A weblog by Hao Lian.
A journey into the soft of night.
A terrible secret guarded by golems.
The business school building was a generous donation from the Gentrifik family. Built of marble and columns, it stood above a rectangular fountain with a statue of the Gentrifiks in the center. The fountain’s job was to spray water, much as the Gentrifiks’ job was to spray money. Water gushed from the floor, from the Gentrifiks’ eyes, from the sides, and from the air, carried by the wind as a mist. Kids played at the edges, water lapping their feet. Adults sat at the bench surrounding the fountain, admiring the fountain by reading or being absorbed in their own problems. Students exit the fat white rectangle and run down the steps. Students take off their shoes and socks and backpack and run into the fountain. Students would climb the statue in the center, slippery footholds and all. Students would take the climb all the way to the top, miles and miles above the water, above the children and adults and reading and absorbing. Students would perch on the top, fumble their pockets, and pull an orange thing of blood thinner pills. Students would ingest them all in a gulp and leap and plummet for what seemed like forever but was really ten minutes, because that’s what it took to fall all the way down, because that’s what it took for all the blood thinners to squirm their way into the students’ veins and arteries and all the other fantastical backalleys, and students would be unthinking, per usual, and students would land with a great noise—a splash and a smear—and students would lie their in the water not moving, not feeling, not doing anything really, and students would have their blood seep out quickly like hot red milk plunged into ice water and students would have their blood circulate through the fountain and students would have their five point seven three liters of blood misted over to the adults and children and reading and absorbing who would all suddenly feel the delightful same.
A man at the airport holding a sign that read “Wank”, growing increasingly anxious as the curiously named person for whom he was waiting never came;
A man driving a golf cart, utilitarian, janitorial-type vehicle labeled “Logistics”, invoking perhaps a secret Logistics department where all problems miscellaneous and last-minute are solved;
A beautiful woman of long, symmetric hair wearing a white hat and all-white clothes walking into a spot beneath a ceiling window at an airy cafeteria, then illuminated by sunlight, then walking away, then never seen again;
A very polite child telling the airplane waitress that, yes, he would like a lemonade and his sister chiming in that, yes, she would like a lemonade as well please before the two returned to unheard conversation, though one likes to imagine they talked of the financial markets and international diplomacy before sipping their lemonades, yawning, polishing their cuff links, and reminiscing about their favorite toys.
Stop the world; I want to get off here. (via reddit; Wikipedia)
From Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:
Mushari dutifully went looking for a copy of the book for his dossier on Eliot. No reputable bookseller had ever heard of [Kilgore] Trout. Mushari made his last try at a smut-dealer’s hole in the wall. There, amidst the rawest pornography, he found tattered copies of every book Trout had ever written. 2BRO2B, which had been published at twenty-four cents, cost him five dollars.
[Mushari] was witless enough, too, to imagine that Trout’s books were very dirty books, since they were sold for such high prices to such queer people in such a place. He didn’t understand that what Trout had in common with pornography wasn’t sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world.
Are you applying for the senior developer position?
How are you?
Have you ever been convicted of a felony?
In the dream, you are sitting with all your friends at a diner. She with her long hair and twinkling eyes sits across from you, and around her are the arms of another man. The conversation bounces back and forth, always missing you by such and such. It is bright outside, and you stare out the window at the parking lot, waiting for the charade to end. “Even in your sleep, you’re alone,” you think to yourself. You wake to a pounding headache and drag yourself out of bed as you mechanically dress and prepare for another day. You decided to go for a walk, and you hardly notice it is raining the entire time.
From shinynew:
My sister did this to me when I was younger, but not quite as hard.
“If you rub your hands together it will smell like raspberries.” (Easily testable and not completely unbelivable.)
Does it and is hit.
“Why did you hit me?
“Why did you put your hand to your face?
“I … I trusted you.…”
She felt pretty bad about it.
John Hodgman, everybody, lecturing the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner on nerds and jocks. I like how CSPAN has nearly completed its transformation into a comedy showcase of my favorite people. (via Daniel Jalkut)
Monks on Segways, with fire on the top of their heads, playing “Lightning” by Philip Glass. Good night, everybody. We’ll start storyboarding the next chapter of the internet tomorrow because this one just ended.
As you know, I like to think of The Dark Balloon as a place where you can come, set your suitcases down, and get some sound financial advice. As part of my continuing effort to turn you from a poor orphaned elfling into a rich orphaned elfling, I’ve compiled lists of ways you can make money off of simple household items. Today’s household item: love.
You kidnap your rivals’ girlfriends, leaving a business card that contains only the URL of your website. The website is a Netflix knock-off for parts of said girlfriends. After signing up, users can choose to spend unlimited time with two queued parts, and then return them to receive the next two parts. Is this week more of a thigh-and-waist or elbows-and-fingers? Choose carefully! Your first month is a free trial. There is also an “Instant Watch” feature but, really, it’s just a gruesome photo gallery.
At a bar, you wait for a woman to spill a drink on you. You create an optical illusion in which the woman thinks you are giving off electrical sparks. You introduce yourself in a robotic voice. She introduces herself, intrigued by your metallic accent. She asks you about it; you tell her you are a robot—a love robot. You two hit it off. Your relationship quickly progresses, but she knows deep down inside in her heart of hearts—she is part bovine—that your callous lack of emotional ability will stymie all hopes of true love. You tell her there’s a wonderful robot artificer who is willing to upgrade your emotional circuits but it’s too much to afford and you only have half the money saved up. She takes this news sadly. One day, she surprises you with the other half. She has been cutting corners and saving up ever since you told her about the miraculous surgery. Mechanically, you thank her as heartfelt as you can; she knows that in a few hours you will be able to truly express your feelings. You run away with the money. She dies alone, in poverty. As time progresses, you realize your heart has solidified during this long confidence game and, in a fit of irony, you become the robot you always pretended to be.
You open an amusement park where visitors pay money to experience love. The nearby people are surprised; they had not seen nor heard the construction. Everybody comes for a look-see; you generously charge $5 for admission. At the entrance, the most wonderful fried foods are offered, from sweet to spicy, from juicy to crunchy. Visitors engorge themselves, and the food seems to always have the same warm, giddy effect on everybody, as if all the troubles in the world had melted away, as if nothing else mattered but that sensation of ecstatic happiness. The people amble toward the rides, knowing the emotion will never end. But no matter which ride visitors choose—be it the merry-go-round, the hula hoops, or the roller coaster—they end up vomiting. People begin looking for trash cans but there are none. Soon, vomit covers the entire ground and then the booths and then the rides themselves. As visitors wade through the Katrinaesque splurge toward the entrance, which turns out to be the only exit, they find you, the ticket taker, are gone, and so is that feeling of life and humanity that had so enraptured them earlier. Now they only feel hollow and aimless. And they return back to their prosaic, loveless lives while you escape with the money to your prosaic, loveless life, hoping the stench of dirty money can mask the stench of a dirty conscience—but it never will.
You put yourself in a cage and hire somebody to paint a sign next to it. The sign would read “World’s Worst Person”, and you could have someone charge tourists $5 to watch you silently dance in uneven circles.