Comments on: O-void

By: Tara

Tara — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:17:40 +0000

This is so fun. Although I think the estimate for a First Nations pope is wildly optimistic. Maybe a Quebecker could take care of that though.

I'm not a robot!!

I don't eat eggs much but I think I'll try to remember to make at least one crazy speculation every time I handle one. As a spiritual practice, it could honor the chicken, the egg, and my crazy hope for the possibility of one day something new(ish) under the sun.

By: Richard Zeroth

Richard Zeroth — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:30:52 +0000

Almost lost me with "anal and genital united" but I luckily kept reading and (after reading it 3 more times) found it to be my favorite post thus far.

If only I could find a way to stick around until 2214 and celebrate the meager size of the universe.

Also what's the name of the hermaphrodite bisexual robot offspring? I need to know that baby's name.

I also now have a strong desire to write something categorized as "speculation".

By: Michael Bennett Cohn

Michael Bennett Cohn — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:36:52 +0000

I imagine that, once space travel becomes popular, there will be a database of Lines Spoken Upon Landing, with various explorers arguing over who had made the best and earliest use of which famous quotes in that regard. Dibs on “something wicked this way comes.”

By: Rachel B

Rachel B — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:41:19 +0000

i don't think, therefore i am
breaks my heart a little
don't know why

By: Eric Eicher

Eric Eicher — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:22:13 +0000

I find this essay fascinating in many ways. I especially like the Spoiler's comical (but understandable) assumption that readers will undoubtedly be Amerocentric enough to need to be walked back from thinking that any city named “Paris” must, of course, be one of the surprising number of relatively small cities named Paris in the US (there are, for whatever weird amalgam of reasons, at least half a dozen more of those than Alessandro mentions) and can reasonably be expected to recognize the reality of Paris, France only by reference to the uncanny toyland version of same conjured by Walt Disney. Numerous striking references to Disney, cartoons, and related modes of unreality riddle the piece, my favorite being year 8763's alarming discovery by a then-unfrozen Walt that cartoons and reality have somehow literally become one (surely a nightmare scenario for Disney, who thrived on keeping the two world's separate enough to be readily distinguishable playmates, but not exactly great news for any of us, despite our current world's seemingly unstoppable rush to cartoonize itself as quickly as possible). The writing here has a kind of prose poem quality at many junctures, which resonates in interesting ways with the absurdist nature of much of the humor here. I've read this piece multiple times now and keep finding my mind returning to it, even as I work on other things; it's an amazing piece of work.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:44:49 +0000

Now I'll be distracted, for a considerable amount of time, with the mind-bending possibility of creating something that takes 639 years to perform. Without being John Cage.