This was totally gonna be something else but I’m nowhere near my scanner and I had in mind for this week’s bit, something to be scanned.
Alas, I changed my mind.
I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, so I took the first refuge of the lost: education.
—James Gunn “MY PROFESSOR’S DEAD/MY ORIGIN STORY “
So which is it?
Now it’s over I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want (now it’s over)
Or, I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do
They Might Be Giants “Dead”
Hemingway once wrote a six worded story(“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and called it his greatest work ever.
Wired Magazine had a few other authors to try their hands at it.
My top nine favorites of the bunch are below:
Epitaph: He shouldn’t have fed it.
– Brian Herbert
Gown Removed Carelessly. Head, less so.
– Joss Whedon
With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
– Frank Miller
Bush told the truth. Hell froze.
– William Gibson
It cost too much, staying human.
– Bruce Sterling
I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
– Neil Gaiman
The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
– Orson Scott Card
Kirby had never eaten toes before.
– Kevin Smith
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
– Alan Moore
Heart missing. He decided to lie.
– Groonk
This is part of the beginning sequence of Battlestar Galactica. Most sources say it’s the Gayatri mantra taken from Rigveda.
“OM bhür bhuvah svah tat savitur varënyam bhargö dëvasya dhïmahi dhiyö yö nah pracödayät”
Which, I’m “told“, loosely translates to:
“May we attain that excellent glory of Savitri the Goddess / so May she stimulate our prayers.”
Are you watching the 3rd season of Galactica? If you aren’t and are reading this, gods, you damn well should be.
This is from someone who once hated the show for completely superflous reasons. I got over that. And I’m so much better for it.
“Composite things are like dreams, fantasies, bubbles, thoughts. Like a dewdrop and a flash of lightning. A new dress and a burning tire. Grains of sand and sinking ships. A shadow of a statue and an entry in a diary. A brain tumor and an ice cream sundae. They are thus to be regarded.” –The Kid, Aeon Flux “Chronophasia”
I’m re-experiencing Aeon Flux. Not that uninteresting movie attempt. The animated series that appeared on MTV. I never saw the movie. I couldn’t see Charlize Theron adding any kind of deepness to the Aeon character or story.
From what I gather in this Peter Chung(Aeon Flux’s creator) interview via Monican Spies, the movie fell far from the original series. Again, no big surprise.
Above is an altered version of the Diamond Sutra that appeared in the series episode “Chronosphasia.” I didn’t know it was from the Diamond Sutra til I watched the commentary. I only knew that I liked the hell out of what I heard.
That’s when i made up my mind to keep one foot in the Ideal Plane and the other in the real world.
—Father Mulcahy M*A*S*H “Heroes”
I had to be around 8 or 9 years old when I first heard that bit of dialogue on M*A*S*H. Needless to say, yet I will anyway, that slice of pop cultured sentiment stuck in my brain.
A little bit of super-simplified Platonic knowledge imparted by William Christopher‘s wonderfully understated delivery in 1982 and still remembered by me in 2006.
Well, sorta remembered by me. It took a recent Hallmark viewing to jog that rusty brain-cage of mine.
Still reading through Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s Andromeda messageboard. I came aross this quote.
“The people you killed are God. The people you saved are God. And you are God. That is my mathematics. I’ll leave you to yours.”
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
The Operative: Do you know what your sin is?
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Aw hell, I’m a fan of all seven…
—Serenity
By which Mal means that sin, up to and including the famous 7, is a part of human nature. It’s the freedom of choice regarding them that’s important.
And by “freedom of choice” I mean “to fuck up” or “not to fuck up.” It’s always the question.
Awesome. Simply awesome.
(via my new fav webcomic xkcd)
BTW Thanks to the Creative Commons license listed on this comic, I can share(ie repost) it here for those 3 people that return to my non-humble webspace. Let’s give Creative Commonc a big hand, shall we?
Newsmine