alternate facts, wings, timelines, and private grabbing

i go away a lot, but i always come back.

november ninth, twenty sixteen: i woke up and thought to myself ‘something’s…..different.’ i soon found that biff tannen had ripped his way through the fourth wall of cinematic fiction and into this supposed reality, regained possession of the futuristic sports almanac, and wrested control of the white house (bob gale, a writer for back to the future II, has acknowledged that the rich, powerful tannen is based on someone who recently became king of America—google that), giving rise to a wave of ‘alts’—facts, wings of the right, and of course timelines. within these alternative timelines, expect quite a few of them to legalize pussy grabbing (some in more lawyerly language, some not so much), and in those where a female version of tannen assumes power, an equally degrading form of something called dong conking.

none of that really matters, though. the only thing i ever worry about is me, of course, which is why i have emerged from a months-long hiatus to make it known that i am not fake news. that’s all. i’m expecting many of these alternate timelines to produce executive orders shutting down any and all outlets that do not acknowledge the supreme insight and godliness of our new *rutaceaecean* figurehead of american greatness. so, as of this writing, the official stance of the philosophunculist blog is that america has been made great.

and speaking of biff tannen, was it really so bad that he got to be rich, if only in one timeline? in all three movies, dude gets smothered in poopy, which is what we have to assume is happening to this current commander in chief in every other timeline. just let the guy have one feces-free life, alright?

back to me. this blog is very real. it’s not even news, therefore it can’t be fake news. when the witch hunt for publications of ill repute commences, please don’t censor me. i’ll do anything. grab my pussy (in a timeline where i am a woman). conk my dong (in the timeline where the king is a woman. or even a man. i don’t care. if the masculine king of america wants to conk my dong, i’ll take it. years after this, when i’m homeless because all workers have been replaced by robots and the children and friends of the king, i can tell passersby that the king of america once conked my dong, and they will reward me with a russian ruble.) just let me keep this blog. it’s really all i’ve got, until america achieves an even greater level of greatness and me and everyone i know gets rich from working at our jobs (before the robots take over) because america will be that great

 

*i sort of made that up, but it has a base in rutaceae, which is the citrus family, and i know that doesn’t help my ‘not fake’ spiel, but due to its base on a real word, it can’t be classified as fake*

 

 

Here Are The Books I Read In 2014.

This is a list of the books I read in the year 2014. I only read three pages from 50 Shades of Grey, which is why it is not listed here. See? I’m not hiding anything.

Burgundy, Ron—Let Me Off at the Top! My Classy Life & Other Musings (2013)

Camus, Albert—The Stranger (1942)

Chandler, Raymond—The High Window (1942)

Dick, Philip Kindred—The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)

Dixon, Chuck/Moench, Doug—Batman: Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat (1993)

Egan, Jennifer—A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010)

Evans, Colin—The Casebook of Forensic Detection (2007)

Everett, Percival—Assumption (2011)

Frissell, Bob—Nothing In This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are (1994)

Taken from http://www.bobfrissell.com

Greene, Graham—The Third Man (1950)

Haldeman, Joe—The Forever War (1974)

Harris, Thomas A.—I’m OK—You’re OK (1967)

Heinlein, Robert A.—The Puppet Masters (1951)

Kafka, Franz—The Trial (1925)

Kakalios, James—The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics (2010)

Larsson, Stieg—The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2005), The Girl Who Played With Fire (2006), The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest (2007)

Le Guin, Ursula K.—The Dispossessed (1974)

Moore, Alan—Batman: The Killing Joke (1988)

Petersen, Penny A.—Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront (2013)

Pynchon, Thomas—The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Bleeding Edge (2013)

Reed, Ishmael—Mumbo Jumbo (1972)

Rowling, J.K.—Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

Slater, Lauren—Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (2004)

Stokes, Philip—Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers (2003)

Swartzwelder, John—The Time Machine Did It (2002)

Vonnegut, Kurt—Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Westlake, Donald E.—The Ax (1997)

Wilson, Robert Anton—Prometheus Rising (1983), Quantum Psychology (1990)

Wong, David—John Dies At The End (2009)

Yeager, Jeff—The Cheapskate Next Door (2010)

Dream Interpretation

I saved this message on my phone while I was half asleep:

“Put dog in box and threw it into tree dream.”

The overall theme of the above text would lead you to believe that I had a dream where I put a dog into a box, then threw it into a tree. Sounds simple. On the other hand, dreams are riddled with arcane themes and symbolism, which may or may not be the subconscious trying to send a message or solve a problem.

Let’s break it down into component parts to see what it means.

Dog—I don’t like dogs.

Box—I don’t mind boxes, you can use them for storage.

The act of throwing—Also something I don’t mind, but also an activity I’m not gonna go out of my way to do.

Tree—I like trees.

We have here two things that I am indifferent to, one thing I don’t like, and one thing I do like. What a bizarre mixture of symbols. I already figured out what the dream means, though. Saddle up:

The dog is obviously a reference to the 1980 novel The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing, in which a planet very similar to Earth has been influenced and tinkered with behind the scenes by distant visitors from Sirius. Sirius is also known as the “Dog Star.”

The first message is clear: I must smoke out the Dog Star race, and “box” them up before they start inserting their instruments of science inside of us, if they haven’t already.

The box must then be thrown into a tree. Just any old tree? No. In Jewish mysticism, the Tree of Life represents the interconnectedness of all things, as well as the harmony of all creation.

Summary of interpretation: If I put the Dog Star people in a box and throw it into the Tree of Life, their conniving ways will come to an end and balance will be restored. That would make me the most important person on the planet at this point in Time.

Peter Watts – Starfish

This is the story of mentally disturbed people living on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, tending to a geothermal station. Their bodies have been altered, enabling them to withstand the pressure of the briny deep. Like any good story, things get all messed up—one lady loses her marbles, some guy dies, a pedophile goes off to live among the fish, a couple people have sex, and some sort of sentient gel starts running the show.
And one lady even appears to have Google Glass already(this book was published in 1999).

At first, I wanted to give this book a “Five Star(fish)” rating, but that was lame.

In lieu of a number or object based rating system, I’ll say this—Starfish is a good book.

Here’s A List Of The Books I Read In 2012

Adams, Douglas—The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1979)

Atwood, Margaret—The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Brown, Dan—The Da Vinci Code (2003)

Burroughs, William S.—Nova Express (1964)

Capra, Fritjof—The Tao Of Physics: An Exploration Of The Parallels Between Modern Physics And Eastern Mysticism (1975)

Carlin, George—Last Words (2009)

Castaneda, Carlos—The Teachings Of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way Of Knowledge (1968)

Chandler, Raymond—The Big Sleep (1939)

Collins, Suzanne—The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010)

Dick, Philip K.—Dr. Futurity (1960), Ubik (1969), VALIS (1981)

Dickey, James—Deliverance (1970)

Eco, Umberto—Foucault’s Pendulum (1988)

Graves, Robert—I, Claudius (1934)

Hammett, Dashiell—Red Harvest (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), The Thin Man (1934)

Hannity, Sean—Let Freedom Ring: Winning The War Of Liberty Over Liberalism (2002)

Heinlein, Robert A.—Stranger In A Strange Land (1961)

Hoobler, Thomas and Dorothy—Confucianism (1993)

Hunt, Laird—The Impossibly (2001)

Jung, Carl—Modern Man In Search Of A Soul (1955)

Jurek, Scott—Eat And Run: My Unlikely Journey To Ultramarathon Greatness (2012)

Khan, Pir Vilayat Inayat—Awakening: A Sufi Experience (1999)

Lama, The Dalai—Stages Of Meditation (2003)

Le Guin, Ursula K.—The Left Hand Of Darkness (1969)

Lessing, Doris—The Sirian Experiments (1980)

Lovecraft, H.P.—At The Mountains Of Madness (1936)

Malesky, Kee—All Facts Considered: The Essential Library Of Inessential Knowledge (2010)

Miller, Frank—The Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Moore, Alan—Watchmen (with Dave Gibbons) (1986)

Ozaniec, Naomi—Initiation Into The Tarot (2002)

Pynchon, Thomas—The Crying Of Lot 49 (1966)

Ramsey, Dave—The Total Money Makeover (2003)

Sacks, Oliver—The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat And Other Clinical Tales (1985)

Thompson, Hunter S.—Hell’s Angels: A Strange And Terrible Saga (1966)

Toole, John Kennedy—A Confederacy Of Dunces (1980)

Tzu, Lao—Tao Te Ching (circa 600 BC)

Ventura, Jesse—Democrips And Rebloodlicans: No More Gangs In Government (2012)

Wangu, Madhu Bazaz—Buddhism (1993)

Wellstone, Paul—The Conscience Of A Liberal: Reclaiming The Compassionate Agenda (2001)

Wilson, Robert Anton—The Illuminatus! Trilogy (The Eye In The Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan) (co-written with Robert Shea) (1975), Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy (The Universe Next Door, The Trick Top Hat, The Homing Pigeons) (1979), Masks Of The Illuminati (1981), Prometheus Rising (1983)

2012 Half-Over Book Review

We’re directly in the middle of 2012. Here’s what I’ve read so far, with a brief summary of each book.

William S. Burroughs – Nova Express – Don’t let people or machines or language control you.

Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale – Women are stripped of freedoms to ensure their “protection,” and are forced into a very awkward mating ritual with an old guy and his wife.

James Dickey – Deliverance – It’s okay to murder a hillbilly who sodomized your friend.

Robert Graves – I, Claudius – Weak simpleton becomes emperor of Rome.

Dave Ramsey – The Total Money Makeover – Guy who used to be rich, then went bankrupt, then got rich again tells you that if you don’t spend money, you’ll have more money to spend.

Frank Miller – The Dark Knight Returns – Batman, now 55 years old, comes out of retirement.

Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49 – Oedipa Maas searches for the Trystero.

Robert Anton Wilson – Prometheus Rising – Widen your reality tunnel.

-The Illuminatus! Trilogy (co-written with Robert Shea) – An 800 page philosophical, psychological, historical, mythical, science fictional, psychedelical trip through various conspiracy theories.

Philip K. Dick – Dr. Futurity – A doctor is transported to a future where death is glorified and saving lives is frowned upon.

-Ubik – People search for Ubik as they uncontrollably travel backwards in time.

Robert A. Heinlein – Stranger In a Strange Land – Man with human parents who has been raised by Martians is brought to Earth. Mucho grokking ensues.

Lao Tzu – Tao Te Ching – It’s all about the art of non-action. My kind of book.

H.P. Lovecraft – At The Mountains of Madness – Weird alien things found in Antarctica.

Hunter S. Thompson – Hell’s Angels – The Strange And Terrible Saga Of The Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs – Thompson hangs out with the Hell’s Angels for a year.

Hyper-Intelligent, Genital-less Race of Super-Humanoids Found Living In Cloud City Above Area 51

Scientists have discovered a step to the next level of human consciousness. A race of highly evolved, hyper-intelligent humans was found living atop a cloud city over Area 51. Their digestive systems are extremely streamlined — no liquid or solid waste is produced by their bodies, causing both their genitalia and rectal orifices to have been snuffed out by natural selection. When asked how they reproduce, what we formerly considered a “smart” anthropologist, who would be thought of as a water-headed infant by this new society’s standards, put down his Tootsie Pop and replied, “I don’t know, but it’s probably totally nast.”

The members of this all around better breed are so advanced that they transmit their language telepathically. Since we have no way of communicating with this newer, better version of the poor excuses we currently have for people, it may not be possible to find out or even hope to understand the technological advances they have made, but you can be damn sure those rat-bastards would have something up their sleeves, if they had use for clothing. They’re just up there on their stupid cloud, zipping around on their personal perpetual motion machines, while all us idiots are stuck down here, listening to what Stephen Hawking says, and he can’t even talk. We can only hope our out-dated bodies are so revolting to them that they have no interest in prodding, probing, and picking at every hole they can find.

This is sort of what they might look like.

Books Read In 2011

Here are the books I read in 2011. Some were good, some were bad, some were a’ight.

Non-Fiction

-Christopher McDougall – Born To Run

-Alan Weisman – The World Without Us

-Haruki Murakami – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

-Steven Johnson – Everything Bad Is Good For You

-Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything

-Juliet Sharman-Burke – The New Complete Book of Tarot

-Stephen Colbert – I Am America (And So Can You!)

Fiction

-China Mieville – The City & The City \ King Rat

-Peter Watts – Blindsight

-Jeff Vandermeer – Finch

– John Grisham – The Firm

-Apostolos Doxiadis & Christos H. Papadimitriou – Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth

-Various Authors – Twin Cities Noir

-Neil Gaiman – American Gods \ Neverwhere \ The Sandman volumes 1-10 (Preludes & Nocturnes, The Doll’s House, Dream Country, Season of Mists, A Game of You, Fables & Reflections, Brief Lives, World’s End, The Kindly Ones, The Wake)

-Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian

-Steve Martin – The Pleasure of My Company

-William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch \ Cities of the Red Night \ The Place of Dead Roads \ The Western Lands

-C.S. Lewis – The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

-Richard A. Knaak/Jae-Hwan Kim – Warcraft: Shadows of Ice

-Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin

-Mark Twain – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

-Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time

-Richard Ford – The Sporstwriter

-Garrison Keillor – Lake Wobegon Summer 1956

-Arthur C. Clarke – 2001: A Space Odyssey

-Jack Kerouac – On The Road \ The Dharma Bums

-William Gibson – Pattern Recognition

The Future Of Black Friday

Black Friday, an event that used to take place on a Friday, has spilled over into Thanksgiving Thursday. As companies battle to be the first store open for the holiday shopping season, we are in for some interesting twists and turns in the next few years. Let’s just use Target as an example for this speculation, because they are the type of company I can see doing the things described in the following timeline.

2012 – Target takes the next logical step, keeping their stores open all day on Thanksgiving.

2013 – A number of other companies follow suit.

2014-2019 – During these years, Thanksgiving shopping will become a standard practice. One company, probably Target, will then go all in, declaring the day after Halloween the “New Black Friday.” This will set off an entirely new retail war – Black Friday will be pushed up to the day after Columbus Day, then as far as Labor Day. Target, ever the innovator, will go as far as coining the term “Black July.” In mid June, they will begin setting up Christmas displays, to prepare their guests for the coming July holiday shopping rush. A few outsiders, maybe a small local company battling this corporate giant, will then start running Christmas ads the week before Memorial Day. Target will not take kindly to this.

2020 – Target announces that the true holiday shopping season begins on Christmas day. People will spend Christmas day shopping for Christmas presents, for next year’s Christmas.

2021 – Some people freeze to death on Christmas Eve camping outside, waiting for Target to open its doors.

2022 – In a “We are sorry about the deaths of those people, because they won’t be able to shop at Target anymore” move, Target announces “Hotel Target” will be added to all Target stores within the next two years. Hotel Target will accomodate guests who would otherwise be braving the elements in order to beat the morning shopping rush. Hotel Target is stocked with fine Target products, like soap, shampoo, Market Pantry snacks, etc., which will simply be itemized and added to your bill when you check out, and is conveniently located within walking distance of a Target store.

2025 – Getting a room at Hotel Target for the shopping season becomes nearly impossible. From Memorial Day to Christmas, rooms are booked solid. A black market for Hotel Target reservations starts. In what could be made into a whole other story, Target eventually buys out the black market, renaming it Target Market.

2027 – Target announces “Target City.” It is a completely self-sustaining environment, where people can live while they wait to shop at Target. It will be a lot like the arcologies from Sim City 2000, which look like this:

2030 – Major metropolitan areas all over the country are taken over by Target Cities.

2035 – The United States of America changes its name to Target.

2036 – Target (the store) announces that Christmas will not be recognized in Target (the country) anymore. Instead, December will be a month-long celebration of Target (the store, and the country), where people will be allowed to shower Target (the country) with gifts that they have purchased at Target (the store).

2040 – A band of outsiders get sick of only shopping at Target. They look to the past for inspiration, and decide to revive the Occupy movement. Scores of people begin Occupy Target, with the aim to take down their oppressor.

2041 – Since everyone lives and works in and at Target, the Occupy strategy goes unnoticed, and loses the small amount of momentum it had. The few remaining dissenters are pointed out by loyalists. After a brief absence, the former rebels emerge back into Target society, with large scars, which appear to be from an incision, noticeable across their foreheads. With a dead look in their eyes, they drool out the side of their mouths and proclaim in a vague, monotone voice, “I love Target.”

2045 – Earth is now Target.

2050 – Target (the planet) decides to colonize the Sun, its only real competitor. The Sun makes everything that Target does possible, and surely, it can be conquered. A brave Target (the space travel division) scientist speaks up, and says that is not possible. She is shot dead. The next scientist in line, seeing the fate of his colleague, agrees to take on the mission.

2051-2055 – After a number of failed excursions, due mostly to disintegration by extreme heat, Target (the Esteemed Chancellor, the ruler of all things Target) declares war with the Sun.

2058 – The Sun is finally defeated at a great cost of life to Target (the planet). After years of trying and trying and trying to find a substance able to withstand the extreme heat of the Sun, Target (the space travel division) hits paydirt. The sacred bones of deceased Targets (Esteemed Chancellors) past are revealed to be cold enough (even in death, the bones of a former Chancellor retain extremely low temperatures) to defy the high temperatures of the Sun. A Target (a bomb composed of the bones of the Chancellors, packed tightly together, charged with enough radioactive waste to create a catastrophic explosion) is dispatched skyward.

2060 – Having no sunlight, Target (the planet, the stores, the race, everything really) goes into deep, deep freeze, and is shattered into trillions of tiny fragments when a meteor strikes the giant ball of ice.

3,987,745 – There are now trillions of tiny Target planets, orbiting Hydra, one of Pluto’s moons, which is the largest celestial object left at this period in time. The tiny organisms that survived the meteor catastrophe have evolved into a new race of Targets. Living in this sun-less universe, they have developed glands that allow them to perform the opposite of photosynthesis, that is, nourishment comes in the form of darkness, which is bountiful. The combination of an unlimited food source and no natural predators creates a Target race more powerful than could ever be fathomed. The End.