March 31, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: March 31, 2018

Happy Easter! Here is this week’s list of blog posts, recipes, short stories, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

The Victorian Easter Bunny via MimiMatthewsEsq. Those of you who know how much I love rabbits can probably guess why I’m sharing this post with you today.

Hot Cross Buns. These sound amazing.

Dehydrated Peeps. Do any of my readers own a dehydrator? I’d be quite curious to know what you think of this recipe if you give it a try.

Easter Bunny Cake via ‪glutenfreegreek‬. This isn’t something I could eat, but I love the decorations on this cake.

A Rabbit Egg for Flora. I wonder if this is what Easter will be like for future generations?

It’s Easter! Time to Do the Bunny Hop! via BlogVintageInn. I’d never heard of this dance before. Have any of my followers done it?

Vegan Chocolate Creme Eggs. Wow, these look delicious. I actually shared a link to this recipe a few days ago on Twitter, but I wanted to share it again for everyone who follows this blog but doesn’t spend time with me on social media. I really need to find some egg moulds and make these creme eggs myself. They’re only looking more appetizing the more I think about them.

The Dark Truth About Chocolate. You should all know that there are several packages of fancy Easter chocolate sitting in my fridge right now that I have been slowly nibbling on and will continue to work my way through this spring. By no means am I anti-chocolate, but I also don’t think of it as a health food. It’s a treat. If you’ll be indulging as well this weekend, enjoy!

So, We’ve Come To This: Peep On A Perch, The Easter Equivalent To Elf On A Shelf. Have any of you heard of Peep on a Perch?

The Last Easter Egg. This was silly, but it still made me smile.

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March 29, 2018 · 1:00 am

Are There Any Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories About Easter?

I can think of dozens of science fiction and fantasy books written for adults that are about Halloween in some way. At least the first dozen wouldn’t require me to google anything at all, and I know I’d barely even be scratching the surface at that point.

Given enough time, I could scrounge up shorter lists of Sci-fi/fantasy books about Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and other holidays, too.

I haven’t read any fiction about any type of religious customs or beliefs in a very long time, so the vast majority of the books I’d come up with for the above categories would be purely secular takes on those holidays. For example, Santa and his reindeer would be heavily featured during Christmas, and Cupid would steal the show on Valentine’s Day.

Some of the tales I recommended would offer dark takes on their subject matter in which Santa is a villain or monsters really do come out to prowl on Halloween night. Others would be pure silliness that was obviously written to make adults feel like kids again.

There are hundreds of novels and short stories out there that include various religious ideas. Some of their ideas are based on real religious beliefs, while others are about religions that only exist in the author’s imagination for the purpose of serving the plot in some way. If we expanded the above lists to include books that satirized, explored, criticized, applauded, or even simply acknowledged the existence of various religious beliefs, my lists would only grow longer.

The point I’m trying to make with all of this is that many holidays have been thoroughly explored for the purposes of telling a great story.

So where are the science fiction and fantasy tales about the Easter Bunny that were written for an adult audience? I’ve been wracking my brain over this question this week, and so far I’m coming up with nothing.  The handful of books about Easter as a secular holiday that I’ve thought of were written for preschoolers. There is nothing I can think of or find online that was written for anyone older than the age of six.

This is odd.

Can you think of any?

Is the Easter Bunny too silly a concept for the average adult scifi/fantasy fan?

If I get responses to this post, I’ll either write a follow-up to it or edit this post with everyone’s suggestions. It bothers me that this holiday is being short-changed!

An update to this post was written in April of 2020. 

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March 26, 2018 · 1:00 am

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Four

If you’re looking for some inspiration today, keep reading.

A year ago, I decided to start doing something with all of the beautiful, haunting, bizarre, creative, and otherwise unique photos I kept finding on the various stock image sites I have on my RSS feed. That was how this series of posts originally came to be, and today I have another entry in it for you.

As usual, there is a brief description underneath every photo for all of my readers who can’t see the photos for any reason. I’ve also included my thoughts on how I’d use them in a story, poem, essay, or other creative work, but feel free to let your imaginations run wild.

I can’t wait to see how you all react to these images and what you do with them.

This is a picture of a tree stump that’s been carved into the shape of a person. The person’s head is tilted back, and he or she is gazing at the sky. There is a large crack in the tree that is splitting this carving’s neck down the middle.

Step one: carve the perfect sculpture into a tree.

Step two: magically convert all of the knowledge you’ve gained from this project into the energy to carve your greatest work into stone so that it will last for an eternity. When the carving is complete, bring the wooden sculpture back to your home and put it somewhere safe. As long as it is still standing, you will remain alive and well, too.

This is a picture of someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask looking at a red flower that is sitting on the palm of their hand. 

All I can think about when I look at this photograph are the protests that used to happen in Toronto a few years ago. People wearing these masks often played a large part in those protests. It was fascinating to see how someone behaves (in a totally law-abiding way) when no one knows who they are. Their body language is more relaxed and their movements are freer than one generally sees in a stranger on the streets of this city.

Would you or I behave the same way in that situation? I’d like to think so. Maybe we’d even pause to admire a flower before jumping back into the protest.

 

This is a picture of a young woman whose body is covered in skimpy bandages and whose face is covered in indecipherable writing. She is staring directly at the person who took this picture. 

The first thing to pass through my mind when I saw this was: “why must so many Halloween costumes for women be ‘sexy’?” I have no problem at all with people of any gender choosing to wear revealing costumes on Halloween, but it bothers me that men’s costumes are generally made to look as realistic as possible while women’s costumes are usually made to look as revealing as possible.

As hard as I tried to find some supernatural or science fiction spin on this picture, the only thing it would inspire me to write is a long essay about the intersection between capitalism and sexism.

 

 

This is a picture of two discarded artificial legs lying on a dusty wooden floor. One of the legs is bigger and longer than the other one. 

These legs belong to the same kid. As that child grows up and needs larger artificial legs, they always make sure to pause and take a picture of the limbs they’ve left behind before moving onto the next one.

This isn’t a sad moment to me. It’s a happy one. Look at how much that kid has grown!

This is a picture of someone holding a piece of green moss that has had two googly eyes glued to it. 

After forgetting to buy a birthday present for her preschool-aged son, the main character decided to surprise him with a pet moss. She wasn’t expecting him to love it as he did, and she definitely wan’t expecting the pet moss to grow legs and begin scampering around the house one night.

This picture, titled “Cosmic Winter Wonderland,” is of region NGC 6357 in space. It is a birthplace for new stars. The stars in the photograph are surrounded by large clouds of dust that resemble the clouds made of water we have on Earth.

How did life first begin? Many people have wondered that over the years. I’d like to think it happened in a place as beautiful and peaceful as this one. Perhaps it could even be witnessed by aliens or other beings who were intelligent and long-lived enough to see it all play out.

 

This is a picture of a green parakeet. It is staring directly at the photographer. 

This bird looks slightly annoyed to me. Is it actually annoyed, though? Do birds have a similarly difficult time reading human body language?

If the first sentient aliens we ever met were avian-like, how well would our species be able to understand each other? Would they find us endearing the way humans often squeal over birds on Earth?

Why can’t I stop thinking about this scenario?

 

This is a picture of a barefoot woman who is sitting in a grocery cart. 

I love everything about this photo other than the fact that the subject is barefoot. It seems like such a dangerous place to walk around if you’re not wearing shoes.

Of course, the subject has probably heard this a thousand times before. She no doubt has some sort of invention to keep anything from cutting her feet as she runs around. Maybe she’s a scientist or a magician?

This is a picture of a man who is cosplaying in the forest. He’s carrying an ornate walking stick and wearing a green cloak and other Medieval-esque pieces of clothing. 

Anyone else would have been terrified by the sight of a dragon appearing in the sky and landing in the park one summer day. Marvin had played so many rounds of Dungeons & Dragons, though, that he was sure he could get it to fly home again.

This is a picture of an empty playground that is covered in fog.

What if Stephen King’s The Mist wasn’t just a story? We know how it ended in the parallel universe he tapped into while he was writing, but maybe this is how that tale will begin in our universe.

Previous posts in this series:

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Two

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Three.

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March 24, 2018 · 1:05 am

Saturday Seven: My Favourite Emily Dickinson Poems

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Poetry was one of my favourite things in high school. I took a long break from it once I became an adult, but I’ve recently felt the urge to read it again.

I thought I’d dive back into this genre by revisiting some of the poets I enjoyed the most. Today I’ll share some short poems from Emily Dickinson that always make me smile or think. I once owned a very large book that contained every poem she’d ever written that still exists. (Sadly, some of her work was destroyed by her sister-in-law and other relatives after her death. We still don’t know for sure why they did that, but it was a terrible loss for her fans).

Yes, there’s an excellent reason why none of the below poems have titles. Ms. Dickinson actually didn’t bother naming the majority of her poems! They were given numbers instead or even written on scraps of paper and bundled together tidily.

My future Saturday Seven posts will shine a spotlight on other poets I enjoy. I won’t talk about poetry every week for this meme, but I’m tentatively hoping to do it about once a month in the future.

Poem #1:

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Poem #2:

I HAD no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

Poem #3:

LOOK back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature’s west!

Poem #4:

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,–

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.

Poem #5:

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish — you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Poem #6:

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit—Life!

Poem #7:

Two Butterflies went out at Noon—
And waltzed above a Farm—
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested on a Beam—

And then—together bore away
Upon a shining Sea—
Though never yet, in any Port—
Their coming mentioned—be—

If spoken by the distant Bird—
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman—
No notice—was—to me—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are any of you fans of poetry? If so, which poems and poets do you like?

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· 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: March 24, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips, poems, short stories, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Unlegendary Heroes. My grandfather is infamous in our family for his do-it-yourself approach to medical care. For example, he once stitched up a large cut on one of his children’s heads. It apparently healed well, too. He’s done all sorts of other small medical procedures on himself that most people would leave to a doctor or nurse. What are the unlegendary heroes in your life known for?

Funny Things at the Dentist via Polychromantium. Oh, how I wish we could know the rest of this story.

Extreme Frugality Allowed Me to Retire at 32 – and Regain Control of My Life. I’m in awe of what this writer has accomplished so early in life.

Will the Internet Change Our Spellings? via ajseftonauthor. I’d argue that it already has. What do you all think?

Excuses and Explanations. There’s a huge difference between the two, and I liked the way this blogger divided them.

Lost Children via LizanneLloyd. This blogger has such a creative take on what might have happened to the children in these old photographs.

From Object-Oriented:

I’m staring at the skew on the third floor of an incredibly beautiful eighteenth-century building when I burst into tears again. The floor isn’t a floor anymore–it’s slid sideways, I can see the place where the load-bearing beams have snapped inside the structure.

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March 22, 2018 · 1:00 am

Unguided Meditation Update #2

Last month in this series on my experiments with unguided meditation, I mentioned wanting to try sitting up during my sessions. Meditation is something I’d previously been doing lying down due to a minor injury that made sitting in certain positions uncomfortable. Click on the link above if you want a refresher on why I chose that goal.

Before I jump into today’s post in detail, let’s talk about the chairs in my house and how they’re related to this topic. Technically, both of our chairs are actually meant to be used outdoors. They’re not traditional chairs. Think of camping furniture instead of anything you’d find in a fancy dining room.

My spouse and I chose them because they can be folded up and put away when not in use. Since our apartment is a small one, we use the same areas of it for many different activities throughout the week. Anything that can be folded up and put away when not in use is always folded up and put away when we’re finished with it.

These chairs work well for most of our purposes, but they’re not designed for someone to sit up straight and meditate in them.Their backs are soft and flexible, and they mold to your body as you shift position.  In other words, you’re supposed to sit back and slouch in them.

Sitting Meditation

The reason why I went into so much detail about our tiny home and unconventional chair situation is so you could better imagine what meditating while sitting upright is like for me.

I had three options when I started doing it a few weeks ago: sit on a chair that encourages slouching; sit on our wood floor; sit on the bed.

Due to my sore muscles at the time, I chose option three. It seemed like it would be the least likely one to cause me even more discomfort than I was already feeling.

I’m going to be very honest with all of you here. Not all of my meditation sessions have involved sitting up since my last post in this series. In the beginning, that position was simply too uncomfortable on some days. The only way to do it was to lie down.  On other days, I waited until so late in the evening to meditate that I was too tired to do so sitting up.

The general trend in my life has been towards meditating while sitting up and away from meditating while lying down, though. I expect it to continue in the future as long as I can avoid future injuries.

The Results

In my experience, meditating works much better in the sitting position. It’s easier for me to stay focused on the task at hand when I’m sitting up straight. There have been a few times in the past when I accidentally fell asleep while meditating lying down due to how relaxed I was on my soft bed. This isn’t something I’ve come close to experiencing while sitting up.

There’s also something to be said for creating a routine and sticking to the same environment as much as possible from one session to the next. When I sit in a cross-legged position in my quiet room, I know it’s time to relax and meditate. My body has begun to recognize that this is something I only do during that time of the day since it isn’t how I normally sit.

When I was meditating lying down, there wasn’t as much of a difference between that and lying down to go to sleep or to watch a TV show. I like having a sharper contrast between all of those activities.

While I’m still in the early stages of this adjustment to my routine, I’m pleased with how it’s working in general. As I mentioned in the previous section of this post, I am planning to meditate sitting up even more often in the future. It was definitely the right decision for me, although I am glad that meditating while lying down worked for me when I wasn’t able to do this position.

Next Up: Meditating for Longer Periods of Time

My goal for the next month is to begin meditating for longer periods of time. My sessions are only about five minutes long right now. This was a time limit I originally set due to the pain and muscle stiffness that I’d been dealing with earlier this year. Sometimes it was a stretch to even make it that far, to tell you the truth.

Now that I’m doing better physically, I’d like to double that number at bare minimum. If it’s possible, I may even aim for a longer time period than that. I’ll let you know next month.

If you’re a fellow meditator, how is it going for you?

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March 19, 2018 · 1:00 am

Why You Should Take a Minimalist Approach to Replacing Workout Gear

Consumerism is one of the biggest reasons why I’m so selective about which health and fitness sites and social media accounts I follow online.

Many of these sites are filled with pictures of people exercising with colour-coordinated outfits and gear. These photos are pretty to look at, but that approach to fitness is also completely different from the way I do it.

This is how my reasoning on the topic goes. If it isn’t missing, broken beyond repair, or otherwise in genuine need of a replacement, why bother matching anything? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

Exercise isn’t about looking attractive while you’re working out.  It’s about taking care of yourself and hopefully reducing your risks of many common diseases in the years to come.

Therefore, I replace my gear as it wears out or as I find myself growing strong enough to need, say, a heavier set of hand weights.

It Saves Money and Time

The average store is designed to be as enticing as possible, an this is even more true for stores that are part of a chain or that are run by people who have a lot of experience in marketing . Everything from the background music to the lighting to how the products for sale are displayed is carefully calibrated to squeeze as much money out of the customer base as is possible.

Even people like me who deeply dislike shopping can be swayed by this kind of marketing. While not every impulse purchase is going to turn out to be something that you regret making, you can avoid spending more than you intended to in the first place by only shopping when you genuinely need something and by condensing your trips as much as possible.

Shopping also sucks up a lot of time because it was designed to work that way. There are many stores out there that routinely change where they keep specific items in order to get their customers to look around for a while before they find what they needed. Hopefully, their thinking goes, you’ll find something interesting that you weren’t planning to purchase and add it to your cart while you’re trying to find that one thing you were actually planning to buy.

The best way to win this game is to avoid playing it in the first place.

It Demonstrates Why Quality Is More Important Than Quality

One of the other biggest reasons why I don’t replace my exercise gear regularly is that I do my best to pick the highest quality items I can afford the first time I buy them.

For example, there is a store in my neighbourhood that often has sports bras on sale for $10 or $15. Will they work okay in the short term? Yes, they’d be fine as a short-term solution. With that being said, they’re made of incredibly flimsy material. If I bought one of them it would almost certainly wear out and need to be replaced in six months.

The sports bra I ended up buying three or four years ago cost about $60. It’s barely shown any wear since then, though, and I expect to get several more years of use out of it before I need to begin thinking about replacing it.

Let’s be generous and assume that all of those inexpensive sports bras lasted a full six months each. After ten years, I will have spent between $200 and $300 on them.That doesn’t include the time needed to repair them or to replace them when they finally fell apart.

In the same time frame, I would have spent $120 on the more durable bras. I would have only needed to gone shopping for one replacement in that decade, and I probably wouldn’t have had to spend any time repairing ripped seams or other issues in the meantime.

It’s Environmentally Friendly

Photo credit: Nadine3103.

Buying inexpensive gear doesn’t only hurt your bottom line over the longterm, it also hurts the environment. Reusing and recycling are important steps in the process, but reducing what you consume in the first place is even better.

Why throw away ten used sports bras over a decade if you can toss out one instead? This might not seem like a huge deal when you’re looking at the purchasing decisions of one single person, but it has a dramatic effect on how well our renewable and non-renewable resources are managed when you look at the decisions made by a large group of people.

Every little bit helps.

Incidentally, I am in no way intending to embarrass anyone who can’t afford to pay more upfront in order to save money and renewable resources in the future. Shopping at secondhand stores or swapping with a friend are both excellent ways to cut down on the expense of exercise gear and help the environment at the same time. Do what you can when you can, and don’t worry about the rest if your finances are tight.

It Encourages Problem Solving

Not every problem needs to be or should be solved with money.

When I get the urge to buy something that isn’t a basic necessity like food, I sit with that urge for a while and take note of how often I wish I had bought it.

For example, several years ago I found this plastic reusable water container that could be folded up and put into your pocket when it’s empty. It was nifty.

I came very close to buying it that day, but I decided to keep track of my thoughts about it as I was out and about over the next several months to see how regularly I might have used it.

How often did I wish I had a water bottle when there were no drinking fountains nearby? Well, it turned out that this mostly happened on hot, humid summer days. I can only think of a handful of situations when that device would have been handy to have because of how much I avoid spending a lot of time outdoors during a heat wave. Becoming more familiar with where all of the water fountains near my neighbourhood were located solved 80% of my problem, and always drinking a big glass of water before heading out on those days solved the other 20%.

If I were someone who spent a lot of time far away from public drinking fountains or other sources of free water in the summer, my answer to this question would have been completely different. Due to my current habits, this isn’t a worthwhile purchase for me for the time being. I am keeping that bottle tucked away in the back of my mind if this ever changes, though. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

I would have eventually figured this out if I bought it on a whim, but I’m glad that I didn’t have to learn that lesson that way.

Respond

How often do you replace your workout equipment and clothes? How much, if at all, does it matter to you that they all match? What’s your philosophy on this topic in general?

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March 17, 2018 · 1:05 am

Saturday Seven: Books with Green Covers

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I was originally planning to make this post about Irish books that I’ve read and loved, but it turned out that I couldn’t think of enough of them to fill out a Saturday Seven list on this topic. My goal for next year is to change that, so do speak up if you know of any good reads from that country.

In the meantime, let’s talk about books that all happen to have green covers. If I ever become wealthy enough to buy a big house and fill one room of it with nothing but books, I’m going to be terribly tempted to sort those books out by colour. Don’t you think it would be magical to walk into a room that looked like a rainbow?

I also think that arranging stories like this would be an interesting way to stumble across something you might have never otherwise picked up.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, some of my aunts and uncles were still kids when I was born. It was a little like growing up with older siblings except that we never lived in the same house and therefore didn’t have to share toys or bedrooms with each other. I remember my youngest aunt reading this story to me when I was very young. At the time, I loved it. Now I wish I could talk to Mr. Silverstein and find out whether he thought it was a virtuous thing for the tree to sacrifice every single part of itself for the boy or whether he was warning his young fans about the dangers of giving so much of yourself that you have nothing left for your own needs.

The Magicians Nephew by C.S. Lewis

This is my favourite story in the Chronicles of Narnia series in large part because of how C.S. Lewis came up with the idea of writing about a young boy whose mother was dying from a disease that had no cure. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but knowing the context of those scenes made them even more poignant.

 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

As much as I liked them, the last few Harry Potter books were so dark that I don’t reread them as often as I do the earlier ones.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire struck a nice balance between the sillier themes of the first few books and the very serious themes of the last ones. I also appreciated the way Ms. Rowling fleshed out wizard society. The audience was able to see just how well wizards and witches could live their entire lives cocooned away from muggle society without feeling like they were missing out on anything at all.

Also, the Triwizard Tournament was a thrill. I remember feeling afraid for Harry when he dove into the lake and began searching for the merpeople. Even magical humans can only survive for a few minutes without oxygen, and I wasn’t sure that his solution to breathing underwater was going to work.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

As fun as the movie adaptations are, the original Oz series was a million times more creative and sometimes even downright bizarre than anything that made it onto the big screen. I have no idea where the author came up with half of his stuff, but they sure did make for an attention-grabbing plot.  Don’t read this to young kids, but do go read it.

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor.

I adore O’Connor’s writing style, although I will admit to not understanding a lot of her stories when I first started reading them. It took some rereads and a few more years of maturing before I began to see what she was saying about ethics and morality. She’s yet another author I wish I could take out for a cup of coffee and have a long conversation with.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

When I was a teenager, my mom took me to see a production of this play that had been put on by a local college. I loved every single bawdy minute of it, and I’ve been a fan of it ever since.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

I had no idea what to expect what one of my college professors assigned a few of these tales to us. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” was my favourite one because of how much it revealed about what it was like to be a woman in England during this time period. For example, women were defined by their relationship to men back then. They could be a maiden, a wife, or a widow. Their options outside of these roles were all but nonexistent. If only Chaucer had been able to finish this series.

What books that have green covers have you read recently? Do you sort out your books this way in general, or am I part of a small minority of readers on this issue?

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· 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: March 17, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web. All but one of these links is related to St. Patrick’s Day in some way. That exception suits this time of year for other reasons which will soon be clear to you.

Five Minutes in Spring. This is both funny and true.

Irish Soda Bread via TRH_Cook. This sounds delicious.

St. Patrick’s Day! I really like the idea of using candy to make art like this. I’ll be sharing more links from this site in the future.

St. Patrick’s Day “green”-ery. It’s going to be nice when the world is green and lush again.

Irish Slang via ‪irishslang‬. This whole site is worth checking out. I especially liked finding out what the greeting “Hows Yer Onions Sur” and the food reference “Afters” meant.

Growing Up with Leprechauns! via SusieLindau‬. What a fun way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

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March 15, 2018 · 1:00 am

Rest in Peace, Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking in 2006. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

I’m assuming all of my readers heard this news yesterday, but the famous physicist Stephen Hawking is dead.

The world is a dimmer and sadder place without him. I doubt any of his friends and loved ones will read this, but I’d like to extend my sincere condolences to them if they do.

A Brief History of Time was one of my all-time favourite pop-science reads. The only science classes I took in high school were Biology and Chemistry, so he was my first introduction to Cosmology and Physics.

He explained everything so clearly and concisely in the things he wrote for a general audience. By far the best part of A Brief History of Time in particular was the section on black holes. Mr. Hawking’s theories about how they worked and why it’s actually possible for some material to escape a black hole blew my mind.

It sounded like something from a science fiction novel, yet it was happening in our universe and it could be explained in purely scientific terms. There’s something special about touching the far reaches of current human knowledge like that.

Not every physicist is capable of explaining his or her work so well to people who have little to no understanding of what physics is about or how physicists are slowing figuring out more and more details about how the universe works and how it began.

In 2014, Stephen Hawking asked science fiction writers to incorporate his ideas about imaginary time into their stories.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has taken him up on that challenge yet.

(If any of my readers know of any plausible hard science fiction books, movies, or TV shows that are based on Stephen Hawking’s work, do mention them in the comment section below! Everything I could find online about this topic involved soft science fiction like Futurama or Doctor Who.

Mr. Hawking, thank you for everything you did for the scientific community. Thank you for inspiring generations of science fiction authors, too. May you rest in peace.

I’ll end this post with a quote from Mr. Hawking himself:

It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.

 

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