Steven Schneider's Blog: The Unreadable Book Blog
June 20, 2016
War and Peace Mini series 2016
A new version of War and Peace has spectacular and heart felt moments. Uniforms stay a little too clean. But Pierre (Paul Dano) at Borodino is every bit as tragically absurd an account of the chaos of war as the original. See the first posts in this blog.
Pierre Bezúkov, a bear of an aristocrat of great size and greater sentiment, (like Hagrid from Harry Potter) being heartsick over one romance or another, and affected by the general Russian aristocratic angst, decides to wander into the thick of the battle of Borodino, where the French are trying to move forward to Moscow. Though a non-combatant, he finds himself drawn into the chaos:
"He had only just run into the earthworks, when a gaunt yellow man with a sweaty face, in a blue uniform, with a sword in his hand, came charging at him, shouting something. Pierre, instinctively defending himself against the shock, because they were running into each other without seeing it, put his hands out and seized the man (it was a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, letting go of his sword, seized Pierre by the collar.
"For a few seconds the two men looked with frightened eyes into their mutually alien faces, and both were perplexed about what they had done and what they were to do. “Am I taken prisoner, or have I taken him prisoner?” each of them thought. But evidently the French officer was more inclined to the thought that he had been taken prisoner, because Pierre’s strong hand, moved by involuntary fear, squeezed his throat more and more tightly. The Frenchman wanted to say something, but suddenly a cannonball came whistling, low and terrible, just over their heads, and Pierre fancied that the French officer’s head had been torn off, he ducked so quickly.
Pierre also ducked his head and released his grip. No longer thinking who had captured whom, the Frenchman ran back to the battery, and Pierre ran down the hill, stumbling over the dead and wounded, who, it seemed to him, tried to catch him by the legs."
This is almost slapstick comedy although frighteningly beautiful in its brevity and concise imagery. Pierre now arrives at the spot where he had visited and joked with soldiers a few minutes before.
"Crowds of wounded, familiar and unfamiliar to Pierre, Russian and French, with faces disfigured by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers from the barrow where he had spent more than an hour, and of the family circle which had taken him to itself, he found not a single one. There were many dead who he did not know. But some he recognized. The young little officer sat in the same curled up way, by the edge of the rampart, in a pool of blood. The red-mugged soldier was still twitching, but they did not take him away.
Pierre ran down.
“No, now they’ll stop it, now they’ll be horrified at what they’ve done!”
. . . the roar of the gunfire, musketry, and cannonades not only did not abate, but intensified to the point of despair, like a straining man crying out with his last strength."
Pierre Bezúkov, a bear of an aristocrat of great size and greater sentiment, (like Hagrid from Harry Potter) being heartsick over one romance or another, and affected by the general Russian aristocratic angst, decides to wander into the thick of the battle of Borodino, where the French are trying to move forward to Moscow. Though a non-combatant, he finds himself drawn into the chaos:
"He had only just run into the earthworks, when a gaunt yellow man with a sweaty face, in a blue uniform, with a sword in his hand, came charging at him, shouting something. Pierre, instinctively defending himself against the shock, because they were running into each other without seeing it, put his hands out and seized the man (it was a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, letting go of his sword, seized Pierre by the collar.
"For a few seconds the two men looked with frightened eyes into their mutually alien faces, and both were perplexed about what they had done and what they were to do. “Am I taken prisoner, or have I taken him prisoner?” each of them thought. But evidently the French officer was more inclined to the thought that he had been taken prisoner, because Pierre’s strong hand, moved by involuntary fear, squeezed his throat more and more tightly. The Frenchman wanted to say something, but suddenly a cannonball came whistling, low and terrible, just over their heads, and Pierre fancied that the French officer’s head had been torn off, he ducked so quickly.
Pierre also ducked his head and released his grip. No longer thinking who had captured whom, the Frenchman ran back to the battery, and Pierre ran down the hill, stumbling over the dead and wounded, who, it seemed to him, tried to catch him by the legs."
This is almost slapstick comedy although frighteningly beautiful in its brevity and concise imagery. Pierre now arrives at the spot where he had visited and joked with soldiers a few minutes before.
"Crowds of wounded, familiar and unfamiliar to Pierre, Russian and French, with faces disfigured by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers from the barrow where he had spent more than an hour, and of the family circle which had taken him to itself, he found not a single one. There were many dead who he did not know. But some he recognized. The young little officer sat in the same curled up way, by the edge of the rampart, in a pool of blood. The red-mugged soldier was still twitching, but they did not take him away.
Pierre ran down.
“No, now they’ll stop it, now they’ll be horrified at what they’ve done!”
. . . the roar of the gunfire, musketry, and cannonades not only did not abate, but intensified to the point of despair, like a straining man crying out with his last strength."
June 7, 2016
Westercon69
We will be at Westercon69 combined with Steam Punk Gearcon in Portland Oregon July 1-4. Look for us spectatoring and contact me to hob nob, ask questions get bonus material. ss@stevenschneiderlaw.com
April 26, 2016
Shakespeare sez 25% off on my books
25% off all Print Books and 5% off eBooks
Enter code SHAKE25 at checkout and save 25% on all print books, and 5% on eBooks. This offer ends Tuesday, April 26th at midnight. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer is applicable to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers nor be applied to previous purchases.
Shop today and save, forsooth!
Your friends at Lulu.com
Enter code SHAKE25 at checkout and save 25% on all print books, and 5% on eBooks. This offer ends Tuesday, April 26th at midnight. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer is applicable to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers nor be applied to previous purchases.
Shop today and save, forsooth!
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April 20, 2016
Free Shipping and 20% off my books at Lulu
Happy April 20th (4/20)!
Before chilling with friends this afternoon, take advantage of today's combo sale. With discounts this high, you can get your books and a few extra slices of pizza.
Enter code 420SAVINGS at checkout and get 20% off the price of your books PLUS free US Mail shipping. This offer expires April 20th at midnight so don't delay. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer applies to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers and cannot be applied to previous purchases. Destination and weight restrictions apply.
Your Buds at Lulu.com
Before chilling with friends this afternoon, take advantage of today's combo sale. With discounts this high, you can get your books and a few extra slices of pizza.
Enter code 420SAVINGS at checkout and get 20% off the price of your books PLUS free US Mail shipping. This offer expires April 20th at midnight so don't delay. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer applies to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers and cannot be applied to previous purchases. Destination and weight restrictions apply.
Your Buds at Lulu.com
April 15, 2016
25% off my books
Lulu has my books on sale 25% off
It's Universal Culture Day and we are celebrating with savings for everyone. Today only, select a few culturally relevant books or even a few uncultured books and save.
Enter code UNIVERSE25 at checkout and save 25% on all print books. This offer ends Friday, April 15th at midnight. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer is applicable to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers nor be applied to previous purchases.
Shop today for universal savings.
Your friends at Lulu.com
It's Universal Culture Day and we are celebrating with savings for everyone. Today only, select a few culturally relevant books or even a few uncultured books and save.
Enter code UNIVERSE25 at checkout and save 25% on all print books. This offer ends Friday, April 15th at midnight. Remember, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
The fine print: This offer is applicable to listed products only. It cannot be combined with other offers nor be applied to previous purchases.
Shop today for universal savings.
Your friends at Lulu.com
April 12, 2016
Two Asteroid Miners Walk into a Bar
Edited from Sweet Charlotte in the Higgs Field for entry in Quantum Shorts 1000 word fiction contest,
On a large asteroid the long axis is hollowed out first and the asteroid is set rotating on that axis with strategically placed ion boosters. Once the spin is started, normal gravity can be approximated on the interior surface. As mining progresses, care is taken to excavate along the axis so that an evenly proportioned cylinder is created with habitation, agriculture, even atmosphere, hugging the interior wall as a result of the induced spin. Over time, the result is an actual community growing out of the hard scrabble; civic pride, chambers of commerce, schools and churches, the whole nine yards.
On Vesta however, the still scrappy boomtown atmosphere lends itself more to saloons and brothels, but not without redeeming intellectual discourse. At least the bars have real waitresses, not like those cyborg fembots on asteroids that have numbers instead of names; high class joints.
Doc and Digger sit at a table in a cramped dorm district bar optimistically named Vesta’s Virgins, downing shots of vodka and playing high stakes Russian Go Fish.
Digger says, “What were we talking about, before the fembots?”
Doc says, “Wait, у вас тройки? Got any threes?”
“Ha! на рыбалкy! Go fish!” Digger gathers in the credit chits piled between them with a laugh, like he’s embracing a litter of kittens. “Come to Papa. Ochen Khorosho Baybee! Speciba, sucker!”
They upend two shot glasses of vodka and slam them down empty as a waitress in a toga brings four more. Her youth and the low gravity put a definite bounce in her step. She has her hair up in some faux Grecian goddess do, curling wisps framing her neck and ears and leading the eye down her collar bone, a Platonic form of a girl just cresting the first peak of womanhood, a nice girl.
Doc says, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?”
“Holding my breath around you dump rats,” She says as she puts down the shots.
Doc smiles. “You’re a tease, I like that but I’m busy. Flirt with me later.” She spins around and heads up to the mezzanine to refill another customer’s drink. She shoots back over her shoulder, “A-roids!”
Digger says, “Hey, we’re engineers! We got scientific degrees coming out our ears.”
“Out your rears!” A profane goddess.
Digger tries for the last word. “Well, don’t stick your nose up at me baby! I went to mining college!
Doc waves her off. “Where was I? Time travel. It was time travel.”
The waitress sets down the drink at the mezzanine booth and says to the customer, “Don’t let that impress ya’ honey, that’s just their regular shtick. They wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t yell at them. They’re harmless.”
“What’s their story?”
The waitress says, “Oh, they’re engineers all right, playing at the wild west, having the time of their lives out here. They’re just sweet nerds, actually”
Doc puts down the deck. “All travel, two, three or four dimensional, is just a path through the four axes of space time. It takes four coordinates to describe that path. So, a line on a paper still has four dimensions but two of them are set to zero. Describing where I am spatially just means setting the time axis at zero.”
Digger says, “So since we live in four dimensions, we can’t experience time travel unless a fifth coordinate can be moved off zero.”
Doc says, “Just like we break a hypothetical two dimensional flat earth by flying. But, other effects have been created that mimic natural forces, acceleration mimics gravity; like spinning Vesta or spinning a magnet to create electricity.
Digger says, “So, we could build something that mimics a fifth dimensional operator acting from outside of four dimensional space time.”
“Exactly!”
“And how is that done?” Digger asks.
They down another shot. Slam. Slam. “With a spinning supermassive black hole, of course; like in the center of galaxies. It drags space time along with it like a cylinder spinning in water makes a whirlpool. Theoretically, it is possible to enter the space time whirlpool around a supermassive black hole and then exit. The speed and angle of entry and exit then determines whether you traveled into the past or the future. Mathematically, it’s a precise way to move along that 5th axis, in and out of present moments on the 4th axis.”
Digger says, “Like Superman flying around the earth fast enough to spin it forward or backward in time.”
“It’s not speed that does it, it’s mass,” says Doc.
“So, the Earth would have to be supermassive?”
“Forget Superman; you need an infinitely long spinning cylinder.”
Digger rolls his eyes. “So what’s not impossible about that?”
Doc says, “Infinity is just a word for a concept. It’s not real. Just redefine the term and do the math. Create a mathematical model of a ‘cylinder’ that can warp space time.”
“Ok, and just assume it’s infinite?” Digger asks.
“Yes, we can’t do anything with all of infinity anyway, only our little section, just like the trillionth digit of pi is useless. We don’t need it to calculate the circumference of this table. Don’t even bother looking for it. If that were possible we would not be limited to time travel, because, time travel is just one path through space time. So now, if we have our universe in front of us, and a way to move from outside the 4th axis, then we can go anywhere, to any physical or temporal coordinate in space time.”
“Problem solved,” says Digger.
Doc waves a credit chit at the table reader to pay the bill and adds a big tip for the goddess. “Da sveedanya Baybee!”
She blows a kiss from the bar. “Bye, bye, sweetheart; be careful out there, you might run into some real miners. Come back in one piece.”
Digger says, “I think she likes you Doc.”
“Khorosho, Baybee!”
On a large asteroid the long axis is hollowed out first and the asteroid is set rotating on that axis with strategically placed ion boosters. Once the spin is started, normal gravity can be approximated on the interior surface. As mining progresses, care is taken to excavate along the axis so that an evenly proportioned cylinder is created with habitation, agriculture, even atmosphere, hugging the interior wall as a result of the induced spin. Over time, the result is an actual community growing out of the hard scrabble; civic pride, chambers of commerce, schools and churches, the whole nine yards.
On Vesta however, the still scrappy boomtown atmosphere lends itself more to saloons and brothels, but not without redeeming intellectual discourse. At least the bars have real waitresses, not like those cyborg fembots on asteroids that have numbers instead of names; high class joints.
Doc and Digger sit at a table in a cramped dorm district bar optimistically named Vesta’s Virgins, downing shots of vodka and playing high stakes Russian Go Fish.
Digger says, “What were we talking about, before the fembots?”
Doc says, “Wait, у вас тройки? Got any threes?”
“Ha! на рыбалкy! Go fish!” Digger gathers in the credit chits piled between them with a laugh, like he’s embracing a litter of kittens. “Come to Papa. Ochen Khorosho Baybee! Speciba, sucker!”
They upend two shot glasses of vodka and slam them down empty as a waitress in a toga brings four more. Her youth and the low gravity put a definite bounce in her step. She has her hair up in some faux Grecian goddess do, curling wisps framing her neck and ears and leading the eye down her collar bone, a Platonic form of a girl just cresting the first peak of womanhood, a nice girl.
Doc says, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?”
“Holding my breath around you dump rats,” She says as she puts down the shots.
Doc smiles. “You’re a tease, I like that but I’m busy. Flirt with me later.” She spins around and heads up to the mezzanine to refill another customer’s drink. She shoots back over her shoulder, “A-roids!”
Digger says, “Hey, we’re engineers! We got scientific degrees coming out our ears.”
“Out your rears!” A profane goddess.
Digger tries for the last word. “Well, don’t stick your nose up at me baby! I went to mining college!
Doc waves her off. “Where was I? Time travel. It was time travel.”
The waitress sets down the drink at the mezzanine booth and says to the customer, “Don’t let that impress ya’ honey, that’s just their regular shtick. They wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t yell at them. They’re harmless.”
“What’s their story?”
The waitress says, “Oh, they’re engineers all right, playing at the wild west, having the time of their lives out here. They’re just sweet nerds, actually”
Doc puts down the deck. “All travel, two, three or four dimensional, is just a path through the four axes of space time. It takes four coordinates to describe that path. So, a line on a paper still has four dimensions but two of them are set to zero. Describing where I am spatially just means setting the time axis at zero.”
Digger says, “So since we live in four dimensions, we can’t experience time travel unless a fifth coordinate can be moved off zero.”
Doc says, “Just like we break a hypothetical two dimensional flat earth by flying. But, other effects have been created that mimic natural forces, acceleration mimics gravity; like spinning Vesta or spinning a magnet to create electricity.
Digger says, “So, we could build something that mimics a fifth dimensional operator acting from outside of four dimensional space time.”
“Exactly!”
“And how is that done?” Digger asks.
They down another shot. Slam. Slam. “With a spinning supermassive black hole, of course; like in the center of galaxies. It drags space time along with it like a cylinder spinning in water makes a whirlpool. Theoretically, it is possible to enter the space time whirlpool around a supermassive black hole and then exit. The speed and angle of entry and exit then determines whether you traveled into the past or the future. Mathematically, it’s a precise way to move along that 5th axis, in and out of present moments on the 4th axis.”
Digger says, “Like Superman flying around the earth fast enough to spin it forward or backward in time.”
“It’s not speed that does it, it’s mass,” says Doc.
“So, the Earth would have to be supermassive?”
“Forget Superman; you need an infinitely long spinning cylinder.”
Digger rolls his eyes. “So what’s not impossible about that?”
Doc says, “Infinity is just a word for a concept. It’s not real. Just redefine the term and do the math. Create a mathematical model of a ‘cylinder’ that can warp space time.”
“Ok, and just assume it’s infinite?” Digger asks.
“Yes, we can’t do anything with all of infinity anyway, only our little section, just like the trillionth digit of pi is useless. We don’t need it to calculate the circumference of this table. Don’t even bother looking for it. If that were possible we would not be limited to time travel, because, time travel is just one path through space time. So now, if we have our universe in front of us, and a way to move from outside the 4th axis, then we can go anywhere, to any physical or temporal coordinate in space time.”
“Problem solved,” says Digger.
Doc waves a credit chit at the table reader to pay the bill and adds a big tip for the goddess. “Da sveedanya Baybee!”
She blows a kiss from the bar. “Bye, bye, sweetheart; be careful out there, you might run into some real miners. Come back in one piece.”
Digger says, “I think she likes you Doc.”
“Khorosho, Baybee!”
April 7, 2016
Sweet Charlotte in the Higgs Field
Here's an early version of the story submitted to Quantum Shorts competition for 1,000 word fiction about particle physics:
SWEET CHARLOTTE IN THE HIGGS FIELD
Her name was Charlotte. In high school she looked like Audrey Hepburn. She was alive then, then dead, then a potentiality of the Higgs Field. In the future, in a moment of despair, he put out his hand and the probability of her existence became very high. Observing through closed eyes, in the corner of his peripheral vision she appeared, took his hand and turned to face him. "It's ok" she said "I still love you."
He had a theory about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. Tongue in cheek, he explained: "If I can't be certain about the location of any one particle in the universe, then there's no reason why my brain cells should be confined to my skull." A mind comprising physical states of individual neurons is therefore, also not confined. This explains why he wakes up right before the alarm goes off; his wandering mind checks the clock. ESP and the soul then both consist of the realized potential for all the particles of his macro brain to be coherent anywhere at any time. A joke with a germ of truth. Among all possible universes, this must be true.
In 2012 he learns that Charlotte died in 1997 at the age of 41. Then, in Jungian therapy, guided imagery, she appeared to him unbidden, the Sun’s messenger, clothed in the robes of a Renaissance angel. Among archetypes however, she misbehaved. She appeared in her overalls, sat on the kitchen counter, ate cereal from the box, laughed and talked with her mouth full. He began to think she had arrived from outside, that she was real.
He asks: Are you an angel?
What’s the definition?
A bodiless spirit with work to do.
Ok then, I’m an angel.
What is your work?
To tell you that here, on this side, it’s not that complicated. I spent so much time reading theology and trying to get a glimpse of God, so much concentration, so many words, but it’s more like slipping into a warm bath. I wanted you to know.
He says: I don’t want to take up all your time, though.
She laughs: Eternity is all moments at once, omnipresence is easy. I’m infinitely dispersed. All I have to do is be.
Like when Allah made Adam, he just said “Be!”
Exactly, and I am closer than your jugular vein, like it says in the Qur’an.
And did you find your Encounter with your Maker?
Not exactly.
He knows now that particles arise out of "nothing", the field of potentialities. It is the ether between and within all things. The Deep of Genesis is Tahom in Hebrew, linked linguistically to Tiamat, the Babylonian mother goddess out of which all the other gods were born. The Babylonian captivity informs Genesis with a word literally pregnant with potential, the Deep. Potential, the prime mover, precedes the Creator. The Rig Veda asks: Who made creation? Maybe the Supreme Being knows, maybe he does not know.
Gradually, he begins to understand, she hasn’t met her Maker, any Maker. She has found the Deep. Does Charlotte sail the Ether Deep, the new Quintessence? Does she feel the neutrino wind, deriving her mass and force from the medium that buoys her in the middle realm like a diver without need of breath? Is she without entropy, infinitely timeless and eternal? Among all possible universes, this must be true.
On the actual, realized beach, in the heat and light, he closes his eyes, turns his head to see her at his side and offers his hand:
Charlotte says: Why would He create the universe, anyway, just to watch it?
No: he answers.
Because He’s lonely?
That doesn’t sound like God.
To experience oneness with a created being?
Too needy.
To learn from an uncreated being?
That would make human Encounter impermissibly necessary for God.
She asks: What can we tell from our senses?
He says: That we don’t normally perceive God.
Right, so what do we do?
We pray to induce that perception.
Before that, something happened to us that we did not control, something from outside of us that we did perceive.
A theophany, the perception that throws us to the ground, like Paul and Mohammed?
Yes. So, is a Creator required for us to have that experience?
No, only suddenly the unseen seen, the unheard heard.
She continues: Creation is too messy and awkward to insist that it was created.
He agrees: True, maybe it was inferred, like dark matter.
Maybe something became aware of this dark matter and wanted to know it.
So, if we are not created, but yet are creatures, what are we?
She said: I think we were found.
Dark energy, dark matter, these are speeding through us here and now, but unseen. Perhaps we are God’s dark matter, unseen, occupying the space of God’s coffee table, a constant required by an equation, a theory descending from His blackboard, the subject of His Nobel Prize, regarding which He intones in Sunday morning interviews, for a news cycle or two. He says thirty per cent of the matter in our Universe, we do not see, do not interact with and yet it is right here, closer than your jugular vein.
As He dreams of book tours, Charlotte nods in silence and believes she knows the truth of the semantics of love and grace and pushes off from the shore of life to meet her Maker, Himself seeking only tenure and perhaps Encounter with a grad student whose equations have so far evaded His solution.
In the World, scientists under mountains still forge golden rings of power. Tristans projecting their anima on the stainless ISOLDE, they search for Charlotte in the Large Hadron Collider. She smiles and says to the first boy that worshipped her as a goddess, and to the equidistant fallen God of Abraham: “I still love you.” Both lovers close their eyes and promise to wait for her, in the Deep. Among all possible universes, this must be true.
SWEET CHARLOTTE IN THE HIGGS FIELD
Her name was Charlotte. In high school she looked like Audrey Hepburn. She was alive then, then dead, then a potentiality of the Higgs Field. In the future, in a moment of despair, he put out his hand and the probability of her existence became very high. Observing through closed eyes, in the corner of his peripheral vision she appeared, took his hand and turned to face him. "It's ok" she said "I still love you."
He had a theory about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal. Tongue in cheek, he explained: "If I can't be certain about the location of any one particle in the universe, then there's no reason why my brain cells should be confined to my skull." A mind comprising physical states of individual neurons is therefore, also not confined. This explains why he wakes up right before the alarm goes off; his wandering mind checks the clock. ESP and the soul then both consist of the realized potential for all the particles of his macro brain to be coherent anywhere at any time. A joke with a germ of truth. Among all possible universes, this must be true.
In 2012 he learns that Charlotte died in 1997 at the age of 41. Then, in Jungian therapy, guided imagery, she appeared to him unbidden, the Sun’s messenger, clothed in the robes of a Renaissance angel. Among archetypes however, she misbehaved. She appeared in her overalls, sat on the kitchen counter, ate cereal from the box, laughed and talked with her mouth full. He began to think she had arrived from outside, that she was real.
He asks: Are you an angel?
What’s the definition?
A bodiless spirit with work to do.
Ok then, I’m an angel.
What is your work?
To tell you that here, on this side, it’s not that complicated. I spent so much time reading theology and trying to get a glimpse of God, so much concentration, so many words, but it’s more like slipping into a warm bath. I wanted you to know.
He says: I don’t want to take up all your time, though.
She laughs: Eternity is all moments at once, omnipresence is easy. I’m infinitely dispersed. All I have to do is be.
Like when Allah made Adam, he just said “Be!”
Exactly, and I am closer than your jugular vein, like it says in the Qur’an.
And did you find your Encounter with your Maker?
Not exactly.
He knows now that particles arise out of "nothing", the field of potentialities. It is the ether between and within all things. The Deep of Genesis is Tahom in Hebrew, linked linguistically to Tiamat, the Babylonian mother goddess out of which all the other gods were born. The Babylonian captivity informs Genesis with a word literally pregnant with potential, the Deep. Potential, the prime mover, precedes the Creator. The Rig Veda asks: Who made creation? Maybe the Supreme Being knows, maybe he does not know.
Gradually, he begins to understand, she hasn’t met her Maker, any Maker. She has found the Deep. Does Charlotte sail the Ether Deep, the new Quintessence? Does she feel the neutrino wind, deriving her mass and force from the medium that buoys her in the middle realm like a diver without need of breath? Is she without entropy, infinitely timeless and eternal? Among all possible universes, this must be true.
On the actual, realized beach, in the heat and light, he closes his eyes, turns his head to see her at his side and offers his hand:
Charlotte says: Why would He create the universe, anyway, just to watch it?
No: he answers.
Because He’s lonely?
That doesn’t sound like God.
To experience oneness with a created being?
Too needy.
To learn from an uncreated being?
That would make human Encounter impermissibly necessary for God.
She asks: What can we tell from our senses?
He says: That we don’t normally perceive God.
Right, so what do we do?
We pray to induce that perception.
Before that, something happened to us that we did not control, something from outside of us that we did perceive.
A theophany, the perception that throws us to the ground, like Paul and Mohammed?
Yes. So, is a Creator required for us to have that experience?
No, only suddenly the unseen seen, the unheard heard.
She continues: Creation is too messy and awkward to insist that it was created.
He agrees: True, maybe it was inferred, like dark matter.
Maybe something became aware of this dark matter and wanted to know it.
So, if we are not created, but yet are creatures, what are we?
She said: I think we were found.
Dark energy, dark matter, these are speeding through us here and now, but unseen. Perhaps we are God’s dark matter, unseen, occupying the space of God’s coffee table, a constant required by an equation, a theory descending from His blackboard, the subject of His Nobel Prize, regarding which He intones in Sunday morning interviews, for a news cycle or two. He says thirty per cent of the matter in our Universe, we do not see, do not interact with and yet it is right here, closer than your jugular vein.
As He dreams of book tours, Charlotte nods in silence and believes she knows the truth of the semantics of love and grace and pushes off from the shore of life to meet her Maker, Himself seeking only tenure and perhaps Encounter with a grad student whose equations have so far evaded His solution.
In the World, scientists under mountains still forge golden rings of power. Tristans projecting their anima on the stainless ISOLDE, they search for Charlotte in the Large Hadron Collider. She smiles and says to the first boy that worshipped her as a goddess, and to the equidistant fallen God of Abraham: “I still love you.” Both lovers close their eyes and promise to wait for her, in the Deep. Among all possible universes, this must be true.
April 1, 2016
Solar Powered Books
Had me fooled for a minute, but not far from the truth.
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Today only, enter code APRSHIP at checkout and get free mail shipping (weight restrictions apply) or 50% off Ground shipping on all solar powered books. Offer expires Friday, April 1st at 11:59 PM. Don't forget, coupon codes are CASE-SENSITIVE.
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Be the first of your friends to own a piece of the future.
Order today.
Your friends at Lulu.com
March 30, 2016
Quantum Haiku
The annual Quantum Shorts flash fiction contest is administered by Scientific American, Tor Books and the University of Singapore.
This year they added a Quantum Haiku contest. Here's my entries:
Uncertainty ends
With one observer in love
Now she spins with me
Something from nothing
Like waves reflecting islands
Universe unfolds
This year they added a Quantum Haiku contest. Here's my entries:
Uncertainty ends
With one observer in love
Now she spins with me
Something from nothing
Like waves reflecting islands
Universe unfolds
The Unreadable Book Blog
Obviously tongue in cheek, the Unreadable Book Club began with the observation that there are a number of books that most people know by reputation but probably haven’t read unless forced to in some h
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