8 Ways to Sunday

Repent, brothers and sisters, for the sin of rampant consumerism! Repent, for the Shopocalypse is near!

Reverend Billy is the creation of Bill Talen, an activist and performance artist from New York City. As head of the Church of Stop Shopping, Billy tours with the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir and preaches a message of revival — revival of the days when local merchants were the way people shopped, and when big box retail chains weren’t shutting down main streets all across America and around the world. Borrowing the style of charismatic televangelists, Talen carries the word of the God that is Not a Product forth into the hostile environments of mega-malls and Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lots. He has also been known to exorcise Starbucks cash registers.

If you’re at all concerned with keeping small businesses alive in the face of the big-box juggernaut, Reverend Billy should at least be good for a laugh and a nod of agreement. If you’re of a more activist mindset… well, I understand he could use a few good tenors in his choir.

(Props: AnomalousNYC’s photo entitled Can I get an Amen?)

“There is a geography of the soul. And in that world that exists inside you, you begin with no sense of direction. God, or the gods, is up. Earth, the cool mother, is down. You hang, suspended by a desire for each, between the two. This is the simplest of all things; all we can know is the stretch.”

— Ten Crows the Elder

Asimov believed “The Last Question” to be the best short story he ever wrote. Now you can read it online, without even having to make a trip to the library.

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way…

This story is the epitome of high-concept “hard” science fiction. The narrative spans a few trillion years of human history in about 4,500 words and pursues big answers to the big questions. That it can do this without alienating or boring less scientifically-minded readers is a testament to Asimov’s skill. Along the way it touches on the concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism, but its ultimate target is much larger and more impressive.

The central premise of the story — humanity invents an artificially intelligent machine capable of solving its thorniest problems, but the biggest problem of all proves insoluble time and again — is a set up for an ending with more punch than almost anything else in the genre.

“Ask Multivac.”

“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”

Adell was just drunk enough to try…

You owe it to yourself to read this story.

(Props: Backwards City)

Updates

• 2/9/2006 @ 6:00 AM — If the link to the story isn’t working for you, try this copy from Google’s cache.

The Times of London has the whole story.

(Props: Pandagon)

Nope, not at all.

An interesting perspective on the alleged War on Christmas, from a Jew living in this “Christian nation” of ours.