Tag: Futurians

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Famous Claustophiles and Others At Brooklyn Botanical

Brooklyn Botanical Garden has many quirky little oddities, like a path with stepping stones carrying the names of famous Brooklynites. There’s one for Harry Houdini, Lena Horne, Woody Allen and of course, Dr. Asimov.

Asimov’s article at Wikipedia contains this gem of a anecdote:

“Asimov was a claustrophile; that is, he enjoyed small, enclosed spaces. In his first volume of autobiography, he recalls a childhood desire to own a magazine stand in a New York City Subway station, within which he imagined he could enclose himself and listen to the rumble of passing trains”.

I am actually a claustophile too, and I also like the rumble of subway trains. But the thing is, subway magazine stands don’t really have air conditioning…

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Can I tempt you with these? I think I just did.

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I’d Buy That For A Dollar!

This bag, standing abandoned near a phone booth and some garbage bags quickly reminded me of Cyril Kornbluth’s masterpiece “The Little Black Bag” and it’s follow up story “The Marching Morons”. I strongly recommend you get acquainted with Mr Kornbluth ASAP. If you are not cheap, splurge on NESFA’s fine compilation.

I bet that bag held a laptop from the year 2047 that could write “Enterprise quality” software by itself. But I somehow chickened out and did not check its contents. Could be a severed head just as well.
This bag, standing abandoned near a phone booth and some garbage bags quickly reminded me of Cyril Kornbluth’s masterpiece “The Little Black Bag” and it’s follow up story “The Marching Morons”. I strongly recommend you get acquainted with Mr Kornbluth ASAP. If you are not cheap, splurge on NESFA’s fine compilation.

I bet that bag held a laptop from the year 2047 that could write “Enterprise quality” software by itself. But I somehow chickened out and did not check its contents. Could be a severed head just as well.