The concept of this one was hilarious (made me laugh out loud), and then just kept getting better as you corkscrewed the joke. I particularly liked the exuberant descriptions of the protestors. It was nice to see more solid detail, some fleshed-out scenes that anchored the ideas in a comic reality.
Oh! A favourite. I like the speculative auto-fiction direction of your recent writings so much. In this case I didn’t suspect the result of being transported to SK to apologize could possibly have had so delightful an effect. Made me smile on a dim morning.
I must say the ending of this one fooled me. I was expecting a "lesson" about how in our social media age, apologizing is tantamount to admitting guilt, and that you were going to keep your nerve and defy everyone. But perhaps the lesson is, no one can defy the mob forever, it's too draining, and if you do, you end up alone at the top of a stylus with an asteroid heading your way. Must be pretty lonely up there. Better to rejoin the mass, however messed up it is.
I live in Prince Albert, so maybe they’d grant a flight to our humble airport, and then a nearly 500km multi black Tahoe convoy to Moose Jaw might be feasible. Landing in Regina? That seems to be a little too far for credulity. 🤣 (Also, Regina’s recent cringe inducing promotional effort suggests that most asteroids would steer well clear of anything close to Regina. 😉)
As I live in Saskatchewan, and you no doubt know, this story could not have possible happened as the idea of “flying to Regina directly” is so absurd as to render the rest of the story moot. Regina and Saskatoon are “international” airports only in name. No sane airline flies directly to these airports anymore and the idea that a cosmic, micro-plastic eating microbe bearing asteroid landing here is, well beyond the stretch of credibility. 😀 Thank you for your “absurd” story.
Thanks! I thought about that, but look, I'm sure in extremis the French government could get clearance from Transport Canada for a direct flight from Paris to Regina!
Thanks. Keep in mind this is a work of fiction, even if it does strive to “kiss reality lovingly” (Whitman). So you shouldn't take anything that happens in it as true, even if it *appears* to have external confirmation. However, my honest recollection is that Elst was the president of a Belgium-based D'Holbach Studies Society (or something similarly named), and he had read something I'd written that at least mentioned D'Holbach, but was not specifically a work of D'Holbach scholarship. I think it was something on Leibniz and Diderot. This, maybe: https://books.openedition.org/pum/2188
IN A WORLD on the brink of destruction...
ONE MAN stands between hope and extinction...
FORCED TO DEFEND his honor and d’Holback...
RACING AGAINST TIME and probability, from banlieu to tundra...
DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN and starring Justin Smith-Ruiu as Justin Smith
IN WHAT CRITICS ARE CALLING a “tour-de-France [sic] by one of the Force’s most compelling voices”...
THE MOOSE JAW EVENT
lmao! Seriously, though, I honestly don't think The MJE is any more preposterous a story than TENET.
The concept of this one was hilarious (made me laugh out loud), and then just kept getting better as you corkscrewed the joke. I particularly liked the exuberant descriptions of the protestors. It was nice to see more solid detail, some fleshed-out scenes that anchored the ideas in a comic reality.
Oh! A favourite. I like the speculative auto-fiction direction of your recent writings so much. In this case I didn’t suspect the result of being transported to SK to apologize could possibly have had so delightful an effect. Made me smile on a dim morning.
I must say the ending of this one fooled me. I was expecting a "lesson" about how in our social media age, apologizing is tantamount to admitting guilt, and that you were going to keep your nerve and defy everyone. But perhaps the lesson is, no one can defy the mob forever, it's too draining, and if you do, you end up alone at the top of a stylus with an asteroid heading your way. Must be pretty lonely up there. Better to rejoin the mass, however messed up it is.
I live in Prince Albert, so maybe they’d grant a flight to our humble airport, and then a nearly 500km multi black Tahoe convoy to Moose Jaw might be feasible. Landing in Regina? That seems to be a little too far for credulity. 🤣 (Also, Regina’s recent cringe inducing promotional effort suggests that most asteroids would steer well clear of anything close to Regina. 😉)
As I live in Saskatchewan, and you no doubt know, this story could not have possible happened as the idea of “flying to Regina directly” is so absurd as to render the rest of the story moot. Regina and Saskatoon are “international” airports only in name. No sane airline flies directly to these airports anymore and the idea that a cosmic, micro-plastic eating microbe bearing asteroid landing here is, well beyond the stretch of credibility. 😀 Thank you for your “absurd” story.
Thanks! I thought about that, but look, I'm sure in extremis the French government could get clearance from Transport Canada for a direct flight from Paris to Regina!
channelling kafka. nice buildup. where can i find your writing on d'holbach?
Thanks. Keep in mind this is a work of fiction, even if it does strive to “kiss reality lovingly” (Whitman). So you shouldn't take anything that happens in it as true, even if it *appears* to have external confirmation. However, my honest recollection is that Elst was the president of a Belgium-based D'Holbach Studies Society (or something similarly named), and he had read something I'd written that at least mentioned D'Holbach, but was not specifically a work of D'Holbach scholarship. I think it was something on Leibniz and Diderot. This, maybe: https://books.openedition.org/pum/2188
We need celebrity human shields on both sides of every conflict, to stop the wars!