Remember The Merchant of Venice? This is “Portia”, from Soliloquies: The Lady Doth Indeed Protest by chris wind, another one of my favourite authors. (posted with permission) If I’m the one with the property You’d think I’d be the buyer Not the bought; A lot of faith my father has in me: He distrusts my …
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Jun 20 2016
On activism and social change
[an excerpt from The Road Trip Dialogues, written as Jass Richards] So a couple hours later, they pulled into the main entrance of the university campus. There was no sign of the demonstration. There were no signs to the demonstration. “Gee, this is a really good way to get the media’s attention,” Rev said. “Don’t …
Jun 01 2016
The Last Man on Earth explains everything.
The Last Man on Earth explains everything. But he’s too stupid, too infantile, and too self-centered, to know it. Which is exactly why he explains everything. 1. He enjoys knocking things over, breaking things, destroying things. He rams his grocery cart into a pyramid of cans. He rolls bowling balls into a row of …
May 27 2016
Women Writing Science Fiction as Men — why bother?
I’ve just finished reading Mike Resnick’s collections Women Writing Science Fiction as Men and Men Writing Science Fiction as Women. There were two rules for submissions to the anthologies: “First, each story had to be told in the first person of a man [woman]; and second, if changing the narrator from Victor to Victoria [or …
May 14 2015
The price of being a philosophically irresponsible idiot
[an excerpt from The Blasphemy Tour, written as Jass Richards] “We hope you’re enjoying Texas?” the show’s host said, after he introduced Dylan and Rev as his first guests of the day. “Well, we’re a little puzzled by all the American flags. Outside on people’s houses and their lawns—we’ve even been seeing them sticking …
Oct 03 2014
Vote? WTF?
So I noticed the “Question of the Day” feature on the Weather Network website, which typically poses a question along with four response options, inviting site visitors to “Vote”. I haven’t done a survey, but I suspect this sort of thing is not unusual. Which makes it all the more disturbing. Why? Because often the …
Aug 18 2014
Transgendered Courage
Transgendered people are often seen as courageous; they have the guts to take radical steps to become the people they really are. But I don’t see them as any different from people, mostly women, who get nip-and-tuck surgeries, botox, and breast enlargements. After all, they too take radical steps to become the people they feel …
Jul 29 2014
We Won!
“We won!” a neighbor crows to me. Apparently she’d watched a game of some kind on television the night before. “What ‘we’?” I snort. Okay, scoff. “You had nothing to do with it.” She probably spent the whole game, and much of her life, eating potato chips and drinking beer. The conversation ends. She can’t …
May 02 2014
Rethinking Nero and the Gas Chamber Accompanists
One of the most memorable scenes for me from all the movies I’ve seen is the one in The Titanic when it’s clear the ship is sinking, they’re all going to die, and the first violinist of the chamber group looks to each member of the group and receives confirmation that ‘Yes, of course, we’re …
Apr 13 2014
Dismissing Philosophers
“Yes, well, that’s a philosophical question, isn’t it.” So, what, the question’s unimportant? Because it can’t be answered with quantitative certainty? But philosophical questions can be answered with more or less strength, more or less adequacy. Also, since there’s no absolutely right or wrong answer to most philosophical questions, the consensus seems to be that …
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