Read Fredric Brown. Don’t miss out on him.
What Brown captures creatively is humorous sci-fi with endless layers of horror hidden within each sentence. But it doesn’t feel like horror until you allow your thoughts to wander into the ether.
Brown’s shortest story goes like this:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.
There was a knock at the door…
He’s been credited as an influence by heavy hitters like Philip K. Dick, Neil Gaimen, and Stephen King. His stories remind me of my younger days when I used to watch The Outer Limits with my dad1.
Here’s one of the stories from the above collection.
It clocks in at about 3 minutes and may leave a smile on your face.
Horses puts together some great videos. I particularly enjoyed the Nietzsche video due to his openness to individual interpretation. I never read Nietzsche and thought to myself Things are hopeless. Instead, his writing makes me very hopeful and captures the essence of carpe diem to inspire me into action.
There’s a sort of motivation for betterment hidden within Nietzsche’s writing.
Maybe betterment can only come in the wake of destruction.
Everything around us seems to run on some idea of sacrifice.
My pop-punk flame has been rekindled by Spite House.
Catchy hooks, positive lyrics, and great melodies.
When I’m feeling more aggressive I turn to Gendo Ikari.
Fantastic metal from Glasgow.
I tend to focus my watching on movies2 but the late 90’s/early 00’s are coming back in so many ways that it’s difficult to avoid shows from that era.
Farscape is one of those shows.
Farscape didn’t have Carl Sagan writing for it like Star Trek, nor is it the most imaginative when it comes to the endless possibilities of what aliens could look like3, but they make use of some basic physics principles and drench it in entertaining humanistic drama.
The best part about Farscape is that it’s a Jim Henson project, so there are puppets and animatronics throughout the show. Appreciating the work that went into creating the characters and bringing them to life is enjoyable in and of itself.
![Farscape Farscape](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18575c81-298e-46c9-a9b7-35fda0ec3f92_640x740.jpeg)
I tend to balance all of my sci-fi and artsy consumption with some sort of real-world creation, and last week I began to build a chicken coop. The rigidity of measurements and angles keeps me grounded while I wander around my world of thoughts.
It also got me thinking about what kinds of rewards I experience upon completing different tasks. When I finish a book I feel that dopamine hit. Not the same feeling I get when I finish watching a movie4 or listening to an album.
However, nothing compares to the satisfaction I feel once a build is complete. Whether building shelves or a shelter for chickens, that feeling of usefulness and resourcefulness are incomparable to anything else.
Looking forward to sharing the experience of the chicken coop build.
You can find most of The Outer Limits (90’s) on YouTube.
Highly recommended.
Especially slapstick and B-horror movies like Re-Animator, Slumber Party Massacre, and Pieces. Re-Animator may be the greatest horror creation of all time. It’s my favorite movie to share with someone to simply relish in their reactions to the twists and turns it takes. The MOST memorable rape scene I’ve ever seen is contained within Re-Animator.
Most of the characters are humanoid with make-up, but whatever. I guess when you’re writing a science fiction TV show you choose between relating to the people that want to see humans and the other people who want to experience inventive possibility — I’m guessing inventive possibility is a bit too imaginative for average viewership.
Sidenote: If you’re looking for something a bit more humorous and sci-fi focused, try Red Dwarf (the series). It’s a British space spoof filled with light-hearted humor. A total of 14 seasons were made, so they must have been doing something right.
Probably because I frequently fall asleep during movies.