Being the President of the United States of America comes with a lot of expectations. It’s very surprising, but we expect the ruler of the free world to be great at everything. This is kind of impossible, so it’s not that surprising that Michael Jordan called Obama out for being a “shitty” golfer.
What’s the point in anything? Everything? Maybe reading some weird fiction will clear things up, with its surrealistic realities merging unlikelihoods with facts to create some weird wonder world full of only truths. At least, I think that’s what’s being said in this wonderfully written piece in The Atlantic that celebrates literature that gets a little bit weird. As Jeff Vandermeer, author of the piece, puts it:
We like to think that we understand our universe, but I came away from these readings with a sense of weird fiction as a potentially powerful way in which to find the distance and the universality to grapple with the negation of that idea. There are so many contradictions in who we are now as human beings—immersed in a culture of modern technology and “progress” that still rates as primitive in the context of, for example, the way plants use quantum mechanics during photosynthesis.
Speaking of the universe — though, aren’t all statements, in one way or another, speaking of the universe? — these new satellite images of Earth and its moon are a little stunning, a little worthy of inspection and cause for introspection. Maybe the kind of introspection that goes into creating an effective Tinder profile, a thing that is uniquely 2014, but that, surely, folks of the past would have clamored for. Specifically, fictional folks of the pasts of Jane Austen. Would romance novels ever have been a thing if dating and courtship were as (theoretically) simple as they are today?
Similarly, would tales of travel and adventure have been written if every Huckleberry Finn had had Tom Mison’s voice guiding him around the countryside? Would the United States have ever been founded if, instead of fighting for freedoms of all sorts, we just sold our breath in hopes of funding religious freedom, as Sia is doing in hopes of helping Australian filmmakers? I wonder — has she done this before?
I’m not sure, but I think I’ve found my costume for tomorrow: Sia’s breath. Or, maybe I’ll just follow in Alison Williams’ footsteps and cross-dress as a girl pirate. Or, maybe I’ll wear one of these sexy man costumes.