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Wells, H. G. (Herbert George, 1866-1946)

British author born in Bromley, Kent, who once taught at a Grammar School.

He went on to study biology and taught at the Universal Tutorial College while writing short stories on the side and dabbling in liberal-progressive politics and human rights issues.

The success of his short stories lead him to pursue a full-time writing career that produced over 100 books and articles.

Wells is regarded by many as the father of modern science fiction, a title also given to Jules Verne.

He is credited with authoring several classics, such as The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901), Men Like Gods (1923) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933).

Wells enjoyed immense popularity during his lifetime, although this began to diminish somewhat during his final years.

Concerning religion, in one letter he wrote

I can't - in my present state anyhow - bank on religion. God has no thighs and no life. When one calls to him in the silence of the night he doesn't turn over and say, 'What is the trouble, Dear?'

Source » http://www.libidomag.com/nakedbrunch/archive/sexbiowells.html

Wells, however, did seem to have a mystical side:

At times, in the lonely silence of the night and in rare, lonely moments, I come upon a sort of communion of myself with something great that is not myself.

Source » http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/103/2/45

Among many other successful comedic and dramatic works, he additionally wrote an impressive two-volume Outline of History (1920).

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I want to make an important side note here.  Illiterate is not a synonym for stupid.  Many people who can't read are simply dyslexic.  I think I'm fairly literate, and that skill has never helped me a bit in felling a tree.  Never eased digging, or made it more dignified.  If the definition of intelligence includes survivability the picture changes a lot, instantly.

So, at least glance at this.  The first news story I recall about declining foreign coverage that hit the States would have been about 1985 or so.  Fox was first showing up as a major contender and a lot of bureaus were pulling out and leaving Fox for coverage (while taking a lot of AP and UPI feeds).  What this also means is that in order to provide relevant news coverage we're going to have to get together.   I saw something recently that was talking about it, but the problem is going to be distribution, for one thing.

I also do have enough information from a long-past background to positively confirm that this is one of the tactics used in various situations by various authorities.  There have been some good examples, too.  By their nature they're hard to confirm to others.  The best tactic to use in a situation which could be interpreted negatively is to have something else attract a great deal of attention and by its nature elicit a lot of emotional involvement.  This is somewhat of a change from the days of The Art of War and whosis that worked for the prince in the Middle Ages that had the big nose.  The printing press by its nature weakened some of the supports for power.  For one thing, it enabled education.

The interesting part of the internet is that the (debatable) sort of literacy involved means a lot of instantly implied values and protocols that amount to a changed definition of reality.  There tended to actually be boundaries to reification, where "interaction" was actually one-way, a central broadcasting setup.  When it becomes two-way, and then the next step is taken where actual evolution can occur, there are some interesting consequences.  A lot of intelligence as currently defined simply means being able to find and to some extend understand information.

--Glenn

Couple that with my personal desire to give credit where credit is due when someone brings nifty information my way and you end up with a large bundle of frustration.

Not to mention that the new personal schedule has now kicked in and I will be awakening at 3:30 am to drive my wife to her car pool (my night owl internal clock insists that I can get by on two to four hours of sleep a night for at least two weeks); we may all have an opportunity to discover (yet again) why my Mother banished me from the breakfast table all those many years ago.

I'm going to try to remember to take notes.  Of course, the remembering part wouldn't be so hard to remember if I could remember what I was just talking about...

One thing I definitely want to write about is a bit of weirdness - but the last three times I've posted, I've forgotten what the weirdness was, so I'll have to skip that one for now.

I'm definitely going to have something to say about fanzine fandom, core fandom and the SMOF list, by way of commenting on the proposed change to the Hugo Awards voting rules.

I also want to mention a couple of blogs I've recently been exposed to, want to comment on Obama's impending nomination, do a little review of the documentary When We Left The Earth,mention a nifty interview over at TCSFC Radio Division and - I can't remember the other things.

So.  Fanzines.  One of my first pieces of fanac was fanzine writing, editing and publishing.  Among my first fannish friends were Big Name Fanzine Fans like Gary Farber, Linda Bushyager, Suzle Tompkins, Fred Haskell and the whole lot of folks that they exchanged letters and APAs with.  I hadn't noticed until recently, but the advent of the internet and programs like PDF have revitalized and extended the reach of these little personal magazines that used to be lovingly cut and hand typed onto mimeo stencils and then printed on twilltone (don't forget the slipsheets).  If you've never heard of a Gestetner, you owe it to yourself to take a trip back to pre-Xerox days.  You can take a look at some 'zines here and here: I'm sure there are other archives and collections as well.  There's some mighty fine writing in them thar zines.  Several sites have also been/will be added to the blogroll.

Core Fandom. Apparently used to describe the folks who really TRUfanly carry the traditions of fandom with them, direct descendants of Ackerman's Ackzample.  One of those things that if you are one, you know it and the other people who are one know it too.

As usual, fandom is not fandom without a feud or pseudo-feud.  Some Core Fans are now warring with WSFS, claiming the mantle of being the 'real' fandom and casting WSFS as the upstart insurgents, perverters of the propeller-beanie.  The argument seems to be that ONLY those fans involved with fanzine fandom can stake a claim on the mantle of trufandom.  Naturally, the trufans over at WSFS object to this besmirching of their honor.

And of course there are folks at WSFS who kinda-somewhat agree with the Core Fandom people and lots of fanzine fans who either kinda agree with the WSFS side or disagree with the Core Fandom side.

Makes me wish we could go back to arguing over whether we should be using SF or Sci Fi...

I subscribe to the SMOFs email list  (Secret Masters of Fandom), which is available by application, with said application being accepted if the current members agree that you belong on the list (seems like my con activities in the late 70s, early 80s is still remembered and was enough to qualify me).

The current topic of discussion is the proposed change to the definitions of membership types in WorldCon.  WorldCon (TM) is the administer of the Hugo Awards.  The only people eligible to vote for these awards are those who have a current membership in WSFS (World Science Fiction Society), which you get by purchasing a membership to a WorldCon.

There are currently two levels of membership - attending member and supporting member.  Both types are eligible to cast nominations and votes for Hugo Awards.

There are a number of issues that come up surrounding the awards and memberships;  one on-going one is the objection some have to buying a vote (you're not really, you're buying a membership that gives you rights and privileges, one of which is the right to cast ballots) and another is the paucity of participation.  Votes for particular awards are typically in the several hundreds - not the several thousands you'd expect for a literary genre that has its own category on Amazon.

Now there's a proposal to amend the membership types, the details of which are boring: Kevin Standlee has the proposal here if you are interested in the details.

The proposal has reignited the fire under Hugo voting issues:  big objections are again being raised to the possibility of special interests being able to 'rock the vote' (defined as a concentrated effort to purchase enough memberships to effectively guarantee a win for a particular property).  Fingers are being pointed at the people responsible for the Star Trek episode nominee this year.  Its fans are on a campaign and several SMOFs are objecting - not so much to what this particular group is doing but to the possible future dire consequences.

Here's my take:  first, the Hugos ought to be far more representative of fandom in general, not just the very small numbers who actually vote out of the relatively small number of fans who get memberships in WSFS.  (Full disclosure: I can rarely justify the expense of a WSFS membership myself: when I have been a member, I have voted.)

Hugos are respected and utilized by publishers and such for marketing purposes: Hugo winning books have new editions rushed into print, proudly displaying the win on their covers.

So you can't say they are a meaningless award, despite the small amount of participation.  But I believe that they would be MORE meaningful if, instead of winning on four or five hundred votes, a novel, story, artist, magazine or movie won with four or five THOUSAND votes.

In terms of marketing it just makes viral sense: rather than four hundred people telling their friends "I voted for the winner this year, check it out", you've got ten times that number saying the same thing.

Then there's the 'buy the vote' issue to consider.  As some have pointed out, future sales of a winning property may very well justify the expenditure of the ten to twenty thousand dollars necessary to buy a win.  We're still discussing the formula (the Hugo voting and nominating process is a complicated one and isn't subject to the simple solution of merely purchasing a majority of votes), but most of us agree that it is possible to do.

There are really only two solutions available to solve that potential problem.  First is to restrict voting with a set of complicated qualifying rules designed to prevent such from happening.  Possible and draconian - and still subject to manipulation.

The second solution is to make voting accessible to so many additional people that no single special interest group can possibly put together a large enough bloc to insure the success of their nefarious plans.  I'm not sure where the cut-off in terms of dollars is, but I'm very sure that if the total number of voters was in the ten to 50 thousand range, no one would bother to try.  And even if they did, their voice would only be one small one among many doing the same kind of thing and it could safely be ignored by those interested in maintaining the purity of the awards.

Arguments are made about the 'dilution' of the awards' significance, but again, I disagree.  In terms of common sense, the MORE people there are who vote for something, the GREATER the perception of importance.  I believe that opening the vote up will bring in more TRUFANS, who have not participated for one reason or another, than it will people who are only interested in one specific category of award.  And even if an initial opening up of the award does bring in hordes of pseudo-fans, guess what? Many, many many of them will quickly become TRUFANS, because by participating in the vote, they will necessarily become exposed to the much wider world of fandom that exists beyond their Star Trek, BSG, Firefly or other special interest doors.

Two final arguments: first, the economic one.  Let's suppose that WSFS makes a 'vote for the Hugos only' membership available for a nominal fee like, say, $10.  Will this reduce attendance at WorldCon?  Doubt. The people who purchase attending memberships in WSFS do so to attend the event and consider voting for the award as an additional benefit.  This ought to be made amply clear by the disparity between the total number of attending memberships and actual votes cast.  Those who purchase supporting memberships are either die-hard supporters of WSFS (good on you!) and do so regularly because they do so, or are folks who are hoping to attend but don't think they'll be able to for one reason or another.   Allowing people a 'vote only' membership (that's convertible for an additional fee to supporting or attending) becomes a marketing tool for the convention. 

Think about all the bloggers and website publishers who'll stick a mention of the Hugos on their scribblings.  More marketing.  Marketing that the customer is paying for the privilege of engaging in.

Not to mention the additional cash flow.  Its entirely possible that participation in such a program could being in enough additional cash that WSFS would be able to LOWER attending membership costs, which would obviously have a beneficial effect on actual attendance.

Last but not least:  opening up the vote is far more in keeping with the new electronic community/economy.  The basic concept seems to be to allow as many people to have a sense of ownership as possible (guided and managed).  People who have a sense of ownership spend more money and participate more regularly.  They contribute.  They give things away for free and add value to already existing products.  John Scalzi is doing something along these lines by offering free E-copies of nominees to those who can prove WSFS membership.  Imagine something along the same line that's now available to tens of thousands.

I think, therefore, that WSFS ought to take a good hard look at creating a (managed) way in which many many more people can become eligible to vote for Hugos.  I can't really see a downside, unless you consider raising awarness of the award a bad thing.

I just saw most of the episodes of When We Left Earth (Discovery channel).  Its a documentary version of The Right Stuff.  Some day, I'm going to gather up my DVDs of The Right Stuff, From The Earth to the Moon, Apollo 13 and this presentation, and sit down for a 24 hour session of viewing "Reasons Why My Childhood Was A LOT More Exciting". 

Which brings me to Obama.  I'm voting for him.  He absolutely reminds me of JFK.  Worry all you want to about 'inexperience' (I don't see it), believe as much as you want to of the BS the right is slinging at him (I don't).  I'm voting for him DESPITE his apparent positions against a robust manned space program (hoping that will change) because, dammit, we need to hope again.  I'm sick and tired of the fear mongering.  This country has always been at its best when its had a goal to strive for and a vision of the future that's bigger than our eyes can see.  We need to remember that and I believe Obama can give it to us.

Check this out.  Academicsare apparently reading me and adding me to their blogrolls.  Well, one academic anyway.  Of course this particular blog is lauding the virtues of BSG, so I don't really know how excited I really ought to be getting, but...  I'm adding it to my blogroll to return the favor.

You might also want to check out zine dump if my discussion of fanzines interested you at all.

See.  Until I re-read the entry, I forgot all about the fact that I wanted to mention this.

This is a radio interview with H. G. Wells and Orson Welles that took place just a few short months before Welles' (note the 'E') release of Citizen Kane, the movie that many regard as THE perfect piece of cinema.  (I like the movie, but THE perfect piece of cinema is Casablanca.  Sorry, Orson.)

The two things I find most interesting about the interview are: the fact that you can actually hear the voice of a man who was born in the 1800s, who incidentally wrote The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, First Men In The Moon and etc.  There he is, right there on the radio, talking and chuckling away, acting all deferential to Orson and the audience, seemingly bemused by the attention and enjoying every second of it.

The second thing I find fascinating is the mention of Hitler's denunciation of the western democracies, using Welles' radio production of Wells' War of the Worlds, and the panic it induced, as an example of why the western democracies are corrupt and doomed to fall.

I wish I could find a copy of Adolf's speech wherein he makes those accusations.  I'd like to hear how he links fear of a Martian invasion to corruption and failure.  Second only to the claims made about Hitler is Wells' own unspoken commentary: Silly colonialists.  If you weren't in the habit of believing twelve impossible things before breakfast, you'd have known the Martians can't be invading because there are no Martians. 

I think he'd be just as amused today, what with school teachers burning crosses in their student's arms and all.  The justifications for the Iraq war were just as impossible to believe as a Martian Invasion and yet our fellow country bumpkins bought them just as readily as they did the Invasion back in the 30's.  Seventy plus years later we're still running around with pitchforks and pulling the covers over our heads.

Howard is apparently in hospital and you can send well-wishes here.

Mike is a two-time WorldCon Chairman and, I believe a two-time FantasyCon Chairman, something I don't think anyone else in the world can say.  Or want to emulate...

IO9 (the silly, pseudo-sci-fi news site) has actually turned up a gem, reporting on an 1881 novella recently unearthed (Old Earth, Un Earth, kind of a theme going here) in New Zealand of all places.  Called 'The Great Romance" the story apparently features such anticipations as airlocks and sex with aliens. 

I've already ordered a copy through Amazon (just search for the title) and am eagerly looking forward to reading this long lost CLASSIC SF tale.

(A while ago some British fans unearthed a long lost Christmas magazine supplment that featured SF content and that pre-dated Amazing Stories, giving those Brits what they claimed was the honor of having the first SF magazine published in the UK, not by those upstart Yanks.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can equate a one-shot with a regular monthly, but nice try.  On the other hand, the Great Romance may actually steal H.G. Well's thunder.  Fortunately for Herbert, he's got more than enough time on target to compensate for one little novella.)

John Wright, a newly world-famous science fiction writer, offers this interesting take on the definition of science fiction.  See. I was right when I said "science fiction is what I'm pointing at when I say 'science fiction'"

Direção: C. Thomas Howell

Roteiro: Steve Bevilacqua, Eric Forsberg

Elenco: C. Thomas Howell, Fred Griffith, Jay Plemons, Jonathan Levit, Kim Little, Darren Dalton

Vamos a explicações iniciais. Em 2005, foram lançados três filmes baseados no livro "A Guerra dos Mundos", de H. G. Wells. O mais famoso é o do Spielberg e que quase todo mundo já viu. Os outros dois são produções com orçamento mais baixo e quase ninguém ouviu falar neles. Um deles deu cria, que é essa coisa tosca continuação aqui.

Os efeitos especiais são horríveis, conseguindo serem piores que os de filmes mais antigos, as atuações são lamentáveis, o roteiro é muito fraco e tem diálogos sem nexo e acaba se confundido todo ao tentar dificultar as coisas. E que porcaria é aquele ator de olhos esbugalhados??

O roteiro fala de uma nova invasão dos marcianos, três anos após a primeira, só que dessa vez eles aprenderam com os erros e estão filtrando o sangue dos humanos para não se infectarem (só que o roterista esqueceu que a via de contaminação também pode ser aérea).

O problema desse filme é que ele foi tão mal concebido, que acontecem coisas absurdamente inexplicáveis, com gente tomando decisões imbecis e uma nave completamente detonada que volta a funcionar e ainda carrega quatro passageiros.

O final é digno do filme todo, completamente tosco, indicando um terceiro filme e com os atores parados, nitidamente sem saber o que fazer, demonstrando uma péssima direção. Não perca seu tempo, não presta mesmo.

Perhaps I should have known better. Darabont has directed two previous King adaptations, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. There are several criticisms I could level at both of these movies, the worst of which is that both are rather smarmy in places, but I would never claim that either was poorly made.

For those of you who haven’t seen The Mist, the premise is fairly simple. A mysterious mist surrounds a small town grocery store, trapping a number of people inside. Worse yet, there are strange creatures in the mist intent on eating anyone who sets foot outdoors. It quickly becomes clear that the monsters are not the only problem, or even the most serious one. Over a period of forty-eight hours, the prisoners of the mist descend into irrationality and madness, lead by the local religious crazy, played with an awful gusto by Marcia Gay Harden. This is done so skillfully and in such elegant increments that when the prisoners turn to human sacrifice, it feels both unexpected and inevitable. Even when a small number of people who have retained their minds escape from the store, they are not immune to the powerful effects of fear. I don’t want to give anything away here, but the ending Darabont conceived for his film is even more shocking than King’s original.

When I stumbled home from the theater that day, it was not the thought of carnivorous critters that haunted me. Could my neighbors, my coworkers, my friends really be this way? Could I myself, if pushed to the edge of hysteria, really do such things? I knew the truth, though I would have denied it if I could. As stock clerk Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones) says in the movie, “As a species, we are fundamentally insane.”

I can hear, or at least imagine, a few of your muttering out there. “Come on, Dave. Two days from orderly checkout lines to human sacrifice? That would never happen. People aren’t like that.” For those of you who doubt, allow me to present a real life illustration from my childhood.

In a hospital, which I shall not name, there was an elevator. Unlike the other elevators in this frequently renovated building, this one dated to the original construction. And unlike the newer elevators, it was conveniently located to the office I usually visited. This elevator was painfully slow but serviceable. My mother and I never had reason to distrust it.

In the course of a visit to the hospital, my mother and I got onto the elevator as usual. Riding the elevator with us was a nurse. Working at this particular hospital, this nurse must have seen, on a daily basis, sick and even dying children, young victims of accidents and abuse, infants born too young to survive. Presumably, she must have dealt with these horrors with some measure of composure. The doors closed, and the elevator began to grind its way slowly upward. Somewhere between floors, the elevator began to shake. The floor, in fact the whole car, vibrated violently up and down to the accompaniment of a loud banging noise. The nurse, this detached caretaker of wounded children, fell to her knees and began to pray.

I’m not talking about a silent prayer for strength, either. Nor was this a swift prayer before leaping into action. The nurse wept. She moaned. She called upon Jesus to save us. Jesus dwelled in the elevator’s ceiling, evidently, if the direction of her gaze was any indication. She prayed loudly and thoroughly for rescue. She did nothing else.

In contrast, my mother immediately told me to sit on the floor with my back against a wall, then helped me to do so without falling over. She scanned the elevator’s controls and pushed the big red emergency stop button. The elevator stopped shaking, stopped moving entirely. The nurse continued to pray. With some difficulty, my mother pried open the inner elevator doors. We were exactly between floors. She pressed the call button.

A cheerful voice somewhere in the hospital assured us that the elevator had been doing this off and on all week, that it was nothing serious, that we could either switch the elevator back on and proceed safely but bumpily to the nearest floor or wait for a rescue party from security, whichever we liked. My mother looked at me, seated more or less calmly on the floor. “We don’t want to miss your appointment,” she said. I nodded. I was young, and my mom knew everything. She switched the emergency stop off and pressed the button for the next floor. The elevator began to bang and bump slowly upwards again. The wailing to Jesus continued.

When the elevator finally arrived, several uncomfortable minutes later, it took quite a while for the doors to open. When they did, we saw that we were at least a foot below the level of the floor. A security guard and an orderly gave us a hand out. The nurse was the first to leave the car. She scrambled out on unsteady legs, wiping at her ruined mascara with the back of one hand. She had fallen silent as the elevator doors slid open, and said nothing more to any of us. My mother and I took the stairs the rest of the way up. We were not late for my appointment. The whole experience had lasted no more than fifteen minutes.

I watched The Mist again recently on DVD. The film was no less wrenching the second time around, though I did notice more details. The film has some thematic similarities to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, which I am teaching this semester, and I thought about showing certain scenes to my students. I brought this up in class today. No one seemed enthusiastic. Several students said that the movie was “bad.” None of them would elaborate, though I asked number of questions. The Mist was just “bad.” No further explanation necessary, or perhaps even possible. It didn’t matter. I understood.

David Hurwitz

Seeking a more structured way to play war games, Wells wrote Floor Games (1911) followed by Little Wars (1913). Little Wars is recognised today as the first recreational wargame and Wells is regarded by gamers and hobbyists as "the Father of Miniature War gaming."

It is this sort of experience that drives home the statistics pertaining to how many soldiers over the ages died due to disease rather than battle - I don't have the numbers right at hand, but generally it has been concluded that at least as many soldiers have died due to illness than from battle related injuries, at least up until the last century. Why? Because soldiers are frequently pushed past the point of physical exhaustion, denied adequate sleep, with poor quality or inadequate food, and under conditions which foster rapid transmission of disease from soldier to soldier.

And that's one of the things that I always chuckle about when I read about TEOTWAWKI scenarios on this or that forum. Often, particularly when such threads come up on a firearms-related forum, people will get way too preoccupied with guns and ammo, and lose track of the fact that those tools are completely useless if you are too sick or too tired or too hungry to employ them. Get sick, and your superior collection of guns or other tech mean nothing. H.G. Wells knew this, while most of us have forgotten it.

I'll write more when I am up to it.

Jim Downey

H. G. Wells - The Plattner Story
Michael Joseph - The Yellow Cat
Daphne du Maurier - Escort
Washington Irving - The Specter Bridegroom
Algernon Blackwood - Keeping His Promise
Lady Cynthia Asquith - The Corner Shop
Gerald Kersh - The Brighton Monster
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body-Snatcher
M. R. James - Casting The Runes

Have you ever felt, in the soft, eerie blackness of the night, the presence of that other world, moving and dwelling around us, but not with us? Woken suddenly, perhaps, to become shudderingly aware of its ghostly proximity? Visit now this swirling domain of clammy terror with this deliciously hair-raising new collection of stories of the uncanny, the fiendish, and the macabre, specially selected to grip and chill you.

Here are some of the finest tales of mystery and imagination ever written .....

Thanks to Andy the nightreader!

Erik Strub hat die Hintergründe in seinem Artikel "Soddy, Wells und die Atombombe" beschrieben (Physik Journal, 7/2005, S. 50ff.).

And what is it exactly? A computer, of course, but one that has been modified to look like something out of the Victorian era, which is exactly what Steampunking is all about. These artist/inventors take modern, working technology, like computers, televisions and IPods and fashion them to look like something from another era. The work is detailed and difficult, but the pieces are becoming highly sought after for their creativity and originality.

So how does this all relate to books? Think of H.G. Wells and "The Time Machine" and Jules Verne and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". Verne, for example, wrote about imaginative vehicles that flew in the air or dove under water, before airplanes or submarines were even invented. And Wells was a forerunner in science fiction, creating entire universes and thinking of space invasions long before it was popular. They were both instrumental in imagining inventions that had a place in their world, but also a place in the future. You could say that steampunking is a reversal of that idea...taking inventions from the present and placing them in another era.

And here we are, in our current day, discovering just such an idea being applied to a "new" creation. At the end of May, the world discovered that a giant underground tunnel linked New York to London, England! Telectroscopes or giant telescopes were fashioned on both ends and from May 22 - June 15th, people in both cities can line up to view someone looking back at them on the other side. This tunnel took more than a century to complete and was the brainchild of an eccentric Victorian engineer named Alexander Stanhope St. George. You can check out the amazing world of the telectroscope here.

Photo of the telectroscope in London by Matthew Andrews.

The telectroscopes are fashioned in elaborate steampunk style with a whimsical shape and made from materials which look like they belong in your grandmother's attic.

It'll be interesting to see if this creation brings the movement to the forefront of people's lives. Why not have some creativity in an otherwise cookie-cutter world!

Los EPITAFIOS, esas palabras que uno elige o no para que queden en la tumba etermamente como testigo de lo que fuimos, o simple legado fueron las invitdas de hoy...

Aquì les dejo las que citamos en el programa y algunos más...

saludos..

EPITAFIOS

"Si no viví más, fue por que no me dio tiempo" Marqués de Sade

«Estoy aquí en el último escalón de mi vida. Marlene 1901-1992» Marlene Dietrich

«Sólo le pido a Dios que tenga piedad con el alma de este ateo». Miguel de Unamuno

Rainer María Rilke: escritor austriaco, murió de una leucemia en Diciembre de 1926. El empeoramiento de su estado físico se produjo a raíz de haberse pinchado con la espina de una rosa mientras cuidaba el jardín del castillo Muzot, en Suiza, donde vivió retirado los últimos años de su vida. En su tumba un epitafio que él mismo escribió, reza así: Rosa, oh contradicción pura, placer, ser el sueño de nadie bajo tantos párpados.

 «No es que yo fuera superior. Es que los demás eran inferiores». Orson Welles

"Aquí yace Molière el rey de los actores.

En estos momentos hace de muerto

y de verdad que lo hace bien." de Molière para si mismo

"Aquí yace el poeta Vicente Huidobro 

Abrid su tumba

debajo de su tumba se ve el mar."

de Vicente Huidobro, hecho con un fragmento de uno de sus poemas

"Aquí reposan los restos de un ser que poseyó la belleza sin la vanidad, la fuerza sin la insolencia, el valor sin la ferocidad y todas las virtudes de un hombre sin sus vicios." de Lord Byron para su perro “Botswain"

Francis Scott Fitzgerald dejó escrito para su epitafio: “Estuve borracho muchos años, después me morí”.

"Volveré y seré millones", dice el  epitafio en la tumba de Evita Perón.

Alfred Hitchcock pensó en su epitafio: "Esto es lo que le pasa a los chicos malos". Nadie se atrevió a ponerlo

Mel Blanc el actor que le prestaba su voz a Bugs Bunny- dice lo único que podía decir: “Eso es todo, amigos”

Algunos mausoleos son grandiosos, como el de Oscar Wilde, que fue bastante comedido en su epitafio: “O se va el papel tapiz, o me voy yo”. Pocas palabras para una vida tan ajetreada.

 
"Buen amigo, por Jesús, abstente de cavar el polvo aquí encerrado. Bendito el hombre que respete estas piedras, y maldito el que remueva mis huesos." - William Shakespeare;

"Feo, fuerte y formal" - John Wayne;

"El cielo estrellado sobre mí, la ley moral en mí" - Immanuel Kant;

"Ya decía yo que ese médico no valía mucho." - Miguel Mihura;

"Desde aquí no se me ocurre ninguna fuga" - Johann Sebastian Bach;

"Intenté librarme, pero no pude”. - Truman Capote;

Order War of the Worlds from Amazon for $0.99

Other Kindle Books of Interest
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1984

Star Wars: Darth Maul: Saboteur

El programa Boira de radio Tarragona explicó la meta de este mockumentary o falso documental: demostrar que cualquier ciudadano puede creer ciegamente en una falsa noticia, dejándose arrastrar por la tendencia general de su ingenuo colectivo.

Este experimento sobre ‘realidad Matrix’ nos lleva a reflexionar sobre el poder de los medios de comunicación para crear escenarios irreales o alterados.

De seguro, el antecedente histórico más significativo lo constituye la obra radiofónica de Orson Welles sobre la supuesta invasión marciana a nuestro planeta. En 1938, con la colaboración del personal de su compañía teatral (2), presentó a través de la cadena radial CBS una adaptación de la obra de H. G. Wells La guerra de los mundos.

Dicha emisión causó paranoia nacional en los EE.UU. La naturaleza realista de la emisión fue realzada además por descripciones de hechos concretos que los oyentes podían imaginar fácilmente. Fueron utilizadas sin inhibiciones las expresiones coloquiales que cabría esperar en semejante ocasión. El gas era “una especie de cosa amarillo verdosa”; el agente de policía advirtió “Échese a un lado, ¿quiere? ¡Atrás digo!”; una voz grita: “Ese maldito trasto se destornilla” Un ejemplo de precisión en la exposición de los detalles es la proclama del general de brigada Montgomery Smith: “El gobernador de Nueva Jersey me ha pedido que ponga en estado de guerra los distritos de Mercer y Middlesex, hasta Princeton al oeste y hasta Jamesburg al este. A nadie se le permitirá el acceso a esta zona, salvo si es portador de un pase especial expedido por las autoridades gubernamentales o militares. Cuatro compañías de la milicia del estado se dirigen a Grovers Mill desde Trenton, y ayudarán a evacuar los hogares situados en el radio de la operaciones militares”.

Los acontecimientos explicados iban desde lo relativamente creíble hasta lo totalmente increíble. Las primeras noticias fueron más o menos verosímiles, aunque desde luego, inusuales. Hay primero unos “trastornos atmosféricos”, y después “explosiones de gas incandescente”. Un científico informa seguidamente que su sismógrafo ha registrado un impacto de intensidad propia de un terremoto. A esto sigue el descubrimiento de un meteorito que, en su caída, ha hecho astillas los árboles más cercanos. Hasta aquí todo es pasable.

Pero al hacer su aparición las partes menos creíbles de la historia, el inteligente dramaturgo indica que también él tiene dificultad en creer lo que está viendo. Cuando nos enteramos de que el objeto no es un meteorito, sino un envoltorio metálico, se nos dice también que todo el cuadro es “una escena extraña” propia de unas modernas “Mil y Una Noches”, que es “fantástico”, y que “ni los más osados se aventuran a aproximarse”. Antes de que se nos informe de que el extremo del cilindro metálico empieza a destornillarse, experimentamos el asombro del propio locutor: “Señoras y señores, ¡esto es tremendo!”. Y cuando la tapadera ha caído, dice: Es la cosa más aterradora que jamás haya presenciado… Es la más extraordinaria de las experiencias. No logro encontrar palabras…”

Es importante plantear y contestar la pregunta de cómo alguien que sintonizara la emisión desde su comienzo pudo haber confundido la representación, claramente anunciada, con un noticiario. Los análisis de estos casos revelan dos razones principales para que surgiera semejante mala interpretación. En primer lugar, muchas personas que sintonizaron para oír una obra del Mercury Theatre creyeron que el programa normal había sido interrumpido para dar boletines especiales de noticias. La técnica no era nueva después de la experiencia con los informes por radio acerca de la amenaza de guerra en septiembre de 1938. La otra razón principal para la confusión es el ámbito muy extendido de no prestar atención a los primeros avisos de un programa. Muchas personas no escuchan atentamente sus radios hasta advertir que lo que se está retransmitiendo es algo de su particular interés.

Sintonizar tardíamente fue muy decisivo en cuanto a determinar si el oyente seguiría o no el programa como representación teatral o como noticiario, ya que la historia de la invasión marciana fue tan realista que se prestaba a crear el malentendido sin ninguna señal de advertencia. (3)

La versión original (4) del notable escritor y político británico H. G. Wells (1866-1946) narra la invasión de la Tierra por los marcianos a finales del siglo XIX. El libro de Wells exige dos interpretaciones: la crítica descarnada al colonialismo que «chupaba la sangre» de los pueblos colonizados, y el ataque cruel a las ilusiones de seguridad de la especie humana (5). El núcleo conceptual que sintetiza la trama sería la “seguridad ficticia y la fatua vanidad” que caracteriza a la humanidad autosatisfecha. En este sentido La guerra de los mundos es una denuncia de nuestro mundo... “Es posible, en los amplios designios del Universo, que no deje al fin de beneficiarnos la invasión marciana; se nos ha arrancado esa confianza tranquila en el porvenir, que es la fuente más segura de degeneración”. (6)

(1) http://contraperiodismomatrix.nireblog.com/

(2) The Mercury Theatre.

(3) http://mundoradio.portalmundos.com/la-guerra-de-los-mundos/

(4) The War of the Worlds, 1898.

(5) http://www.samizdat.com.ar/samizdat20/S20-01%20-%20Guerra%20de%20los%20mundos.htm

(6) http://mural.uv.es/jorgon/guerra.htm

”Nu som storfilm av Steven Spielberg", står det på omslaget av boken som fanns inbunden för 69 kr på bokrean. Min reaktion blev följaktligen att ”den här måste jag läsa” och så införskaffades den. Nu kan man i efterhand kanske fråga sig om det var så intelligent för den här boken är en SciFi-bok, skriven 1898 (nej, inte 1988 utan 1898!).

Boken handlar om att utomjordingar från Mars anfaller jorden och då framförallt England. Detta genom att skicka ner stora cylindrar och sedan ur dem kommer det utomjordingar och går bärsärkagång genom enorma ljusstrålar som dödar människor i mängder. Mitt i den här soppan finns huvudpersonen och hans bror i ett sidospår. Anledningen till att även täcka brodern (förutom att utöka längden av boken) är att försöka beskriva katastrofen ur olika synvinklar.

Det som är imponerande med boken är den första halvan av boken där författaren H. G. Wells beskriver landningen, utomjordingarna som kommer som dödsmaskiner, hur människor flyr och hur människans moral försvinner i samma takt som mängden mat man har i magen. När man läser det undrar man om Wells kan avsluta lika starkt. Tyvärr så är inte sista halvan riktigt lika stark och han avslutar med ett riktigt kalkonslut som föråldrats ovärdigt emot allt det andra han skriver om.

Sedan ska väl inte boken bara få beröm utan den är lite väl överanalyserande, precis som Edgar Allan Poe. Det är dessutom lite väl mycket fysiktrams, som man i dag bara är helt absurt (och borde även varit absurt 1898). Sedan är språket bitvis även tungt och segt, vilket gör boken relativt tråkig under dessa partier.

Det blev ju en film av den här boken, som jag redan skrivit. Den senaste regisserades av Steven Spielberg. Det har även varit andra filmer, men det är inget jag har tittat på. Filmen av Steven har Tom ”Tompa” Cruise huvudrollen och faktum är att filmen och boken skiljer sig en del. Det som man har gjort är att uppdatera hela konceptet lite, lagt in lite familjedrama och fått den ganska underhållande.

Det som verkligen är bra i den filmen är Tompa. Han är en riktigt bra skådespelare, övertygar och får filmen spännande. Tyvärr har man slängt in två barn och det är oftast en kombination som inte fungerar. De här ungarna ska mest skrika och se lite lätt störda ut, så det fungerar förvånansvärt bra.

Ska man då se filmen eller läsa boken? Man ska se filmen. Den har det mesta ur boken på ett bra sätt och slutet är detsamma så man blir inte snuvad på något egentligen. Anledningen till att man ens säljer boken idag är att den är skriven på 1800-talet och känns modern på ett bra sätt än i dag. Så jag tycker du kan köpa filmen (sett den för 35kr) och så kan du skippa boken. Den är inte värd att lägga ner tid på när det finns betydligt mycket bättre böcker.

Uma série de informes jornalísticos inunda a população de terror, com notícias de uma invasão alienígena na terra. Centenas, com medo, saíram de casa e tentaram fugir. Milhares certamente ficaram com um friozinho na barriga, e se esconderam dentro de casa mesmo.

Os informes, a princípio, eram plantões extraordinários, que relatavam irregularidades no clima de Nova York. Logo depois disso, foram observadas explosões em Marte. A programação do rádio parecia voltar ao normal, quando em um outro plantão extraordinário, os repórteres informavam a população de um meteorito que havia caído em Nova Jersey. Logo, o meteorito revelou-se como uma nave alienígena, portando marcianos que incineravam os curiosos ali presentes com raios de calor. Em seguida, liberaram um gás venenoso no ar, e começaram a se dirigir em direção a Nova York. Quando chegaram, um repórter da CBS começou a descrever a cena que via até que ele, também, não conseguiu resistir ao gás venenoso e morreu. Por fim, o rádio transmitiu a última mensagem de um operador de rádio amador, desesperado, que dizia "2X2L calling CQ ... Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there ... anyone?" ("2X2L chamando todos os operadores nessa frequência... Tem alguém aí? Tem alguém aí? Tem... alguém?").

Algum tempo depois do anúncio, um renomado professor de universidade, Professor Pierson, descreveu os devastadores efeitos que a invasão alienígena havia causado em Nova York. Quando todas as esperanças de salvação já estavam praticamente nulas, um milagre aconteceu, e os marcianos sucumbiram aos germes e bactérias da terra. A humanidade havia sido salva.

Esse foi o enredo da mais conhecida e mais polêmica transmissão de rádio já feita até hoje. Dirigida por Orson Welles, a transmissão foi um especial de Halloween chamado "The War of the Worlds" ("A Guerra dos Mundos"), baseado na obra de H. G. Wells, datada de 1898, de mesmo nome. Até hoje ela é considerada por muitos como a maior farsa da história (apesar da intenção original do diretor não ter sido essa), e muitos acreditam que houve, de fato, uma invasão alienígena que foi mascarada pelo governo (os criadores de Arquivo X fizeram até paródia do ocorrido em um dos episódios).

A história continua na Parte 2! ^^

Beijos, e até o próximo encontro!

Estava navegando como de praxe pelos blogs, quando me deparei com algo assustador no Manual Prático de Delinquência Juvenil.

Aqui não tem terremoto. Aqui não tem revolução
Exercício: ligue os pontos

1. A petrobrás descobre mais uma reserva gigante de petróleo na costa brasileira, o que fará do Brasil uma das maiores potências exportadoras de petróleo do mundo.
2. O maior porta-aviões do mundo, pertencente ao exército americano, atraca no RJ na segunda-feira, 21 de abril. Segundo o divilgulgado pela imprensa, serão realizados vários exercícios de guerra anti-submarino, de superfície e antiaérea.
3. Um terremoto de 3 segundos de duração ocorre no litoral brasileiro, cujo epicentro foi no mar, a 215km da costa.

Algum conspirólogo por aqui é capaz de ligar os pontos?

E é claro que eu, conspirólogo nato, tenho minha própria versão da verdade (teoria é para fracos). Consultei minha glândula pineal, e A Deusa me disse as Coisas que Podem Mudar o Mundo.

CUIDADO! Continuando a leitura a partir daqui você estará sujeito às Grandes Verdades, que podem fazer mal para caracinzas, repolhos, acéfalos e parnasianistas.

O Trípodi Os tripods, devido ao tempo ao qual ficaram expostos à pressão no fundo do oceano, acabaram dando margem a escapar petróleo; daí a descoberta da reserva. Quando o Exército foi averiguar (eles fazem parte dos investimentos da Petrobras, podem crer! Mas não contem para ninguém...), descobriram as máquinas extraterrenas, e então ligaram pro Bush. O filho. Afinal, todo mundo sabe que as únicas duas funções de um presidente nos EUA são as relações exteriores e o comando do exército nacional.

Anyway, os marcianos acordaram e estão preparando os tripods. Essa será a nossa primeira Guerra Interestelar, que vai nos lançar no Nova Aeon de Jesus Sorridente, com o fim do cristianismo (sério - John Lennon era um “deles”, e por isso previu o fim do kkkatolicismo e demais seitas) e a ascensão do discordianismo.

Como? Ora, discordianos têm o Conhecimento Oculto Arcano Eresiano. Vamos fazer criadouros da dengue, infectar os mosquitos, e estes darão conta dos carinhas de Marte, que não são verdes, mas marrom-alaranjado-Ubuntu. No fim vai ter uma grande orgia (degustativa!). Isso (mais a orgia que o fim dos tripods, pra ser sincero) fará com que o discordianismo seja mundialmente aceito.

Para quê temer o futuro, então? Eu digo que vai estar na ora de mudar de religião. Mas isso é outra história.

Which definitions help you think about the stories we have read so far? Which definitions help us understand what sf does? Why?

All of the definitions, so far, are reflective of what sf is based on our reading materials. Even though some of these definitions clash with one another, it is important to understand that those definitions were not pulled from thin air at a poor attempt to give sf a definition for the sake of giving the genre a shape.

I cannot remember who it was at the moment that came up with the 30 year rule. According to this rule, it takes thirty years for society to fully accept and understand a communications technology. When used to examine the internet, we are heading towards the end of the thirty years. We have accepted the internet as a part of our daily life and cannot see life without it.

If we apply this same concept to sf, as it is a tool of communications, we can see a similar process in its growth and development (although it took much more than thirty years). In the beginning, we see that sf is meant to be grounded in science; it is meant to instruct, bring progress, and help people learn. After that stage has been established, people than took a leap and sf had a new purpose: it allowed people to have a "sense of wonder" in order to experience wild and fantastical thoughts by asking people to suspend their beliefs in known facts. As the genre developed and history went by, sf took on a fairly abstract meaning. It was then meant to talk about the effects of change, or advancement, or the effects of technology and the human experience. And once it was accepted by mainstream society, was sf only meant as a publishing category used to generate sales?

It is all of these things.

Hugo Gernsback names Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allen Poe as the modal authors because Gernsback was at the budding stage of sf. He states that stories written by those authors are "a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision." This harkens back to what is now known as hard science fiction where the scientific aspect of a story was given more weight. For example, in H.G. Wells Time Machine, Wells describes the time machine and time travelling in such a detailed way that the reader gets the impression these fantastical things are plausible. Standing at the forefront of technological wonders and opportunity, it is no wonder why Gernsback believes that sf is "instructive" and "[supplies] knowledge...in a very palatable form" that helps current generations with the "realization of tomorrow." He sees sf as the vehicle to progress.

John W. Campbell echoes Gernsback's views when he sees sf as the tool to "explain away known phenomena" and help "predict new and still undiscovered phenomena." Such progress is to further technological advancement and, thus, improving the lives in society. Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon illustrates this concept. Charlie Gordon is a 32 year old man with an IQ of 68. Through this novel, Keyes explores the possibility of an operation that develops the brain and thus, the mind. We see a rapid growth in Gordon's IQ in mere weeks. He becomes so smart that he becomes isolated and is unable to effectively communicate with anybody. Keyes explores the possibility of such things as well as its harms. Philip K. Dick's "The Electric Ant" and Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" does the same.

Through such explorations, sf will have given humans a "common background of ‘known facts'," as described by Judith Merril. From this common foundation of knowledge, people can "explore, discover, learn," and discuss with one another about the human condition and experience-of reality, of our culture, of our society, of nature, of space, and of time.

Damon Knight coined the phrase "sense of wonder," which describes that "our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human." He continues that sf is the tool that lets us approach and explore all the mysteries of world (and out of this world). This sense of wonder allows us to comprehend stories such as Terry Bisson's "They're Made Out of Meat." By suspending our beliefs in what's real, we can see that this story is told from the perspectives of aliens.

Christopher Evans posits that sf explores our "What if" questions. He captures the genre's excitement and breaks it free from hard science fiction, effectively widening the genre and opening a new door in the mind for people to explore. Ray Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven" depicts this very well. What if we were able to go to Mars and see our dead loved ones? What if the dead came back to life and heaven was another planet altogether?

Sf makes another development when people began to see that sf should talk about the change on the human experience. James Gunn describes sf as "the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world." Note that he says that sf is a part of literature, suggesting that sf is a genre of substance instead of whimsical fantasy.

Similarly, Brian Aldiss says that sf is "the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe." History has witnessed two world wars, the monstrosity of Adolf Hitler, the effects of a possible nuclear war, and the horrors made known by the Vietnam War. In their "advanced but confused state of knowledge," some people looked to sf to find man's place and purpose in the world. Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations" explores the limits of technology and that the advancement of technology does not necessarily improve human lives. Similarly, Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" explores the horrors in a world run by machines.

Understanding these definitions is essential to understanding that sf is not a mere publishing category for stories with spaceships, aliens, and abductions. It is a history. The definitions are milestones and snapshots of a time in that history. History is always about discussion. If it didn't repeat so often we wouldn't have so much to talk about. Like history, sf generates discussion about the times: about its views on the past, the present, and the future.

Related Link:

Neyir Cenk Gokce, "Definitions of Science Fiction": a collection of sf definitions

© 2008

Compare Clarke's future in Childhood's End to Wells' in the Time Machine. What are these authors telling us about the future? What is similar, what is different?

In Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke speculates that mankind will be the cause for bringing upon his own end through wars and nuclear weapons. Clarke doesn't allow for the possibility that man may reach utopia on his own because it is the Overlords who forced peace, stability, and later prosperity onto Earth. They are the reason that global peace and prosperity even exists. They are the ones who made sure man made his next jump in evolution.

During this peaceful time, humanity no longer had to toil for survival. Abundance of all kind made it so people can spend their leisure time however they pleased. Eventually, artistic stagnation and a loss of incentive in general overcame the people of Earth. Scientific discovery, artistry, and creativity of all kinds waned. Men had apparently reached his ideal state of living and lost his ambition.

H.G. Wells' The Time Machine is written from a late 19^th century perspective. During this time, the Industrial Revolution brought drastic changes that impacted the socioeconomic and culture of England. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species has been published for a little over thirty years. We can see such influences in Wells' novel.

The Time Traveler had theorized that the continuous advancement of technology would catapult mankind far into futurity. He had expected to find man in a superior state. Instead, he found the very opposite of his speculations when he entered the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.D. The descendents of man had broken off into two distinct species-Eloi and Morlock. The Eloi are a small people dressed in flowing silk. They spend the days laughing and dancing across a fertile land. They live among the ruins that scattered the land, eating various kinds of fruit. They are reminiscent of the fairies portrayed in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Eloi are a happy people, without care and any need for science and art.

On the other hand, the Morlocks are creatures of the night. They have adapted to living in the underground, thus they are blind to any kind of light. Since their source of meat has died off years ago, they have resorted to preying on the Eloi. Unlike the Eloi, they lack any resemblances to humans. Even though both species seem to lack in intelligence, the Morlocks are the ones who display curiosity and incentive. It is suggested that the Morlocks are the ones who have taken some machine from the museum and have even stolen the Time Traveler's time machine to study. They also display cleverness when they succeeded in baiting and trapping the Time Traveler.

There are many similarities between the two novels. Both authors paint a very bleak end for mankind. Clarke rescued men from a nuclear destruction, only to save them for a hopeless evolution. It is hopeless because it destroys individuality and purpose. It wipes out all the work man has ever done. It is hopeless from a Christian point of view because there is no joy of joining with the Creator in a wonderful afterlife. Although the Overmind may hint at this, it is nevertheless portrayed as merely the next in evolution for many species across the universe. Wells makes a similar statement by showing that civilization had somehow been destroyed somewhere in time. Among the ruinous land, nature continues to exist until the end of time. This proves, in both novels, that technology is a dead end. Despite man's continual search for knowledge and power, the inevitable end of the world will render these things useless and purposeless.

Both authors also show that once utopia exists, a loss of incentive will occur. Because there are no more discontentments, no need to struggle, no threat and danger to one's life, then a loss of incentive and apathy occurs. Wells explains this through the lack of intelligence among the Eloi and Morlocks when compared to the modern man. Clarke shows this in the general population of the world.

The biggest difference between the two novels is the way the end of humanity came. In Childhood's End, Clarke shows that the world's children have joined with the Overmind, leaving the remaining people of the earth to die-to become extinct. In The Time Machine, it is sort of hinted that technology may have been the reason for civilization's destruction. However, Wells' novel continues on thousands of years after that and we see the descendents of man have devolved from their intellectual ancestors. There is no passing to some kind of afterlife in Wells' novel; life just continues.

© 2008

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a vulture eye. The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by cutting it into pieces and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating under the floorboards.

The story, as you read it, would surely get your attention, because the story is just so twisted, the information about the characters are so insufficient that it leaves so much space for the imagination of the reader. Indeed, the story lets you create your own interpretation about the story, because if you won't, you would not understand even a bit of it.



So I cannot copy-paste the whole thing here because the story, despite of being a short story, is not short, at all. So the link is directly could be found below:


The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe



So I hope you would spare some time to read the whole thing, and I guarantee you, you're in for some dark and horror-like reading experience.




2. The Door in the Wall
by H.G. Wells



Okay, unlike Poe, I have heard little of H.G. Wells. All I know of him is that he is the author of "The Invisible Man" (which I encountered while planning what book to buy next, after I bought Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment). So I digressed, sorry, so back to the topic; the story is about a man of immeasurable success who feels empty, still. Okay, while you're reading this, you might think that this is another story where the character is oh-so famous then he feels empty, then he envies others, and would commit suicide. No. The story, for me, is a unique account of alienation and loneliness of a person. Here, the emptiness is not filled by suicide or insanity, rather, it is filled by being involved in some sort of a translucent film of reality, being caught in a place where reality is intertwined with desires (whoa, I just read that,, and I found it poetic... makes me proud of myself *winks*).



So unfortunately, I was not able to find an introduction about The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells, no, nowhere to be found at Wikipedia. So I am sorry I could not provide you a more reliable and formal introduction. Rather, why don't you make your own by reading it by clicking the link below:


The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells.



Really, I am starting to get a hang of reading (and listening to) short stories. You know, they are just so different from novels, because the story, being short, should express that huge idea within a couple of pages while harnessing that essence of a literary work. This, maybe, challenges the writer to saturate every paragraph with emotions and ideas, which makes short stories good to read.




UPDATE: I am 4 chapters away from the final chapter of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist

Matthew 15:14 (KJV) Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

NEAR THE VILLAGE of Gevas in eastern Turkey, while shepherds ate their breakfast, one of their sheep jumped off a 45-foot cliff to its death...

Then, as the stunned shepherds looked on, the rest of the flock followed. In all, 1,500 sheep mindlessly stumbled off the cliff. The only good news was that the last 1,000 were cushioned in their fall by the growing woolly pile of those who jumped first. According to The Washington Post, 450 sheep died.

The Bible often refers to human beings as sheep (Ps. 100:3; Isa. 53:6; Matt. 9:36). Easily distracted and susceptible to group influence, we would rather follow the crowd than the wisdom of the Shepherd.

Mass media merchants long have held the notion that public opinion can be shaped and manipulated through the power of the press. Say something often enough and loud enough and sooner or later people will start to believe it. Advertisers spend big money on ad campaigns in attempts to persuade people to buy what they are offering. Political leaders spend huge sums of money on marketing in order for their messages to be heard.

Sunday, October 30, 1938, will forever be remembered as a seminal event in the history of American mass media and their potential impact on our collective consciousness.

Just one day before Halloweeern, an utterly unanticipated event occurred on the radio, then the primary medium of information and entertainment.

An audacious and brilliant artist by the name of Orson Welles broadcast a radio dramatization of H. G. Wells’ famous fantasy, "The War of the Worlds."

Produced by Welles’ Mercury Theatre, the program was broadcast over WABC and the Columbia Broadcasting System Network.

A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of listeners who were led to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York. The broadcast disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams, and clogged communications systems.

Thousands of telephone calls reached CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices, and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief. The broadcast became a rumor that spread throughout the country, with many people standing on street corners, hoping for a sight of the "battle" in the skies.

Despite the fantasy nature of the reported "occurrences," the program, coming after the recent war scare in Europe and a period in which the radio frequently had interrupted regularly scheduled programs to report developments in Czechoslovakia, caused fright and panic throughout the area of the broadcast.

Though only a work of dramatization The War of the Worlds broadcast demonstrated the power of radio to influence the public. Radio had an authority and immediacy that made even the bizarre believable.

John 12:12-13 (KJV) ¹² On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, ¹³ Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Each year Bridgeport, Connecticut holds their annual Barnum Festival. An upbeat civic event celebrating the life of P. T. Barnum (1810-1891). Barnum was the nineteenth-century circus king and was once the city’s mayor. Barnum was called “The Prince of Humbug.” He enjoyed playing hoaxes on people, all in the spirit of creative capitalism.

Barnum saw his sideshows as harmless ways of fooling people while giving them their money’s worth in good, clean fun. His “Cardiff Giant,” his “161-year-old nanny to George Washington,” and his “Fejee Mermaid” are legendary. He even wrote a book entitled Humbugs of the World (see www.ptbarnum.org).

The Barnum Festival is a 30-day-long Fourth of July celebration. A time to kick back, lighten up, block out all of the distractions in your life and embrace a mega-celebration of parades, concerts, parties, drum corps and the fireworks extravaganza.

The Barnum Festival was created to make people feel good about celebrating the life and times of P.T. Barnum who was known for putting on the “greatest show on earth”

With no apologies to Mr Barnum, those of us who have been redeemed from death to life through the work of Jesus Christ have a far greater celebration to partake of each year. The 40 days of Lent should be a celebration leading up to the grand parade of Palm Sunday where Jesus makes His entrance into Jerusalem to set up for the real ‘greatest show on earth and in heaven’.

Much like a circus parade that drew crowds to Barnum’s sideshows Jesus’s triumphant ride into Jerusalem was met with great crowds and enthusiasm. Unlike Barnum, Jesus was not setting up a sideshow.

John 19:15-18 (KJV) ¹⁵ But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. ¹⁶ Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. ¹⁷ And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: ¹⁸ Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

Orson Welles produced and narrated the retelling of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” and it caused quite a stir in the streets around the world. God wrote and produced the real "War of the Worlds" (Jesus’s crucifixion) which caused quite a stir in heaven and hell when it played out on the world’s stage. The battle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness was being fought while the crowds stood around in stunned silence.

There were no cameras no radio show, no three ring circus, just three crosses on a hill outside Jerusalem where the Prince of Glory was sacrificed for our sins.

One wayward sheep led many to their slaughter in Eastern Turkey and one Lamb of God will lead many to eternal salvation from a hill called Mount Calvary.

Who has the power of persuasion over your life? Are you following the humanist thinking that dismisses God as a hoax? Are you being led around by the trickster of all tricksters Satan as he leads you from one sideshow act to another? Are you being led to your demise by a wayward sheep rushing over the cliff of self destruction because they have left the way of the Good Shepherd?

Who is leading your parade? Are you being led by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords or being misled by some other minstrel or piped piper? Are you in the crowd crying Hosanna Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord or are you one that is shouting Crucify Him?

We are all affected by our surroundings. What we see and hear affects our thoughts and actions. What are you filling your ears and eyes with? Are they focused on the truths of God’s word or are they fixed upon things of this world?

When the end comes will you hear APRIL FOOLS or well done thou good and faithful servant enter now into the joy of the Lord?

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Déjà, je n'aime pas Tom Cruise, je ne remets en cause son jeu d'acteur mais je le trouve tout particulièrement insipide, bref il m'énerve quoi... Mais pourtant, c'est du Spielberg, celui qui m'avait stupéfaite avec Rencontre Du 3ème Type et fait frissonner avec Duel, donc je me suis dit que ça pouvait être pas mal ou au pire, divertissant.

Je n'aurais qu'une seule question: mais où sont passés les martiens dans ce film? J'ai eu l'impression que l'intrigue était plus focalisée sur la relation entre Tom Cruise et le reste de la petite famille qu'autre chose, notamment sa relation conflictuelle avec son fils (mais bordel en s'en fout!! nous ce qu'on veut voir, ce sont les extraterrestres! pas leur sales gueules), je retiendrai d'ailleurs cette sublime réplique lancée par notre cher Tomounet "Tu peux me détester, tu peux me haïr, mais moi je t'aime" (ou grosomodo, mais on voit un peu le tableau), ça se passe de commentaires. D'autre part, le manque de vraisemblance dans certaines scènes (plus particulièrement celles de panique de la population) n'arrange pas la chose...

Dommage, car le design des extraterrestres est assez bien fait, pour le peu de temps qu'on les voit, il y a quand même quelques bonnes scènes (mais alors très peu) et la prestation de Dakota Flemming est excellente (ça doit être la seule qui y croit à mon avis...).

We see more religious undertones within H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau. We can think of the island as a microcosm of the universe with Moreau as a god and the beasts as humans. Wells was obviously was drawing upon two important thoughts when he wrote this book in 1896. Darwin’s natural Selection and the other was Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.

In Wells’s metaphor we see Moreau carve men out of beasts. This is a nod to evolutionary theory in that it refers to man coming into existence from animal origins. On this island the animals suffer pain at the hands of the creator, much like humans suffer on earth. This idea is never more prevalent than when Prendick says,

“I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island. A blind Fate, a vast pitiless Mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels.” (end of ch. 16)

Wells suggests that we all suffer, unavoidably at the hands of higher beings and for no reason. This religious metaphor is even more apparent as the beasts make laws, but have a tendency to revert to their animal states. Just like the restrictions placed on humanity by religions, people relentlessly have extra-marital sex, consume alcohol, and commit various other sins.

The other significant social idea that Wells draws upon is Nietzsche’s 1882 declaration that “God is dead”. The puma breaks free and kills Moreau, just as Nietzsche has killed god. Nietzsche kills god in as much as you can dispatch a faith-based, improvable being whose existence is based on saying it is alive; saying it is dead.

Wells bears witness to the creation of mankind, the purposeless suffering of humanity, and the eventual destruction of a merciless creator. But just as no one believes Prendick, we are to assume that the majority of people have not realized all that Wells has beheld in nineteenth century thought.

B Hefner