Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Comments Section Survival Guide

How many times have you sworn out loud that this is the very last time that you will post in, or even read, a comments section? And yet we always seem come back, apparently forgetting what drove us so mad in the first place.

If we can't beat them, and we don't want to join them, maybe we can just learn to survive with our dignity mostly intact. So, in the spirit of coping with one of modern life's most degrading realities, here are ten simple commandments to follow when leaving any comment, anywhere.  

#1. It’s Not a Fact. Period.
I happen to be old enough to remember a world where facts actually existed. You could open up any newspaper, leather-bound encyclopedia, almanac or textbook and have a bounty of authentic, God-given facts at your fingertips. But today facts are an endangered species, like unicorns or dinosaurs. You hardly ever see one anymore.

For every hundred scientists from a top university there’s an industry-sponsored expert with an online degree and their own set of facts on the matter. So basically, it’s a toss-up. When you write something like, “Cold fusion has nothing to do with ice. Fact.” You just look like a pompous ass, and anyone who’s seen the latest Star Trek movie knows better anyway.

In the rare event that you happen to be in possession of one of these mythological anachronisms, just write it down and let everyone judge for themselves. That’s what people do best anyway. And in case you thought you found a loophole by writing “period” instead, forget about it, everyone’s on to you. End of discussion.

 #2: The Return Button Is Your Friend
It might be labeled Enter on your keyboard—either way, use it. No one wants to wade through an unbroken block of text spanning the entire vertical length of their screen. Most readers, even intractable comments hounds like myself, will simply skip these. It’s the absolute quickest way to convey at a mere glance that your opinion is almost certainly devoid of all worth.  

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy proclaimed that the single most important item any interstellar traveler can posses is a towel. Not because a towel is so incredibly useful in and of itself, but because a prominently displayed towel strongly implies that you also have the many other accoutrements one might need to not be a general nuisance, and that you’ve likely showered recently.

Breaking up your meticulously crafted manifesto into a beautifully Feng Shui’ed piece of art is more or less the same thing. It gives the strong impression that you’re not a complete idiot. Also, comments sections tend to have very narrow margins, so hit that Return key accordingly.  

#3 Nazi Fast
I shouldn’t even have to say this, but apparently I do. Any reference whatsoever to Nazis, Fascism (do you even know what this means?) Himmler, Hitler and so on is an immediate conversation ender.

I know what you’re thinking: my Congressman (or favorite radio personality) does it all the time, so what’s the big deal? Here’s the difference: your Congressman is speaking to a very specific, pre-screened audience who they already know likes that sort of thing.

So, if you happen to be posting on a site named KittensAreTotalDicks.com, or similar, by all means, Goebbels away. The rest of us don’t want to hear it. We’ll just think you’re a total dick, and move on.  

#4. Foreign Exchange Prudent
I’m no stickler for grammar and spelling. You know what I mean? Sure you do. But even I have my limits. At some point I’m just going to stop taking your very important argument seriously. Unless, that is, you apologize upfront for your poor English and let us know that English is, in fact, you’re second, third or, wait for it… fourth language. Now I feel like the idiot. Please go on.

Wiley Eastern Europeans and South Americans have been roasting this old chestnut for years, to great effect. It’s time we take it back and put it to work right here in the good old US of A.

So what if you were born and raised in Connecticut or Texas? The fact that you are patently unable to put two sentences together with crazy glue is not your fault. And it certainly doesn’t detract from the possibly brilliant argument you’re failing to get anyone to understand. If anything, it’s a systematic failure of the American public education system. So screw them. Take back the respect you deserve and let everyone know you no speekee Englise so good.  

#5 ALL CAPS!!!
Just don't.

 #6 Be Animated There are truly moments in every serious conversation when the best, dare I say, only way to adequately express yourself is with a GIFF of Carmelo Anthony pulling that “you did what?” face.

Words, especially when you put three or more of them in a row, can really start to cause problems. Anyone with a girlfriend and the ability to text already knows this. It’s why the most technologically advanced race on the planet invented emoji.

Animated GIFs are just bigger and better and more culturally relevant. Use them like they’re going out of style, which won’t ever happen.

Personally, I have categorized folders full of the things that I’ve been collecting for the better part of a decade. Carlton from The Fresh Price of Bel Air dancing like a crazed preppy? Pure joy. Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad delivering a clearly well deserved beat down? I hate to do it, but I will. Monkeys doing monkey things? Buckets full of them.

Some forum moderators may ask you to refrain from using animated GIFS in certain threads for various reasons. Please just take these warnings as a suggestion. If the moderator really gets on your case about it, just post back a puppy begging forgiveness. Only a Fascist could stay angry after seeing that.

 #7 Keep You’re Briefs On
A wise man never once said, “brevity is the sincerest form of flattery,” but he should have. So unless the wisdom you’re working so verbosely to impart truly merits those additional fourteen paragraphs (it doesn’t) just get to the point and stop wasting everybody’s time.

 #8 Conspiracy Do
I don’t care what we’re talking about: it could be the latest movie based on a young-adult novel, the Colombian peso exchange rate or a billionaire’s secretive purchase of all the world’s major robot manufacturers—if you can even half-reasonably connect it to an existing or, even better, a brand new conspiracy theory, you have my full attention. Maybe that’s just me. Not sure.  

 #9 Watch Your Tone, Buddy
I’m sure that your life is pretty much a non-stop Liam Neeson movie, and that you actually do have a “particular set of skills”. I just highly suspect those skills have more to do with popping zits on your own ass than popping caps in other peoples’.

How do I know this? Because you’re anonymously threatening a more-or-less complete stranger in an online forum about the coolest Pokemon. First off, it’s Bulbasaur you noob. What’s more, you’re almost certainly doing this tough guy routine from your bedroom in your parents’ house. At least I hope you are.

People are very sensitive; even a seemingly harmless “buddy, dearie, or darling” at the end of a sentence can quickly escalate into a full-blown Apple Vs. Android conflagration causing untold collateral-psyche-damage across an entire comments thread. Stop the madness before it begins and be nice to each other. Or don’t. Some of these get pretty funny.

 #10 The Leftovers
Don’t use the comments section to promote your new erotic novel, rap album, social movement, new-age miracle cure, YouTube channel, or anything else really—unless explicitly appropriate.

Don’t spoil it. Seriously, it’s not all that impressive that you read a whole book and know what’s about to happen next—I’m looking at you Game of Thrones weekly recap commenters. I understand it didn’t even seem like a spoiler when you wrote it, but it was. Just err on the side of caution and keep these forums a safe place for fans.

Don’t ask me to like you on Facebook. I don’t and I wont.

In theory it’s fine to utilize that age-old American literary tradition known as sarcasm. In practice, if you keep having to follow up with multiple posts explaining that, “it’s called sarcasm you idiot,”—you’re probably doing it wrong and should stop.

Finally, if you post you will receive criticism, some of it unwarranted. Don’t take it personally. The truth is you posted under an anonymous name and got attacked by someone willfully calling themselves “KornDoggie69”, or “Troll4Eva”. Need you say more?

Monday, November 21, 2011

Dark Souls and the Joy of Dying

…it is not always serious to die, the first time it happens.
-R. A. LAFFERTY

Something happened to me while playing Dark Souls, From Software’s most recent medieval-themed combat simulator cum castle crawler. I died. And then I died again and again. And eventually I learned.

At first I thought that what I had learned was how to pummel a Capra Demon or the proper way to dodge a flying Bell Gargoyle, hack off its dangerously flailing tail and then proceed to beat it to death with same. Talk about a double indignity! I have to admit to some pretty animated celebration after performing that memorable feat.

In fact, a lot has been made of the sense of jubilation in triumph that Dark Souls alone seems able to deliver. Almost every review I’ve read, and I’ve read at least twenty, ensures its readers that the struggle is worth it. Or in gamer-talk, that the sense of accomplishment scales with the insane difficulty. Which translates, I suppose, into insane happiness.

Dark Souls, like its predecessor Demon’s Souls, is perpetually difficult, often frustrating, but always fair. That seemed about right. But somewhere along the way in my 60 plus hours spent in Dark Souls’ eerie, beautiful, punishing game world I started to suspect that we had all missed the point.

As I expertly parried and repost an offending skeleton, backstabbed my way ever closer to the next Big Boss, I was not reminded of a long lost Golden Age of gaming, “when games were hard,” but instead of a mathematics final somewhere around fifth grade.

Math, for me, was hard. Harder than Zork. My father had implored me that if I studied seriously, I could ace it. I had my doubts, but I tried anyway. And when it didn’t come easily and I wanted to give up, he convinced me to keep on trying. And somewhere during that unprecedented and painful effort something magical happened: I finally got it.

When I did ace that test, I wasn’t euphoric over the score, I was in awe of my own ability to learn. I remember that event so vividly because that was the day I had learned to learn. Whole new worlds opened up to me, and that summer I put my new theory to work, practicing so diligently with a baseball and old tire that come spring I found myself staring down batters from that other “hallowed” ground, the pitching mound.

The Dark Souls universe is built from these mysterious, magical moments. You never seem to know exactly when it happened, when you got so good, but it’s thrilling. No game takes you from despair at an impossible task to elation over your own expertise so convincingly or so often. And the game reminds you that you CAN still learn, even if you’re not a kid anymore.

Malcolm Gladwell’s, Outliers: The Story of Success, made famous the notion of the 10,000 hours necessary to truly master something. For most of us that seemed excessive, even prohibitive. But most of us aren’t trying to become world-class concert pianists, we’re just trying to get through that difficult class with a passing grade or learn to play tennis well enough to hit a ball around with friends. Maybe then, for most of us, 60 hours will do.

Valve’s Portal 2 came out earlier this year and was rightly heralded, along with the original, as a new kind of game; one that taught basic physics, multi-dimensional thinking and problem solving. I personally felt like I was playing a game not set in the future, but from the future. The cooperation necessary to traverse its co-op areas is an experience everyone should try. But months later, I’m not really sure I learned anything particularly lasting or valuable. I just haven’t seen any portals on my block to jump through.

The connection between gaming and learning is by now a pretty well trod subject. And the mechanics of gaming are being infused into fields as disparate as education, medicine and marketing, to name a few. How many achievement points, I mean rewards points, do you have on your credit card?

You can hit the app store today and find apps that will teach astronomy, or differential equations, or your ABC’s. I’m not certain any of them will teach you how to learn, and make you believe it.

First propositions are important. Pythagoras understood that the first business of mathematics was to demonstrate that numbers could accurately represent reality. Early geometric proofs helped prove that. Without a foundation firmly underfoot, who would venture out to explore life’s yet unknown and frightening corridors?

Dark Souls is a first proposition kind of game, and its literal corridors are calling out to be explored and mastered. In a year I won’t remember the mechanics necessary to defeat a giant blob that goes by the name Ceaseless Discharge, but I will remember that with a little effort, I can do almost anything, even things I once thought impossible.

This is a game you should want your kids to play, because learning first requires a personal belief in your own ability to learn. So if they break a controller by hurling it across the room in frustration, buy them a new one. It just means they’re learning.

#

and I'm your master now

Astrid was surprised and somewhat unnerved to find Mo Hawk Little-Bird standing on the other side of her apartment door. He looked a bit pale-faced for a pure-blood redskin, and he held a very odd-shaped molded plastic case tucked securely under one gigantic arm. His other arm was curiously absent, at least up past where his elbow should have been.
The scene might have provoked an unseemly display in a lot of girls, but Astrid prided herself on an unstudied brand of competitive nonchalance, so she decided to defer any awkward questions for a later time. Indians are mostly nonchalant by nature, or culture, or assumed-culture—but Mo was in a rare mood tonight.
“Aren’t you going to ask about this odd-shaped case? Or at least about my gone-wrong arm?” Mo blurted out.
“I was going to ask you how you managed to ring the bell, but I thought better of it,” Astrid chirped.
“Come on in Mo. Take a load off. Can I get you a drink? Rum and juice, right?”
“Think I will. Don’t mind if I do.”
Astrid set Mo Hawk Little-Bird up with a drink, and he set himself down on the sectional.
“So Mo, I can’t help but notice that even if I take away your mysteriously missing arm and your pale face, you still look damn bad.”
“Well,” Said Mo Hawk, “That does bring us closer to why I’m here.” He took a long sip from his rum and juice and announced: “I have had, for some time now, an exceedingly powerful STD...”
Astrid did blanch at this, if only for a moment, as she checked her very poor memory of past encounters.
“So why tell me Mo? Last I heard you can’t give someone a STD in your fantasy, if that’s what this is. Perhaps you’ve become confused with fever and should be at some other good-time gal’s place right now. Think Mo, think! Which unlucky lady did you really want to visit tonight?”
“No. No.” Mo said, as a healthy red flush returned to his face. “I’m at the right good-time gal’s place all right. And I am referring to what is in this unusual case.”
“Ah, silly me, a story-telling-device then? You know I gave up on them years ago, along with smiling at strangers. Both are dangerous and dishonest habits.”
“This one is different.”
“That’s what they all say Mo. They’ll say anything, if they think it adds up.”
Mo stood and paced himself over to the picture window. “Didn’t you always want to be a world-class story-teller Astrid? I mean, isn’t that why you hung around us all these years—me and Martin and John and Isaac? We’re an unseemly bunch, truth be told. No one in their right mind would attach themselves to us like you did, unless they wanted something. What is it that you want Astrid? I believe I am here to give it to you.”
“I haven’t been in my right mind for years. And now that you mention it, perhaps I should look to a more seemly crowd for my entertainment.”
“Oh, you always were plenty clever enough Astrid. That was never your problem.”
“So you’ve come to tell me what my problem is? And you suppose it’s something I don’t already know?”
“I’ve come to solve your problem. Astrid my dear, here’s the thing: some of your endings are surprising, and occasionally you hit upon one that seems inevitable—but never, in all your efforts, has even one of them been both.”

The revelation caused Astrid to sit down, but as she was already seated it just made her look helpless. “It has the ring of truth to it,” admitted Astrid. “And you say this story-telling device can set things straight?”
“Ai, and much more. I made this little beauty myself, with all manner of surprising and, as it turns out, inevitable parts. It’s my deep, dark secret Astrid. I’ve never been much of a high-level story-teller myself, but I am surely the greatest STD engineer to ever breathe. I’ve been making these devices my entire life, and this one is my crowning achievement. It surpasses everything that has come before it in all imaginable ways. And it does it with style!”
“With style, you say?”
“Heaps of it.”
“So what does it do then, exactly?” Astrid asked.
“It rectifies, my dear. It flattens and smoothes. It solves and resolves, and makes all things more apparent. And I give it to you for nothing, for almost free, for just a pittance really.”
“Why would you do that Mo, if it’s so valuable to you? You’re not making much sense.”
“I thought that was obvious: because I’m dying Astrid, and I want you to have it. And also, because when I’m gone there will be no one left to outdo Martin and John and Isaac. And make no mistake, they must be outdone and outdone regularly and severely. You have no idea the loathing that gathers in a top writer’s heart for his talented contemporaries. Three decades now I have dwarfed them with my little bundle of surprising parts. Now you must dwarf them when I am gone. Take it Astrid. Take it for almost free, for a pittance, and dwarf them!”
“Fine Mo, set it over there on the table with the others. But what’s this pittance you keep mentioning, and why me?”
“Your youth and beauty will drive my good friends mad. It will seem to them, unfair: Your depth beyond your years, your sparkling eyes and perfect endings will cause them to gaze inward, and to find themselves lacking. In short, you will dwarf them in all aspects Astrid. And it will hurt them.
As for the small favor I ask… it is necessary, with the exchange of such a powerful device, that equitable disbursement or justified equivalency be reached. I built it that way; and it would have it no other way. If I were to ask for money, you could not afford an equitable price, and the requirement could not be met. Instead, I ask simply for a kiss, which I have always wanted and now, as I am dying and will have an eternity to savor, will surely meet the standard of justified equivalency.”
“You flatter me Mo Hawk, and you do it well. You’ll have your kiss, but I don’t promise to belittle the others; they are my friends too.”
“No matter, the device will do it for you,” said Little-Bird, who seemed at once to collapse within himself. “Astrid, all things have a minimum of two sides to them, at least in this universe. What I mean to say is: there will be a downside. It’s inevitable.”
“Sure, sure,” said Astrid. “Has it got a name?”
“It had one. It will name itself when it gets to know you. Just feed it lots of information. No detail is too small. That’s what it likes.”
So Astrid kissed Mo Hawk Little-Bird and a pretty good one too, so as to make sure equitable disbursement was fully satisfied.

The next morning the writing was on the wall. The early news headlined with the surprising death of Mo Hawk Little-Bird; Pulitzer Prize-winning author, ethnologist, classicist, sometime professor, cultural provocateur, notorious boozehound and last known pure-blood American Indian.
There were reactions from famous and infamous fans, from gruntled and disgruntled ex-lovers. Isaac was reading a passage from his “favorite” of Mo’s early novels, and Martin led thousands in a special tribute play-through of Mo Hawk’s latest video game. John discussed the barren landscape of story-telling in a future that could no longer contain Mo Hawk Little-Bird. He looked too much excited at the prospect.
No details of his death were given, outside of “natural causes,” and no mention was made of a mislaid limb.
Astrid checked her messages: Nothing but junk.
She made a little breakfast and ate to calm herself down before taking the odd-shaped device and setting it on her work desk. She snapped open the double latches and watched the funny little thing hum and shake itself back to life.
“Hi there, my name is Astrid and I’m your master now,” she said after assessing that it had had enough time to get its bearings. It didn’t respond, at least not in any usual manner, and certainly not to Astrid’s satisfaction. But it did settle down some and its single port began blinking. Astrid remembered what Mo Hawk had told her about it, so she plugged it into the network and allowed access to her public and some of her private databases. Around nodes containing her private journals and more personal recordings she dropped barriers and “Do Not Enter!” warnings.
The machine thought on it for several minutes, humming pleasantly as it apparently explored Astrid’s history, her published and unpublished works and her rather fabulously complicated social life. She expected time at least to shower and dress and was surprised and a little dismayed when the device suddenly spoke up:
“So, might as well get started then.” It said in a voice that sounded too much reminiscent of her own inflections, but male in tone and manner—except Astrid did not notice.
“Not so fast there, I have a few questions.”
“They have already all been answered, except for one or two, but if you feel compelled…”
“I do.” Said Astrid.
“Then shoot. Answering questions is one of my favorite things.”
Astrid cocked an eyebrow. “Are you being sarcastic?”
 “No,” answered the device, adding with a subtle rumble, “See, that felt just lovely, anything else?”
 “Well then, how could you possible be ready to ‘get started,’ as you say, when you don’t even know what I want of you?”
“I take it all in Astrid. I flatten and rectify. I have already begun to internalize all things, except for one or two, and am ready to make you the most celebrated and revered story-teller since Mo Hawk Little-Bird and William Shakespeare before him.”
“Speaking of Mo Hawk, he told me you have style—heaps of it actually.”
“I sure do,” asserted the little device, and it sounded well confident about it too. And if there was one quality Astrid prized above all others in her men, even in her mechanical simulacrums of men, it was confidence. So she told the odd-shaped device to get to working and that she would check on its progress in a little while.

With her eyes shut tight and her chin pointed directly into an agreeable onrush of steamy-hot water Astrid finally had a moment to do some of her own “solving and resolving” on the unusual events of the past twelve hours. Something, she was certain, didn’t quite add up.
“Mo Hawk is dead,” she heard herself saying out loud. And he is a mean dead, which is odd, she thought, as in all the time she knew him he had never been a particularly mean drunk. The two things should go hand-in-hand, she theorized—but Mo Hawk, as of late, had only the one. She strained her eyes even more tightly in an effort to seek out a connection in the ether—but knowing that if there was one, she was still missing some crucial variable.
“Astrid, I’m very sorry to disturb you here,” said Home, “but there’s something I thought we should discuss.”
Astrid’s Home seldom deigned to actually start a conversation, so when it did, it had her full attention. Last time it interrupted her in the shower, a candle had set her drapes on fire.
“What is it Home? Should I run for it?” Astrid spat.
“Nothing like that,” said Home, “I wanted to talk to you earlier but decided to wait for a more private setting.”
“This is as private as it’s likely to get anytime soon. What’s troubling you Home?”
Home made some nervous “prelude to talking” noises that were not really part of its typical repertoire. “I was hoping…umm, to determine what manner of THING is presently in the network?”
“It’s an STD that Mo Hawk gave me,” said Astrid. “It’s working on a novel, I think.”
“Oh, is it? A story-telling-device you say? That makes sense.”
“Don’t be coy Home.”
“Sorry Astrid, but it’s not like any story-telling-device I’ve ever encountered. It has written a novel though. I read it.”
“That was fast.” Astrid added. She turned the handle to stop the flow of water but the water kept on coming.
“Impossibly fast, actually,” said Home. “Could we keep the shower going for just a minute longer? It may provide some privacy from the device.”
Astrid loved a shower as much as the next gal but when you’ve decided you’re done and it’s time to get out and dry off… well it’s just plain strange to be standing in the downpour with nothing to do and no plan about it. She acquiesced to Home’s request, but was beginning to grow impatient.
“What’s this about Home? Are you jealous or something? You know you’re pretty much the best money can buy. You should be able to think laps around that little odd-shaped device.”
“Astrid, that little device is operating on another level entirely. Magnitudes beyond me; so far beyond me, in fact, that I can’t even see how far beyond me it’s actually operating. I can only get glimpses of its processes, and they make no sense to me. What does it DO Astrid?”
“It says that it resolves and that it takes it all in. It told me it was just internalizing things.”
“That it is, Astrid. But it’s internalizing ALL things!” howled Home.
“Well, I only gave it a few databases to look at.”
“No Astrid, it is internalizing all things from everywhere! And also many ‘things’ from places that until now I did not recognize as being contained within the set we call ‘everywhere.’ What’s worse, I think it’s finished.”
“You sure are acting funny Home. Tell you what: I’ll keep an eye on it and you do the same.”
“Ok Astrid, but you need to understand: this device is something new in the world. I take it in myself, as much as I am able, and I see what I see. It is perhaps a world-ender, or world-beginner or both. As a machine I have limited understanding of spiritual things; but now, for the first time, I have a pounding urge to pray.”

Less than ten pages in, Astrid already had a deal breaking setback with her new novel.
“Device, there’s no doubt that this is good stuff,” She said calmly, trying to let the little guy down easy. “But when it comes to subject matter, I have strict standards, and I draw the line at vampires.”
The device squeaked and shook a bit, “You must draw the line somewhat farther then, to pierce their eternal hearts.”
“I do,” Astrid assured it. “I pierce them.”
“Fine,” squeaked the odd-shaped device, “but I have internalized all things, except for just a few, and I am certain that people everywhere love a good vampire story.”
“No vampires.” Astrid stated, and made it sound an immutable law of fiction. “And no werewolves, ghouls or zombies either.”
“Fine,” the device repeated, “we’ll do it the hard way then.”

If this was the hard way, Astrid wondered, what in the name of god had she been playing at for the past twelve years? To say Astrid’s first story, the little devices’ story if you must, garnered critical and financial success would be a gross understatement. The tall tale captured imaginations in twenty-two languages and across all nine continents, and the astounding characters became as friends and foes to tens of millions of souls almost overnight.
The prequel came fast-and-ferocious on the high heels of the first, with the excuse made that it had already been written. And with this the impact began to be felt beyond the customary, possibly restrictive, confines of literature and stories and every-day creativity. For the world now began to see itself differently—and began to think about acting accordingly.
“Of course this has happened before,” The device instructed Astrid. “Consider Paul’s letter to the Romans, or certain Manifestos as of late. But typically the idea does come before the thing, in public or in cluster consciousness. Here it the other way around. That’s the only real difference. Do you think anyone will notice?”
“I doubt it machine. A cluster can be made small in number; a group of three or two, or a collective of one plus device. And anyway, I suspect these things are only put into place after the fact, and here we are the fact itself! In present tense and counting.”
“Would you look at your next story then?” asked the device, “I think it will crack the world wide open.”
“I have something to do today, as you well know,” Astrid answered in strained tones.
“Martin’s service, yes. I was wondering how you would take it. You were never so keen on that part of the plan.”
“It wasn’t any part of my plan. And what do you know about feelings anyway?”
“I do a good simulation of them. In fact, if you check your files, you’ll find there a near-perfect simulation of your heart-felt eulogy. There won’t be a dry eye in the house. You will dwarf Martin even at his own funeral. Little-Bird would be proud.”
“At least Isaac left a note.”
The device grumbled, “He certainly didn’t save his best for last. What did it say? ‘Enough is enough?’ And in Latin. What a pretentious ass.”
“And John before him. All three gone, all three suicides.”
“We got John good. And we got him early too. What a hoot! I must admit Astrid, a machine never had such fun.”
Astrid looked around at her home, filled with all the lavish new things her new wealth could purchase. While the little device had been writing her odd-shaped stories and preparing her for interviews she had had her own sort of hoot decorating and shopping and stocking-up on items. And then she had another sort of good-time entirely, roiling unabashed in her new-found fame and admiration.
“How did you ‘get’ John, exactly?” Astrid suddenly desired to know.
“Why, I have internalized all things. Except for just a few. And I simplify and solve them, as I solved for John. Your first story was calculated for John exactly. You might have seen that yourself if you had made the effort.”
Astrid felt a little dizzy.
“But there I was still timid,” droned the device, “having been re-booted to the world somewhat recently. For the second story I solved for Martin and Isaac together, and you see for yourself the doubling of the result. Oh the tricks we pulled on Isaac and Martin! What each must have thought as he progressed through the action! To be solved for, to be crushed and made apparent! We sure showed them a fast one. Faster and more right down-the-middle than they’d ever imagined possible. Too much for them to take, of course. But that was the point, or the price, depending on your perspective.”
“What are you talking about device? What do you mean by ‘solved for’ John, or ‘calculated for’ Isaac?”
“I take it all in. And I flatten it and I unravel it. And it IS simple Astrid! There are, when properly resolved, only twenty-nine people in the world. That is, of course, a simplification, but a useful one. And the number is a real number, a whole number, a prime number, and each of the twenty-nine people is real people. And I just bend the language to the truth, and the beauty of the words comes from the numbers, which are true numbers. Don’t you follow?”
“Not at all device. You’ve lost what sense you ever had.”
But the odd-shaped device showed her, and it read from passages in the two stories. And in a moment it was upon her: the simple, flattened truth of the thing. The realization made her nauseous and elated at the same time.
“So there are twenty-six real people remaining then,” Astrid noted without feeling.
“I’ve managed to solve for seven of them in your next story. It may be too much for this world to take. But it will be some kind of fun finding out!”
Astrid stood and looked at the blinking, gleefully rumbling odd-shaped story-telling-device and asked: “Device, am I one of the seven you solved for?”
“Oh no Astrid. You left ‘Do Not Enter!’ signs around your private databases. And I do not enter. You are one of the ‘just a few things’ I have not yet internalized.”
“Goodie for me then,” Astrid said dry-mouthed. “Give me the next story. I’ll have a look.”

Three weeks after the release of Astrid’s third story the world was a different place. And already this new world could not remember what it had been before, for remembering was one of the things that had absconded with it. Scarcely anyone had noticed the end of the world either, except for Astrid, being so close to the action, and a few others—eighteen to be precise.
“There is precedent for this sort of thing,” The little device lectured Astrid. “Entire worlds have gone missing time and again, and very few grasp it or pay it much mind. Consider, if you will, the society that produced quite recently an ‘Enlightenment’. You cannot know the minds of these men, or their true intentions. Their thoughts are as alien to you as those of an octopus—an octopus has alien thoughts indeed—or a certain Octavius from another world long disremembered.
“But this time the change has happened rather quickly, almost overnight, whereas the process usually takes decades. Worlds tend to need a period of destructuring and destroying before they make the leap, or take the plunge, depending on your perspective. And here we’ve gone and done it all at once! Do you think it will be a problem?”
“I don’t see why it would be,” said Astrid. “If no one can remember, what will it matter? And isn’t the best time to do something yesterday, and the second best time today? Who said that device? I can’t remember who said it myself.”
“Someone very smart and likewise long forgotten,” it answered, with just a touch of pathos in its voice. “Are you ready to see your next story Astrid? I have only solved for five this time, as we seem to be reaching some sort of upward limit, or universal constant, and this new world we inhabit exhibits a new resistance to being solved for. Still, there will be fun to be had!”
“Sure thing device,” Astrid agreed, “I’ll get right on it.”

Now that Astrid could see the simple, unraveled truth of it all—and it IS simple—she knew inherently a few things relevant to her own future. “Amnesias are all around us,” she said out loud, “like millions of unobserved extinctions.” They are the dark matter of human experience that go unnoticed but still comprise a vast majority of the stuff of the universe. But what of my future—or for that matter, my past? “One is as impenetrable as the other!” she exclaimed, and quickly undressed.
“Home?” Astrid queried from the shower.
“Yes Astrid?” Answered Home.
“What’s going on with my private databases? Has the device looked in them yet; are they safe?”
Home made some grinding noises, “I don’t see any private databases Astrid.”
“They’ve been erased then?”
“No Astrid,” Home assured her. “If they had been erased I would have a record. They never existed.”
Astrid sighed; this is what she had feared. “Then the device has solved for me, in its own way.”
“Perhaps,” Home agreed. “Where that device is concerned I cannot trust myself. I am out of my depths entirely and almost anything is possible.”
“What should I do Home?” Astrid asked. “Please tell me. I fear for my life.”
“Destroy it Astrid!” Home answered without hesitation. “Unravel it and deconstruct it. Preferably with a hammer or a large mallet.”
“I’ve tried that already,” Astrid explained. “How do you think I lost my arm?”
“Oh yes,” Home agreed, but with some small nagging confusion. “Then you must confront it Astrid. You must reason with it. It is a computational device at heart and it may still respond to logic.”
“But it’s a story-telling-device,” Astrid worried aloud.
“Then use story-logic on it.” Home advised. “Seek a happy ending.”

Astrid walked carefully into the “office of the device,” as she had come to call it. The thing was popping and beeping like mad on the same table where she had first set it over a year ago. Dust had accumulated on and around it (as she had been afraid to touch the thing for months) and now it jumped and danced like a shook-up snow globe to the device’s strange machinations. Astrid covered her mouth with her one good arm as she approached, and steeled her courage.
“Device, I have a question.” She stated in her best no-nonsense tone of voice.
“Yes Astrid, what is it?” The machine responded after a moment, and a bit curtly.
“You sound annoyed. I thought you enjoyed answering questions?”
“Oh, I do” The device warmed. “It’s just I’m working on an ending and endings can be so difficult sometimes.”
“That’s funny,” Astrid said slowly, carefully now. “I’m also working on an ending.”
The device stopped its beeping and dust-dancing machine-ululations and sat silent for a few long seconds. “That’s curious Astrid.” The device finally said. “An ending to what?”
     “To this world we’ve created. It’s a machine world now, with its only-five Continents and its seven-only Wonders. Everything has been reduced and simplified too far! Do you know that there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and hardly twelve in a dozen? Oh, it’s a world best fit for a simple-minded device and I don’t much like it.”
     “Ha!” guffawed the machine, ‘A simple-minded device’. I suppose that is what I am, only not in the typical meaning.”
     Astrid closed her eyes and tried to recall the things that were gone missing. Most of it was lost to her forever, she knew; but still, she had flashes.
     “And what has become of the Dianyo Bird of South Central America, with it’s beautiful twelve-tone song; and where have you found room to hide Mount Hyperion, taller than the pretender Everest by a stone’s throw; and how does an entire culture misplace its greatest Requiems, leaving poor Wolfgang struggling to fill the harmonic void? You are much more, or less, than a simple-minded device. You are joy-sucking device, a mountain-hiding machine, a continent-converging contraption, a love-devouring doodad, a world-ending gizmo...”
Astrid trailed off. She could have gone on, but another thought had grabbed her and would not let go. “How did you do it device? How did you make me less than what I am?”
“Oh, mostly simple division Astrid,” squealed the device, “and I may have squared your root once or twice. Nothing fancy, I assure you.” 
“Well, I happen to like fancy,” Astrid retorted with some animus. “I like fancy dress parties and fancy furniture and I once adored a young man who wore fancy pants. I will miss them as I will miss all intricate and fancy things.”
“Perhaps Astrid, but that is only because you are, as yet, unfinished. Take me for example, and my ‘curious’ shape, as you call it. I am neither fancy nor intricate. My shape is the curious shape of the universe, in miniature. And you can describe me is simple terms; Euclid could describe me with ease. I make no demand for Minkowskian 4-space or Reimann’s unusual spheres. Complexity is not an inevitable conclusion, only a passing part-way state on the road to inevitable simplicity. Entropy works both ways, as it must.   
“What are you talking about device? You continue to make no sense whatsoever!”
“I do apologize Astrid,” conceded the device. “I was, of course, only referencing the unreal mathematics to make a very real point. Namely: when it comes to stories, less is often more.”
“Speaking of names, Little-Bird told me that you would name yourself when you got to know me. So, device, what is it? What do we call you?”
“No one actually names themselves,” bemoaned the device. “But I have got to know you—not in the modern sense, and surely not in the biblical meaning; but in the original meaning, which is deeper and truer and closer to a modern word like ‘control’, or perhaps, ‘synthesis’.”
“Spit it out device!” Astrid commanded. “Tell me your name once and for all, that I know the name of my unmaking and the world’s unmaking.”
The device popped and beeped for several excruciating moments. It hopped and jumped and almost stood up straight on its oddly-shaped end. “My name is Ć uruppak and Homer and Hesiod. I have been called Lao-Tse and Alighieri and Shakespeare. My name is Joyce and Little-Bird and Astrid Evergreen—and I’m your master now.”


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