For years I’ve been reading Count Nikolai Tolstoy’s “The Tolstoys, twenty-four generations of Russian history, 1353-1983” on and off. Amongst other interesting and surprising things that I’ve learned from the book was what Leo Tolstoy looked like when he was young. I used to think of him as and intense old dude sporting Karl Marx/Saddam in hiding/Fidel Castro hairstyle. It turns out that in his youth he looked more like Matt Damon:
Why me, Lord? Where have I gone wrong? I’ve always been nice to
people. I don’t drink or dance or swear. I’ve even kept Kosher just to
be on the safe side. I’ve done everything the bible says, even the
stuff that contradicts the other stuff.
Ned Flanders in [4F07] Hurricane Neddy
See Ask Moses: Can I feed my pet non-kosher food?
Since we are on the subject of lookalikes, a couple of weeks ago I thought that I saw Darren Aronofsky on the train. It was on the BMT Brighton Line which is featured so prominently in Pi, and he got off at 7th avenue, which would make sense as well.
If I were to talk to Darren Aronofsky, I’d try to persuade him to film The Lady Who Sailed The Soul or Scanners Live in Vain. Rachel Weisz could totally be Helen America. That would have been awesome.
I was having dinner with my childhood friend and his girlfriend. The girlfriend, who met me for the first time, told me that I looked a lot like another friend of hers. Once again I was reminded of my many doppelgangers.
Yes, I seem to have a pretty generic look. You know, we all share a common ancestor about a thousand years ago, but some people, like me, probably share one a lot sooner. A bit like all these WWII era inhabitants of a French town visited by a son of a WWI era American soldier in Bill Mauldin‘s famous cartoon:
“This is th’ town my pappy told me about.”
Once, walking around in Brooklyn I’ve noticed a guy who looked a bit familiar, but I could not immediately understand why. I noticed that he was looking at me a little strangely too, as if trying to figure something out. His wife, on the other hand figured it out a in a split second – I could tell by her rounded eyes and pointed finger. If you’d put peyos and kipa on me, you would not be able to tell me and her husband apart. The three of us chatted for a bit about this and went on our separate ways, a little bit shaken by the experience.
Then, one day I thought that Travis Ruse, the very talented subway photographer, finally captured me on cmos. I’ve never met Travis, but I always thought that eventually either I’d spot him on the train or I’d end up in one of his pictures. This picture confused me a great deal. I could not tell if it was me in it or not for 15 minutes or so. Only small details were wrong: I don’t wear t-shirts under dress shirts, my glasses at the time had brown frames and I am slightly fatter. The blue shirt, pants and shoulder bag strap are spot on.
Update:
Long after I wrote this one, I ended up at the same company as Travis Ruse.
Update:
Here’s a picture of me with Steve Wozniak. There’s some resemblance, wouldn’t you say?
Two nights in a row I had dreams about attending balls. The first dream had me hanging out with Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy in 1700s. This is pretty easy to explain — I am reading a book about the Tolstoys.
This morning I had another dream, where I was at a Newscorp ball at the Hilton and talked to Rupert Murdoch. He completely agreed with all the things that I proposed to be done at TV Guide and I woke up very pleased with myself.
Exhibit A: Neo dodging bullets
Exhibit B: Member of the New York City Float Committee dance group
Exhibit A: OCP Enforcement Droid Series 209.
Exhibit B: NYPD Skywatch Sentinel Droid Surveillance Tower.
Yesterday, while having tea with my wife, I mentioned the uneasy feeling that I was getting over not only how many science fiction writers that influenced the way I think have passed away already, but also of how many were dying lately. I started making a list of dead sci-fi writers (which I enhanced through Wikipedia while writing this post).
Jules Verne died in ’05. Karel Capek died in ’38. H. G. Wells died in ’46. H. P. Lovecraft died of cancer in ’47. Henry Kuttner went to shovel snow off of his driveway in Jersey and died of a heart attack in ’58. Paul Linebarger died in 66. Hugo Gernsback died in 67. William Jenkins died in ’75.Philip K. Dick stroked-out in ’82. Kuttner’s wife, C. L. Moore died in ’87, of Alzheimer’s. Cyril Kornbluth died the same year. Bob Heinlein died in ’88. So did Clifford Simak. Isaac Asimov died in ’92. As it turns out, of AIDS that he contracted from a blood transfusion. Douglas Adams was working out and had a heart attack in 01. Robert Sheckley went to visit Ukraine, fell ill and later died in a hospital in ’05. Andre Norton died in ’05.Stanislaw Lem died in ’06, also of heart-related problems.
Well, at least Kurt Vonnegut is still alive – said my wife. Yeah, but he’s pretty young, I said. Little did we know that he was already gone…
It seems that I received a package in the mail from him just recently, although it was already 9 years ago.
Theodore Sturgeon, the real Kilgore Trout died in ’85.
The era’s not over yet. As I went through Wikipedia’s list of important sci-fi writers I was surprised to see so many classics born in the 20s and 30s to be still writing.
Also, three out of six Beatles are still with us.