Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 114

In your FACE, Proust!

Though I'm not sure this cartoon has the elegance of the madeleine episode from The Remembrance of Lost Time (the first volume of which I've actually read), this cartoon wins on brevity. If you want to save yourself several weeks of reading, and need to know about this reference, you can find the text for the madeleine episode here, or even better, you can read my own memory of how this passage goes, as follows:

"No

sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. I had developed superpowers. I could fly, and turn invisible, invisible, not only in the metaphorical sense, in the way that I was non-existent to the crowds of French wankers surrounding me because I was their social inferior, but actually unable to register to their visual senses, no matter their level of acuity! My brain was pulsing with incipient powers that raised in me several anxieties; would I be able to rip the bodice off the dancing girl who had so recently slighted me because of my deeply introverted and overly sensitive, many would say almost womanly nature, with my new found and burgeoning telekinesis? Would she object to my transparent advances, or succumb to my new super-strength, virility, nay, almost god-like extroversion and clear superiority? In any case, revenge would be mine!"

Alltop only eats Twinkies.

Vintage Ads & Other Microfictions

Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures

The Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures contest is now closed to entries — I'll announce the five finalists later tomorrow, and then you can all vote on your fave. Why so long to announce the shortlist? Well, I think everyone should have a chance to revel in the collective genius and creativity of the whole gallery, which can be found here.

Microfictions

One of the longest-running carnivals on the web, the Storyblogging Carnival, has a new edition up at Diva for Geeks.

Virtual reality goes mythological in , at Name Your Tale. You may also want to check out a continuing series here on The Skwib, A Brief History of Unicorns. Part one: Getting Biblical. Part two: Vedic Culinary Prescriptions. Part three: The Golden Age of Unicorns.

And Defenestration – A Literary Humor Magazine – has lots of good stuff on offer. Their last issue is here, and a recent effort of mine is here.

Linking to Alltop every post is a bit of an effort too.

The six essentials every writer must have

According to the semi-famous writer, fake expert and shiller of Mac products, John Hodgman — not to be confused with John Hodgeman, inventor of alligator pants — there are six essentials that "every writer must have at his command."

empathy
the willingness to endure solitude
the belief the world cares about what you have to say
the ability to describe facial hair accurately
a large desk in a quiet room in which to chase your demons (preferably a circular room, so that the demons have no place to hide)
special stationary with pictures of typewriters and/or quills on top
and if you have purchased the audiobook version of his complete world knowledge, then you will know writers also require their own theme song.

John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise

Far be it for me to quibble with a writer of his vaunted semi-fame and success. (I hear he has his own high-speed zeppelin, and everything.)

As I have neither a zeppelin, nor a theme song, you may feel it presumptuous on my part to try and correct him in any way, but I feel he is wrong on two counts. In most respects, this is an excellent list, and though I desire a theme song, the lack of one has yet to prevent me from writing. When I have reached his level of success, I assume that a theme song will happen to me, as a matter of course.

On the subject of hackneyed stationary, complete with an image of a quill, typewriter, or any other kind of writing device (I hear J. D. Salinger had a chisel and mallet on his letterhead), this is completely absurd. We're living in a digital age. Nowadays, writers should have a website with an image of a quill, or typewriter. (Monkeys will do, but only if a significant portion of your writing is humorous in intent, if not actual fact.)

Hodgman's list is woefully inaccurate regarding the important subject of silly hats. This is de rigueur for every writer who has any aspiration of ever being successful. I suspect he left it off his list because of his extraordinarily large cranial circumference, which makes it difficult to fit a silly hat of any kind.

Though if he is still looking for one, I believe he would do well with a fez, or perhaps a bellhop hat. (Both can be perched easily on the swollen melon of a giant-headed writer.)

I would also add that the ability to count is irrelevant.

And yes, the gent pictured above is sporting a spectacular Partial Napoleon III Imperial, with Faux Friendly Chops (using the Dreickland swoop, of course). I knew you'd get it.

Alltop is still working on stubble. John Hodgman's site is here, and you will note: no images of typewriters. You can find a helpful Beard Type Chart here, and historical background on beards at the ubiquitous wiki link. And my apologies to all pogonophobiacs for this beard-filled post.

Re-Tweet, THEN Read

I sometimes wonder about this.

I will admit to only reading the first three or four paragraphs before re-tweeting, but some people don't seem to read any of an article before recommending it.

You can follow me here, by the way.

Alltop doesn't follow back.

An outraged diner emails the In-Vitro Café

From: wally42@yaboo.com

To: owner@invitrocafe.com

Subject: Suing your restaurant

————————————————

Dear Proprietor,

My wife and I managed to get a table at the grand opening of your establishment last night, and we regret our effort.

We are both conscientious eaters, so the idea of dining on in-vitro meat that was grown in a lab appealed to us. We believe that no creature should be slaughtered for our own pleasure, so we have not eaten meat for years. In short, we were thrilled to hear about your new enterprise and we wanted to support it. Even the high price tag, and "mysterious" nature of your menu could not put us off.

We were not even dissuaded by having to sign a non-disclosure agreement before dining.

You can find the rest of the story at Defenestration — Literary Humor …>

Still time to enter the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures contest

There have been lots more great entries — I've got a sample below. You have until midnight on October 4th (that's Monday) to get your entries in. Details on the contest and the full gallery can be found at the Vintage Ads of Fictional Futures page.

Title: Enjoy Slurm
Based on: Futurama


Title: Gonzo
Based on: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas






Title: The Exciting New Soylent Green Bar
Based on: Solyent Green


Title: RealCrave: the small difference between mecha and glamour girl
Based on: AI


Alltop is already vintage.

Ask General Kang: I can't stop playing Civilization V. Can you help?

Hmm. Do you have access to an intergalactic armada and enough firepower to conquer another world? If so, then I think I can help you, but I'll need to borrow them first.

If not, then you're screwed.

Everybody knows that the strategy game of Civilization is basically electronic crack. My advice is to take it like a bipedal hominid! Just play until your eyes start to bleed. Try not to whine about it so much, as you lose your sight, feeling, and capacity to think in non-turn-based time. It distracts the rest of us from our games.

I'm building the Pyramids!

Next week: About that slimy alien creature that crawled into my ear a couple of months ago — do you think it could be taking over my … garble, garble … NEVER MIND.
Alltop is still excited about Monopoly. And yes, CIV 5 is every bit as addictive as previous versions. And it really is as addictive as other things.

Further evidence that Superman is the laziest superhero

Other weak efforts from the Man of Steel:

Uses his pajamas as his costume: basically, he wears what his mommy sent him to Earth in.Changes into his costume in phone booth: couldn't he use his super-speed to find a bathroom or something. Hell, he should be able to fly back to the Fortress of Solitude and back and still have time.Wears his costume UNDER his clothes: and if that wasn't bad enough, he wears the costume under his street clothes.His "disguise" is ridiculous — a pair of glasses and...

Want cyborg teddy!

Early efforts at creating a human-machine hybrid were unsuccessful.

The subject did not gain any of the benefits of cyborgism — extended lifespan, bone-crushing strength, heightened mental faculties — and in the process, the computer used to augment the human was compromised. (Thereafter all the programmers could do was get it to do was ask for its "ba-ba".)

Up side: misbehaving children were much easier to control. Down side, this strict control required a lax attitude towards explosive ...

The persistence of pop culture

This is a great cartoon by xkcd, and a reminder that much of what we consider history or classic art was once the popular culture of its day.

Totally gopher.

Alltop is marsupial too.