I’ve had a few incidences having dreams (that seemed uncharacteristic) featuring people that I later found out had died that night or who contacted me out of the blue. I tend to dismiss it as selection bias, particularly as I remember so few dreams under ordinary circumstances.
Jame Joyce’s Ulysses. Beautiful language but damn near unreadable as a novel.
The world of H2G2 would at least be amusing in its absurdity. That said, I don’t know that I want to read much that’s set in a place that’s fun, and I know writers disdain them. Literary utopias always have a dark side. Story tension and interest do not build from a place where everyone is having fun.
I’d like to go back to see the death of Julius Caesar to learn if his final words were truly, “Et tu, Brute” or the more likely, “Oww! Stop stabbing me already!” (Vah! Noli me amplius vulnerare.)
Uh, the only instance of which I’m aware that anybody has ever “had to get a tattoo right now” was in Nazi concentration camps (and the like,) and they were not given a choice of subject matter. As I can’t imagine the scenario in which I had no say in having something etched on my body, but I could choose what was depicted, I don’t think it’s a meaningful question.
I like Groundhog Day because it’s a beautiful reminder that any old pudgy rodent is as good as the smartest human / computer combination at making forecasts about the future. More than Thanksgiving, it’s the holiday that forces some humility upon us.
I’ll take any of those pre-Arthritic days in which I was brimming with energy all the time.
Tropic Thunder. Laughed myself to tears.
The Teapot Dome Scandal. Because of the way History is taught (or was in my day) I have this name indelibly etched in my brain (taking up valuable — i.e. limited — real estate) that has no significance because I have no idea what said event was. Was it about teapots? Was it about domes? Was it about both? If so, what’s a “teapot dome?” The curved part at the top? How big of a teapot related scandal could there be, really.
I used to think any conspiracy of three or more was doomed to someone talking, but now I’m pretty sure there’s a bipartisan cabal of billionaires who get together and laugh and laugh about how they can get with absolutely every American underaged daughter if they just keep people scrolling material that paints an opposition as lunatics void of all humanity, such that a pack of horny dimwitted robber-barons seem positively electable by comparison.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 