting himself against the also-dark glass as the door didn’t give way. He pushed again. After the third time, and stopping to rub his bruised chin, he noticed a sign, just below his eyelevel. “Perhaps you should push the other way,” it suggested in cursive which curled about and back into itself. A helpful arrow was below that. He wiped the water off of his glasses onto his shirt, tried using his equally wet hand, and finally gave up and looked close, squinting. Then he pushed the other way, and the door turned.
As he hurried in, saw the stairs and the sign above them marking where he was going with an arrow, and rushed toward them, Joseph didn’t notice the cherry-soda-brown-lacquered wall panels, the white marble floor cut in three-foot squares, the high ceiling with art-deco arches, the wall lamps suffusing the room in a golden glow, the desk with a brass-framed monitor and keyboard, or the woman currently staring at him from behind it. But he did hear her bellow, “Not so fast!”
Whoops, I guess I should mention an appointment, Joseph thought, so he stepped over to the desk, where the middle-aged woman was already looking back at her computer, typing away. “I… I have an appointment,” he offers, his voice wavering. “My name’s – “
“What is this?” She then asks, looking up from the screen and standing back up. The queen’s English lends her words formality, but something else lends them authority. Joseph pauses, silent with his mouth half-open. Then she clicks her tongue. “Ah. I just wanted you to walk slower. You are expected, Mr. Trau. Go the way you were going, but with decorum. Up the stairs, first door on your left.”
Joseph opened his mouth to say thanks, and something came out, but he didn’t hear it, and she didn’t correct him. He walked to the stairs, muttering softly in cadence with his steps. “Walk in… give them… ask them… offer up…” He wiped his wet hair from his eyes, reached the top of the stairs, and tapped on the left door with his knuckle. After no answer for a few moments, he hit the wood grain with his forehead. “Come in,” a light voice echoed from within.
Joseph opened the door and walked in, shutting the door behind him. Then he looked around. And gasped.
He was stepping on golden leaves. The light filtered through from somewhere on high, yellow from the leaves but also vaguely incandescent, and a slight spectral aura infused each shape, rainbow-like. The trees – and these were tall like an elm, sloped gracefully upward, each silver bough holding a dazzling number of ruby, gold, and amber leaves. Small birds flitted from bough to bough in blurs, singing and twittering their autumn songs.
In the middle of a grove fully illuminated by a round halo of light, Joseph saw a hunched over figure, brown and craggly like no person he had ever seen. Dryad and ent came to his mind simultaneously, but he was unsure. Was this the person he had called on the phone? How elaborate the decorations were.
Nonetheless, he still had his plan. He walked forward, stepping across the plain without care to his step. He entered the halo and his eyes watered; he had to cover them. The creature looked up with moss-green eyes. Joseph flinched, and looked at it as if looking for the strings or the puppet hand. From his back pocket Joseph pulled out a box, setting it down in front of him. “It’s not worth it. You sent it to me in the mail, but I change my mind. I don’t understand what’s inside. I thought it would just happen. Why is it in a box, and why’s it so small?”
“Hmm.” The figure, not really covered by bark or skin, wrung his shoulders freely, a motion which unnerved him. He thought the high-pitched voice was a woman over the phone, and now he didn’t know. “It is in a box because it can be in a box. And it’s small so that it can fit in the box. Were you expecting something large and unboxed?”
“I…” Joseph pauses and looks down at the box. “I thought the change was big, so the cause would be big.”
“That is material.”
“Immaterial? You mean, irrelevant?”
“No, material and irrelevant.” With a lilting patience in its tone the creature explains. “Size is tangible. This… defies size. Defies expectation. That is the only way there can be a change, because if you expect it, you don’t really change. You just become what you were going to become, like a tree free to grow.” The creature bends down to pick up the box. Then he frowns at something, looking closely at it. “Did you open the box?”
“I did, but I didn’t look. It was musty. Then I sneezed. And I closed the box. What does that - ”
The creature interrupts, speaking over him until he goes silent and continuing on without a beat. “Seeds! Seeds! Take these materials – small as hope, large as change! And of course you wouldn’t know them. They’re already spread now, and you cannot stop them. They will grow wherever you scattered them. They will grow from your nose. You cannot return it! It is too late.”
“Wh – what will they do?” Joseph asks, touching each nostril tentatively between finger and thumb.
“What did you want to change?” The creature asks in return, folding its arms impossibly behind it, both forearm and upper arm behind its neck.
“Everything. I wanted my kid back. I wanted my old job back. I wanted my apartment back. I wanted to feel good about life again.” But he swings his arms at everything around him. “But I got too much. I don’t want the dust, whatever was in the box, the things I’ve been seeing. I return it. I’ll pay for the seeds.”
The creature smiles, or at least appears to, its mouth opening wide and contorting in silent laughter. The light began to brighten, and Joseph covered his eyes. Just as he was blind, and a ringing grew too loud in his ears, he heard the creature’s voice, “There are no returns.”
Joseph awoke. His daughter was there, the toddler curled up next to him, as if she had sought shelter from a storm. He sat up in his bed. The window to outside cast red and yellow against the wall. Across the studio, on the computer, the window was up with the spreadsheets he had worked with for so long. Data and functions from here to the rainbow. A message was on his screen, an e-mail from his boss welcoming him back, giving him the project for the week. He sat down to work with a vague sense of relief.
The more he worked, the better he felt. He just needed something to do, he knew. He just needed to feel fulfilled. He glanced at the clock. The time was exactly the same as the last time he checked, except that it was AM instead of PM. He heard some clattering from a distance, but ignored it. He had to finish up. He didn’t even feel tired.
Four days later, there was a 911 call from a three-year old girl. She didn’t make much sense, only said, “Dad’s gone. He's a tree.” When the paramedics and the police arrived, they found a man, face down on the keyboard. The last twenty thousand characters typed, still flowing right on the screen, were a series of b’s. They flipped him up and back.
A silver sprout was beginning to grow from his nose. A golden leaf glimmered.
Jun 14, 2009
Sci-fi Con
So yesterday I really needed to go out. There was a Steampunk festival in Decatur, but I opted instead to drive a bit further and go up to a sci-fi convention in Marietta.
It was pretty small. They had two panel rooms, a movie room, an anime room, a gaming room, and the dealer's floor. I only stuck around for a few hours, but I did end up buying some stuff, including:
A book of questionable quality (I live dangerously through my books).
A children's book about a squid pirate.
A 1910 gas lamp.
A brass pocket watch.
A prop steampunk gun, made out of brass and wood.
The last three all have a common theme, all being made to look old. I figured, what the hell. :)
It was pretty small. They had two panel rooms, a movie room, an anime room, a gaming room, and the dealer's floor. I only stuck around for a few hours, but I did end up buying some stuff, including:
A book of questionable quality (I live dangerously through my books).
A children's book about a squid pirate.
A 1910 gas lamp.
A brass pocket watch.
A prop steampunk gun, made out of brass and wood.
The last three all have a common theme, all being made to look old. I figured, what the hell. :)
Jun 11, 2009
Targeted Randomness
1. Does it take longer to fall down an up escalator? Of course the gravitational constant is the same, but you would fall down more stairs than a staircase of the same height, perhaps prolonging the fall since each step would slow the descent.
2. For a change, based on a hint from The Splendid Table, I've been cooking the past couple of days with brown butter. It's just salted butter cooked on low to medium for about five minutes. I can't say I've noticed a radical difference from normal butter, because before that I wasn't using much butter at all and thus have no basis of judgment. Nonetheless, it does end up very tasty with steaks and as a spread for garlic bread.
3. Every day, I leave Latin going to Wikipedia or the Oxford English Dictionary looking up words. A lot of them are analogues to vocabulary words. After learning oppugnō, derived from the prefix ob- and the verb pugnō, I searched for other words that might use the ob- prefix, which can mean, "in the direction of, towards, against, in the way of, in front of, in view of, on account of." Oblong thus is the direction favoring the long side. Object would be to throw in the way of (ject being from the Latin iacere). Some, like obsolete, the OED doesn't decipher beyond the Latin, which has the two together. I can only presume that it has some common form with "solent," usual or customary, which according to the OED takes from the Latin solere, to be wont. So maybe it can mean, "On account of being usual?" That is, something is obsolete when it's used so often that it is worn down, old, or outdated?
4. Latin was disconcerting at first for a few reasons. One, nominative pronouns aren't commonly used, as the subject of the sentence is incorporated with the verb. Sum simply means, "I am." I could say, Vir validus est, where "Vir" is in the nominative, but it would simply mean, "He is a healthy man." There also aren't any articles, and sometimes prepositions like to disappear, leaving only the noun ending to indicate possible prepositions for translation. Then I realized the system is quite efficient.
5. I spent two hours yesterday trying to figure out how to figure out a square root from a medieval text. It appears to be like the modern method, which is like long division with some catches. However, the directions are bewilderingly vague, and I can't piece together what to do from the examples. One step says approximately, "Now, go to the next digit before the double..." Which direction is that? It's especially confusing because explanations seems to switch inadvertently between left-to-right numbering (the Latin numbering system) and right-to-left numbering (the Arabic system). So I might be thrown by the next, even if there wasn't that countermanding "before."
2. For a change, based on a hint from The Splendid Table, I've been cooking the past couple of days with brown butter. It's just salted butter cooked on low to medium for about five minutes. I can't say I've noticed a radical difference from normal butter, because before that I wasn't using much butter at all and thus have no basis of judgment. Nonetheless, it does end up very tasty with steaks and as a spread for garlic bread.
3. Every day, I leave Latin going to Wikipedia or the Oxford English Dictionary looking up words. A lot of them are analogues to vocabulary words. After learning oppugnō, derived from the prefix ob- and the verb pugnō, I searched for other words that might use the ob- prefix, which can mean, "in the direction of, towards, against, in the way of, in front of, in view of, on account of." Oblong thus is the direction favoring the long side. Object would be to throw in the way of (ject being from the Latin iacere). Some, like obsolete, the OED doesn't decipher beyond the Latin, which has the two together. I can only presume that it has some common form with "solent," usual or customary, which according to the OED takes from the Latin solere, to be wont. So maybe it can mean, "On account of being usual?" That is, something is obsolete when it's used so often that it is worn down, old, or outdated?
4. Latin was disconcerting at first for a few reasons. One, nominative pronouns aren't commonly used, as the subject of the sentence is incorporated with the verb. Sum simply means, "I am." I could say, Vir validus est, where "Vir" is in the nominative, but it would simply mean, "He is a healthy man." There also aren't any articles, and sometimes prepositions like to disappear, leaving only the noun ending to indicate possible prepositions for translation. Then I realized the system is quite efficient.
5. I spent two hours yesterday trying to figure out how to figure out a square root from a medieval text. It appears to be like the modern method, which is like long division with some catches. However, the directions are bewilderingly vague, and I can't piece together what to do from the examples. One step says approximately, "Now, go to the next digit before the double..." Which direction is that? It's especially confusing because explanations seems to switch inadvertently between left-to-right numbering (the Latin numbering system) and right-to-left numbering (the Arabic system). So I might be thrown by the next, even if there wasn't that countermanding "before."
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