#apocalypse friday

[gobblliinn]

so what are you guys doing on the apocalypse ?

[whenyouseeahammerbettergrabit]

Apocalypse Friday: Best Apocalypse Things The Litereary Conference

Dear Readers,

I learned about the writer Cesar Aira because my friend and business partner, Sampson Starkweather, pointed me to an article about him in an issue of Harpers Magazine.

Aira is a bit of an enigma. He's coy and shy yet debonaire. The article's author, Rivka Galchen, actually seems to be a bit in love with Aira, and this lends a cat-and-mouse quality to Aira. Galchen is never quite sure where he is coming from. But, the coolest thing about Aira is his writing practice.

He gets up in the morning and writes, not knowing where his story is going to go. Then he stops. The next day, he writes, even though he does not know where the story is going to go.

Storytelling is a game to him, a mental exercise where he tries to untie all the knots he creates for himself.

Right after I read this article, another friend, Margaret Meehan, sent me a copy of the Literary Conference.

The Literary Conference has a surprise every few pages, and demonstrates Aira's tendency to change a story's plot mid-text. The biggest surprise of them all, though, is that this is a book about the world being destroyed and then saved by the main character of the book, Cesar Aira.

Here is more about the book:

Cesar is a translator who's fallen on very hard times due to the global economic downturn; he is also an author, and a mad scientist hell-bent on world domination. On a visit to the beach he intuitively solves an ancient riddle, finds a pirate's treasure, and becomes a very wealthy man. Even so, Cesar's bid for world domination comes first and so he attends a literary conference to be near the man whose clone he hopes will lead an army to victory: the world-renowned Mexican author, Carlos Fuentes. A comic science fiction fantasy of the first order, The Literary Conference is the perfect vehicle for Cesar Aira's take over of literature in the 21st century.

Previous entries are here.

[whenyouseeahammerbettergrabit]

Apocalypse Friday: Best Apocalypse Things Hissbitch

Dear Readers,

I don't even know what to say about the Tumblr blog Hissbitch. The tumblrer sort of documents his life. He sort of documents the horror that is his life. He sort of makes life look like the Apocalypse. He is the tension between the natural and the modern world.

Here he goes to the woods instead of to a job interview.

Be careful, this tumblrer's GIFs are gross, ugly, terrifying, and insane, but his recent GIFs are like fine art.

This person scares me and I hope he scares you, too.

On a lighter note, I had an Apocalypse dream last night. In this dream a new Ice Age had dawned. I was stuck in a shelter that was being buried in mountains of snow. I had a stash of food and supplies back home, but no one would let me leave the shelter. Also, the people I loved were not there with me. I needed to escape and make sure I was not followed. (Most of my dreams are Apocalypse dreams.)

Previous entries are here.

[whenyouseeahammerbettergrabit]

Apocalypse Friday: Best Apocalypse Things Ready Player One

Dear Readers,

My second pick for last years best Apocalypse thing is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I loved this book. It is the smartest thing I read last year. The book is pretty long, at nearly 400 pages, but I read it in a weekend. That does not happen to me very often.

Set in 2044, after the United States has been devistated by the lingering Great Recession, citizens escape their dreary lives by playing a super MMO like War of Warcraft. Unlike WOW, the game, OASIS, functions like a true alternate reality. People do business there, go to school, and, yes, fight battles. But the world is deeper and more intricate than that.

This is the kind of book I wish I wrote, but the Geek knowledge needed to write such a thing is beyond my skills. Anyway, RPO is killer.

Here is more about the book:

Ready Player One

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed. It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.   For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.    Previous posts are here.

[whenyouseeahammerbettergrabit]

Apocalypse Friday: Best Apocalypse Things Last Year

Dear Readers,

In the spirit of year-end wrap ups, I am going to tell you the best apocalypse things I saw last year. This doesn't mean these things came out last year, just that I found/read/watched/used them last year.

I am going to tell you really slow, like my top five over five weeks. Why? Because...

On November 17th, 2009 the first driver hit me while I was biking to the grocery store. This driver broke the inside of my leg, yelled at me, and denied that she was at fault. Also, she was a psychologist. I thought I survived this incident pretty well. But after the accident I bought a copy of Preparedness Now, a book about surviving catastrophes by having the right tools.

The second driver hit me while I was going to the grocery store on October 25th, 2010. This driver smashed my face really good. It wasn't until almost a year later that I recovered from the PTSD, but it was also at this point that I realized I had purchased Preparedness Now because I had a little PTSD the first time. I just didn't realize it because my marriage was falling apart. I mean, I just couldn't keep track of all those feelings and where they came from!

Anyway, I finally got around to reading Preparedness Now and making a grab-and-go bag that holds everything I will need for a major catastrophe. This is basically an evacuation that lasts three days without outside aid (think Katrina).

The coolest thing about Preparedness Now, though, are not the kits, but the simple advice that it gives people on how to navigate extraordinary situations that occur around them. My favorite is the advice that people should be fit enough to run away from a disaster, pull themselves up from a fall, and pry something open.

Here is some stuff about the book:

PREPAREDNESS NOW! by Aton Edwards, Executive Director of the NYC-based non-profit organization, International Preparedness Network (IPN). IPN has worked with the Red Cross, Center for Disease Control, New York City Police Department, and other organizations to train thousands domestically and overseas to prevent and respond to emergencies and disasters.

PREPAREDNESS NOW! provides information and techniques that can help mitigate the destructive effects of disasters, whatever the cause. With illustrations, photographs and step-by-step instructions, this manual delivers practical advice on:

The 72-hour emergency kit Water quality control and storage Emergency shelter, power, lighting, and heating Emergency transportation, communications, and evacuation Chemical, biowarfare, and nuclear preparedness Defense against infectious diseases Personal defense and crime prevention

Previous posts are here.