Just wrapping up today's newsletter, but I keep coming back to this statue and chuckling.
This is a depiction of Thucydides - but take a look at the pose chosen for immortalization.
If someone were going to make a statue of you...
a) what pose would you prefer to be in; and
b) what pose would be more accurate to how you lived your life? 👀
Only if the head buried in the sand has actually dipped through a wormhole, and is revelling in a world of wonders on the other side. :)
@MLClark I think I told you I have a time travel idea where the duo who travelled to the past do their best to change history but it never works, e.g. the guy puts a gun to his head but it misfires. There's only one timeline and you're fulfilling it, slick. My 🖕 to time travel stories.
I LOVE this idea. 😅 And I can't think of an example of it pulled off well before! #DoIt!
@MLClark A bit of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in it ... But generally a serious tale.
JMS did it, more or less, with B5's "War Without End." They have to go to the past because it's already happened. But they never really refused to go, they just took Sinclair at his word. And Zathras ... not to be confused with Zathras ...
Nah, the JMS version is a classic use of the time travel trope. Tons of stories have people go back to try change timelines, only to realize that their going back is part of the main timeline.
The version you were talking about read to me as people meeting with a universe emphatically, comedically, & in more extreme ways every time rebuffing the time travellers' attempts to change things.
Very much a goofier vibe, with more of an "Oh no you don't" character to the universe, too.
@MLClark Your interpretation is correct. The two protagonists travel back in time to try to change the course of history, to reverse one particular event. The problem is, every step of the way, they fail. After a while, they start to suspect the universe won't let them change history, which is when one even tries suicide but fails. Their attempts become increasingly outlandish. They finally accept they're doomed to stay in the past as part of history.
And that's a great concept. 🙂 JMS hasn't taken your thunder on this one!
Although maybe Zathras wrote fiction of this sort during his wait? 🤔 (Not that Zathras - the other one. 😉)
@MLClark Zathras write, Zathras hire agent, Zathras even pitch to big studio, but no one listened to Zathras.
No one EVER listen to Zathras! 😠
But Zathras get credit some day!
Seriously, though, I'm chuckling at the possibilities:
Every time they try to kill baby Hitler, they just kill another time traveller trying to kill baby Hitler.
Every time they try to send young Hitler to art school, they just cause another art school to burn down.
One even tries to charm Hitler's mother away from his father before he's conceived, but it's just mistaken identity after mistaken identity and a long line of confusingly distracting & wonderful hookups instead. 🙃
*I'll add that I don't actually like fiction that plays with what-ifs around Hitler, but when it comes to talking about tiresome time travel tropes, the "baby Hitler" hypothetical is one of the worst for me. It's not *really* about rectifying past injustice, so much as it's about giving armchair philosophers an abstract excuse to do violence, from which they can justify other acts of violence in the world today. It's a really ugly facet of the time travel plot device.
@MLClark I agree, Hitler is overused -- Three of the five Indy movies were about Nazis -- but somethlng along the line of a short story or novelette would be pretty funny, and probably an easy sale.
I'll leave that one to you. Your idea. 😘
@MLClark Here's what I wrote for the back of Zathras' trading card:
*****
Zathras is oldest living caretaker of Great Machine, 110 years old. Knows things even Draal doesn't know yet. Zathras warn, but no one listen to Zathras. Zathras wants nothing, so Zathras gets nothing. That is life. Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs ... (1/x)
@MLClark ... Very sad life, probably have very sad death. But at least, there is symmetry. Zathras can never have anything nice ... except this card.
****
I asked JMS if I could break the fourth wall with that last line. He said yes.
JMS *loves* Zathras. He once spoke to me as if Zathras was a real person. "Isn't he great?!" I realized that Zathras lived rent-free in his head. (2/x)
Zathras isn't real?!
😱
Stephen, if you have something to tell me about Santa Claus, too, you better hold it in for another year or so. 😬 I don't think I can take that many heartbreaks all at once!
@MLClark Santa runs a non-union shop. It's brutal, especially in December. Then the layoffs come right at Christmas time.
😂 That's a BRILLIANT way to let down a kid easily.
"Listen, kid--if Santa was real, he'd be an Orwellian nightmare. You've heard the tunes! You know he sees you when you're sleeping. So here's my real gift to you this year: you're free from the overseer. Ignorance isn't strength. We haven't always been at war with Eastasia. And naughty & nice are complex concepts we renegotiate our whole life through. Now sleep tight & don't let the bedbugs bite--because those *are* real, alas."
@MLClark It's even worse if you were raised Catholic like I was.
God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Holy Ghost, all the angels, and even the parish priest know everything bad I do ... and now you layer Santa on top of that?!
No wonder I'm f***ed up. 🤪
😂
Oh, but you were an angel, RIGHT?! So it was fine!
I always felt like I had the conscience of a Catholic, constantly worried about making mistakes - but that's because my parents were both angry people then, who never let a child forget a mistake.
I remember trying to grasp the concept of people believing in a god always watching them when I was kid on the toilet. I couldn't figure out why such a deity would make a creature they had to watch poop all the time. #KidQuestions
@MLClark "Oh, but you were an angel, RIGHT?!"
Oh, absolutely.
There are some personal demons associated with that, but I'll leave those revelations for Direct Messages.
@WordsmithFL
Not enough time travel paradoxes... yet!! 😅