Quote of (next?) Week

"Why would a higher ed institution invite a commencement speaker who is an undereducated religious fanatic, and who's family's wealth was made in a pyramid marketing scheme?"

                                                                            -Dean Goddard, Facebook Commenter

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“So at the end of that monologue I had a few choice insults for the president in return. I don’t regret that. He, I believe, can take care of himself. I have jokes; he has the launch codes. So it’s a fair fight.”

                                                                 -Stephen Colbert

How To Spot Fascism Before It’s Too Late

Artist Maia Kobabe has created a thought-provoking piece here.

Short Story in SciFan Magazine Being Released on April 29th!

Available for preorder on Amazon, this issue features my latest short story,

And What’s Left of the World’s a Better Place for it -

Synopsis:

Glenda is a scientist who lives in a place simply known as "The Place." She suspects there was a larger world outside this building in which the remainder of humanity resides and that somehow the scientist is charge is the cause of all her strife. Soon the evidence mounts that he isn't the savior he claims to be and Glenda must decide if safety is worth the loss of freedom to choose.

I'm rather proud of the story conceptually so if you read it, feel free to let me know what you thought. Even if you hated it.

"Dark Little Dreams" Available at the Library.

While working at one of the libraries with which I am employed, I went onto the Melcat catalog in search of something I swear had nothing to do with me. Somehow I found me anyway.

A general fantasy and science fiction search yielded a single result for a collection of short stories called "Dark Little Dreams." It sounded familiar so I clicked on the link and saw my name in the contents section:

Contents:

Intellectual property / The love of a good entity / Buried in work / BuzzWord / Dr. Aljimati : professor of the forlorn sky / The fox god and the fox / Midnight and Jefe Bowman / The bone washer / The Wilds / Mousetrap / Witchy man, woman skin / Where sheep have fangs when you count them / Nevermore / Love the one you're with / My little babies

 

The Garden City Public Library, which  I have never visited, has the copy. It's nice to see less mainstream works containing the work of at least one local Michigan author included on their shelves.

Submission Accepted

My difficult to categorize short story about a future where the entire world consists of a single building concealing an impossible to conceal truth about how humanity's existence has dwindled to a handful of scientists was sent to SciFan Magazine a few weeks ago.

For those who might be unaware, SciFan is the new incarnation of Beyond Science Fiction, whose entire published work is collected here and Beyond Imagination, both of which featured incredible covers by my homey Larry Lonsby, Jr.

Below is the first paragraph from the letter I received from publisher Dayne Edmonson:

Dear Christopher Nadeau,

Thank you for sending us "And What's Left of the World's a Better Place for it". We love it and would like to publish it in an upcoming issue of SciFan Magazine. You should receive a notification when "And What's Left of the World's a Better Place for it" is scheduled for publication and another email when the issue containing your story is released.


Obviously I'll update on this blog once the story has been published.

A Brief Study in Hypocrisy

To borrow from another president whose disgraces have been eclipsed by the current POTUS, let me be perfectly clear: I do not advocate even the mention of assassinating a President of the United States or, for that matter, a foreign head of state. The founders of this country, intensely flawed though they were, possessed enough wisdom to establish a system of checks and balances, up to and including the ability to legally remove a sitting president or, at the very least, vote his or her ass out in four years.

So, the witless attempt at political commentary by Snoop gets no free pass from me. However, the meme below is 100% correct in its assessment of the hypocrisy from the Right regarding celebrities (or whatever the hell Ted Nugent is these days) openly advocating for the killing of a President of these here United States:

 Philosophical consistency is going the way of political satire.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I am not a nice man. You want something heartwarming...buy a puppy."

-Greg Palast, Kickass Investigative Journalist and Thorn in the Side of the Koch Bros.

Fifth Wedding Anniversary

Today marks five years since Lorie Wallace said "I do" in that Victorian wedding chapel. It was an odd March, nothing like today's snowstorm enveloped day. Five years ago we expected a freezing cold day and instead wound up with such warm weather that we were able to take pictures in front of the lake behind the chapel.

It was a day set aside just for us as we escaped the difficulties we were facing for a few happy hours. And although times have continued to be difficult, the memories of that wonderful day and the love it made official drives us forward to hopefully better, more peaceful times.

To my wife: I love you beyond mere words and am forever fortunate you said "I do" five years ago.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“You don’t tell anybody to shut up!You work for us!”

-A Constituent in Frost, Texas in response to Rep. Joe Barton (R)

The Arrogance of Imbeciles (1 of an ongoing series)

It's become a familiar story: Some smug jackoff shows up on a news article trying to be witty while insulting everyone who disagrees in a vain attempt to whine about political correctness. Then when several people call him on his BS, he tries to say he was being sarcastic but apparently he's too high level for their tiny brains.
 I decided to take a different approach this time. I decided to point out that perhaps he isn't good at sarcasm. Naturally he fell back on the everything is subjective argument.  I tried to help him understand that there are established criteria for fiction writing amd comedy despite whether or not someone"likes it."

His response? "The only criteria for fiction is that it be fiction."

My reply:   "I don't know which matchbox correspondence school you attended but they clearly only taught you that "it's fiction long as they's makin' stuff up."
I then told him before trying to understand the craft of fiction, he should start by learning the difference between comedy and sarcasm.

Okay. I looked at his Facebook page and added, "typical Trumper. Knows little about alot but passes himself off as an unaffected genius."

When I went back on Facebook a bit later I noticed all the likes etc. were gone. He ran. They usually do, especially when you point out they're showing their ignorance of a field the other person practices.

Sorry, man. Sarcasm is a high level art that only some of us can practice well. Good riddance.