Friday Links: Life, The Universe, and All The Fish Edition
"Look, there’s somewhere you can take us where we can have fun...we can get drunk and maybe listen to some extremely evil music." - Douglas Adams, 'Life, The Universe, and Everything'
Ford Prefect might say that time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so. It’s true, tooo, but it’s also something you say two bong rips deep during freshman year. Do you know what I, a man who is going to eat chicken wings and Caesar salad and watch a movie with my spouse later, say? Hey dude, happy Friday.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
I mean, you already know. Reading a series means this false tease of an opener paragraph is a bit like a magician pulling a sheet off of a rabbit shape while everyone in the audience goes “it’s a rabbit, you jagoff” and then the magician says, “ah, but you see, it is a hare.” Or something. Honestly sounds like something the Elon wing of Hitchhiker’s fandom would do. Hey, speaking of, I had blast with Life, The Universe, and Everything and So Long and Thanks For All The Fish.
Life, The Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams: you have to admire the way what you previously thought were throwaway jokes become major plot points. The bowl of petunias saying “not again,” the bit about flying. There’s cricket writing in here that should have Douglas Adams talked about the same way David Foster Wallace and tennis get talked about. The sheer amount of plot movement and action reminds you that of course Arthur hasn’t had a chance to change out of his dressing gown yet, which is very funny. Trillian gets to shine the way she deserves at the end. Glad to see Slartibartfast again. Love the escalation of improbability fields to bistromatics.
So Long and Thanks For All the Fish by Douglas Adams: is it possible to think a book is exactly what a series needs, when it needs, and is a hell of a lot of fun, without being, well, all that good of a book? This one sees Arthur Dent finally change his clothes—that’s right, Earthman gets to return to Earth. How the Earth is back, I either missed it or it wasn’t explained. But he falls in love with a woman named Fenchurch, who is plagued by memories of Earth’s destruction as well as the events of the previous book. It’s a very fun little love story, but—no Zaphod, no Trillian, very little Marvin, and undercooked Ford. The ending is a touch rushed, and it kinda gave me the feeling of when they shoot parts two and three of a movie back-to-back, and so neither ends up being a complete movie. Interested to see where the next book goes. Again, I had fun with this one, but it just didn’t feel finished.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? How about we pair all this sci-fi and future stuff with an ancient instrument? It’s nine years old, but it’s new to me—here’s Rahim AlHaj on Tiny Desk.
Hey, we take care of each other. Humans, I mean. It’s the only way to live. Or stay alive, as the case may be. Here’s Sean Beckner-Carmitchel and Mel Buer in Cal Matters about Angelenos helping each other. Like Mr. Rogers and the Tiger Family say, look for the helpers.
Excellent speculative poet Brandon O’Brien—whose book I loved—has a blog for Seattle WorldCon! This post breaks down what speculative poetry is.
The homies over at Unraveled are tireless. They do really heroic work. Here’s Steve Held and Raven Geary with a list of which of the, as Douglas Adams put it, “two-bit trigger pumping morons with low hair-lines, little piggy eyes and no conversation” of the Chicago Police Department got their badges stripped this year. Awwwww—poor little alcoholic, spouse-abusing, racist, slop-sucking, mud-rolling little ex-piggie-wiggies.
Hey, speaking of poetry, the homie Adrian Sobol (whose new book HAIR SHIRT you should preorder) invited me out to a reading this week at The Whistler—unsurprisingly great NA menu at The Whistler—that was a celebration of Bill Knott. I’ve never encountered Bill Knott’s work (how? must be the lack of an MFA) but loved what everyone read. So I go looking for some Bill Knott, here’s some Bill Knott Sonnet in Academy of American Poets.
Tom Scocca at Defector with a look at how, in the wake of the New Year’s attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, the press loves to blame foreigners while letting homegrown political movements completely off the hook. A pulle quote, because Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “…behind any available reasons and rationalizations was the well-established fact that the American press would rather attribute violence to the influence of ISIS than attribute violence to the influence of Donald Trump. ISIS is foreign and fits the consensus popular picture of "terrorism"; more pressingly, ISIS is not scheduled to be sworn in as president two weeks from now…Was this the tone of a mentally ill person? Yes. Was it the tone of the controlling faction of the Republican Party? Also, unquestionably, yes.”
What’re you still doing here? Don’t you remember that Micah and Brendan have a show?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. I hope all your customers do not treat you as if they are trying to power an interstellar flight with Bistromatics.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris