Digressions of a Humorous Mind

The Top 12 Christmas Movies I have seen EVER!!

2010-12-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

I wish I posted this 2 weeks ago... but I am a time traveler sooooo

Family Man - THE best Christmas movie! I love Tea Leoni, I love the cake scene. And it's my favorite movie genre -- the one where the guy gets to see life without him, or what life would be like if he took another path. Quote: “Where are my Mary Janes?” or “This chocolate cake? I'm sorry, it's just too important to me.”

Elf - I like to believe that Will Farrell is Buddy the Elf. I will never accept anything else.

“Buddy the Elf... whats your favorite color?” (But come on, there are a million keepers in this movie.)

The Family Stone - I'm not sure what it is about this movie...I just love it. I even cry every year when Meredith hands out the pictures. “You have a freak flag....you just don't fly it.”

Bad Santa - There has never been a more inappropriate movie about Christmas, yet it's sooooooo good! That kid, wow, how did his parents sign off for him to be in this movie? Did you know that Bill Murray was signed on to play Willy, as were Jack Nicholson and Larry David? “Are you f$#%ing with me?” (I say that line every day at work....in my head.)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Only Jim Carrey could have made this watchable, and he does. I truly love how they made Whoville real. “This is not pudding!” (I laugh every time.)

Christmas Vacation – Clark is all of us, he just wants a perfect dang Christmas! Every scene I can relate to, except I don't have a cousin Eddie. “Burn my dust. Eat my rubber!”

The Ref - Dennis is perfect for this role. I just love that the “bad guy” is really the only good, normal one. "Lady, your husband ain't dead. He's hiding!" (I know it's actually from an old Abbott and Costello routine but still.)

A Nightmare Before Christmas - Amazing animation, great music, awesome story idea. Plus all the emo kids get to wear the gear, so Hot Topic stays in business. “Your jokin'... Your jokin'.. oh man you must be jokin'.” or “Frogs breath?!?! Nothing is more suspicious than frogs breath.”

It's a Wonderful Life - It's a classic. The original movie of my favorite genre where the guy gets a glimpse of his life had he followed a different path. “Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world.” or “What is it you want Mary? Do you want the moon?....Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.”

Scrooged - You can pick your favorite version of this old chestnut. For me, I love this one and the Muppets version. Bill Murray is such a good jerk. “Would someone for the love of God stop that dang hammering!”

A Christmas Story - This was a higher ranked movie until TBS played it every minute of every day for the entire Christmas week. It is great to see Christmas through a kid's eye. (Yes “eye” singular - he shot out the other one, remember?) “Ooooooooh Fudge!!!” I know I should say “You'll shoot your eye out.” but it's my list.

Olive the Other Reindeer - This is a pretty funny movie. I love the animation. Plus I can watch it with the kids and not throw up. “By now my ligaments are toast / But here it comes, more parcel post / Why not splurge? Send it priority! / What's one more pain in my pos-ter-i-orityyyyy?”

If I went to 13.... it still wouldn't have counted.

Wonderboys - I know it isn't a Christmas movie, but I always think of winter and Christmas when I see it. What a great movie, Michael Douglas, Katie Holmes, Robert Downey Jr., Toby McGuire. I love the feel of the movie so wintery and cold. It was filmed in Pittsburgh.

“And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all.” or

“James Leer: The doors made so much noise!
Grady Tripp: Is he all right?
James Leer: It was so embarrassing! He had to be carried out.
Terry Crabtree: He's fine. He's narrating.
James Leer: They were going to the restroom. But would they make it in time?”

How to time travel 45 minutes into the future

2010-12-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

How to time travel 45 minutes into the future

Fun with Ambien

Materials you will need.

(1-2) Ambien tablets

(1) alarm clock

(1) wooden top

Step 1 --- Forget you read this. You may have to travel back 45 minutes in time to tell yourself not to read this.

Step 2 --- Take 1 to 2 Ambien tablets. Stay awake for 2 hours. This is a great time to watch a romantic comedy or “What Not to Wear” on TLC. Your wife will be happy that you watched something she likes, and you won't remember a thing.

Step 3 --- Set all your clocks forward 45 minutes before you go to bed. Now would be the time to clean the bathroom too. Now reward your body and go to sleep.

Step 4 --- Get up and go to work. Avoid all clocks. You are now 45 minutes in the future!! What will you do??

Important!!!! Avoid seeing yourself!!! This may cause a paradox!!

Step 5 --- Once you are 1 minute from the present catching up to you, position yourself in a spot where you would be able to see your present self pass by undetected á la Timecrimes or Primer.

Option 1 --- If you do see yourself walk by, take the wooden top and spin it. If the top continues to spin for more than 45 seconds, according to Mr. Nolan, you are dreaming, which means you never woke up from the Ambien coma. So, dream up a beautiful women, fly around Egypt or do something fun.

Option 2 --- If you do see yourself, and the top does fall, congratulations -- you actually did it!!!

Please find me and let my past self know that I should sell all of the stocks I own on January 3, 2001, then put all my money into Chipotle stock the day it goes IPO, and that I should not waste my time watching movies like The Box, 2012 or Couples Retreat. I should also check the oil in my Explorer before the engine blows.

Option 3 --- You do not see yourself. Well what the hell, all you did was turn your clock forward. I mean, come on, what did you think would happen? But hey, you finally got to work on time, right?

Summer Goal #2 Part 3- 40 movies in Blah Blah Blah

2010-11-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

I cant believe I didnt see the whole thing or

my wife and mom are right I never follow through on anything !!

39. Toy Story 3 - Memo to Disney- My kids will already need lots of therapy just having me as a parent, why do you need to traumatize them as well. Poor Felix was scared out of his seat, literally. Half the little kids are crying in the theater with all that craziness. Why? I will never understand the Disney formula, I cant believe Andy wasnt forced to be an orphan. Any way I liked it, and so did the adults in the theater. The best part by far was hearing all the Spanish speaking kids and parents when Buzz was in the Antonio Banderas mode! They were hysterical and the other kids wanted to laugh, but didn't know why. Overall it was good, but I wonder, do I just see video game for a story because games have become great stories or was this a story made to be a great video game/ ride? Overall I give it 3 out of 4 toy stories.

38. The Invention of Lying - This was a pretty good movie!! I loved the whole premise, but wasnt expecting very much. However, the first act was awesome , second act pretty good the third act... well it was Hollywood. Still I laughed a bunch, chuckled a lot. At the end I felt happy and that was what I was looking for.

37. Extract- Love Jason Batemen period. I can hardly remember much about it. I t was ok and Jason can make most movies good... well not Couples Retreat. I guess 5 out of 9 bottles of extract

36. Quantum of Solace- The James Bond movies are just crazy good right now! Daniel Craig is a bad mother. He is fast and mean and brutal and classy and all the things you want from a real mad James Bond. The revenge spy the last two movies have created is fantastic!! Rumor is the franchise is on hold do to cost though, bummer!! I love it I give it 007 out of 007

35. Inception _ AWESOME!!! Take out the you know whats coming ending and the rest was GREAT!! I am a big Nolan fan, he knows how to tell a story in a way you have not seen a million times. The special effects were amazing and the sound was perfect! I think I had DiCaprio burn out this summer, especially since he played to guys that had simillar problems, but he was much better in this then Shutter Island. ven though I started getting confused at exactly what was going on at the end, it was still a goooood time. 4 out of 5 dreams in a dream.

34.The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo- With all the hype, it was a big let down!! I wanted it to be something that it just wasn't. Maybe I should have just read the book in the first place. It really was just a murder mystery. Been there seen that. 32 -34 make me think you shouldnt see 40 movies in one summer, you see how many movies are just a rehash of things you have seen already! 8 out of 12 tattoos

33. Green Zone- The Bore Identity. MY FIRST BLU RAY !!! To bad it was on a movie I have seen a million times. I am a fan of Matt, but not this movie. If you took away the Jason Bourne parts and the wantabe Hurt Locker cinematography it was just a tv movie. I dont feel like I was shocked at the whole premise. I just figured that is really how it went down. 4 out of 10 WMDs

32. Iron Man II - Robert really IS Tony Stark- I am not sure I know the difference anymore. It was a pretty perfect casting. Mickey was great and didnt talk to much, Scarlett is hot, yet..... It was a bit boring, not much reason to say wow!! It was good but just good. I give it 2 out of 3 somethings... fill in a word I have used before.

31. Let the Right One In - This is the smallest vampire movie I have ever seen. This is a film not a movie. The story was great. I am not a fan of Swedish acting, but it carried me. I like the vampire story idea of kids,and the teen angst issue. I did feel they missed a better ending showing the characters 50 years later, tying it to the start of the movie. I give it 9 out of 11 pints of blood.

30. Shutter Island.- This was another movie I have seen before in different versions. You knew what was going to happen hours before it did. ..and yes this movie was long enough that I can say that. I was a bit shocked at this being kinda boring. The only surprise at the end was why wasn't it better? 3 out of 6 lobotomies.

29. The Brothers Grim- I tried to love this movie, but it just wouldn't happen. I was so bored, I feel asleep 3 times trying to get through it, in the end... I have no idea what happened. I couldn't finish. Even with Sara Connor in it. I dont know why this movie felt soooo olde. 2 out of 6 tales

28. Deception- This is the worst movie I saw this summer, that was not supposed to be. You already know going into THE GOODS that it will most likely be terrible. But this movie has Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams and they should be ashamed. The director and editor and writer, should never be trusted with a movie again. The pacing of this movie was soooo bad, I could barely stand it. I have seen this movie 30 times with different names and this might be the worst version, of this OLD tale. I give it 0 out of 20 million dollars.

27. Youth In Revolt- Think SuperBad meets fight club- Is Michael Cera one of THE best comic actors of this generation?!?! If I was in high school, this would be the movie I would watch over and over and quote and worship. If he is an as$$ in real life, I dont want to know. I think he is one of the coolest guys in movies!! The dialogue is smart and funny, and the performances are so oddball that they are perfect. The only problem I had was they had a perfect "Breathless ending that would have made this a FILM. What a missed opportunity!! 12 out of 13 alter ego's in a mustache!!

26. The Road - Looking for a feel good summer movie?? This is not it But WOW !!! Not as good as one of the best books for a father even!! but it was pretty good. The film didnt rely on CGI either, most of the footage was from disasters like Katrina, and Mt. ST Helens. The best part though was the next morning Fletch asked if he could snuggle with me in bed.Even though it was 5am it was awesome!! 6 out of 7 tears.

25. The Day The Earth Stood Still- Ok why would I see this movie, well after hearing about my summer goal, my professor, jumped in and said " You have to see this movie!! It is awesome!!" WOW!! Really!! I did not see it that way. Could it be that Keanu's best movie was Bill and Ted? Would the Matrix have been that much better without him? Well all I know is I dont really have much more to say about this movie. (yeah I know I didnt say much about it in the first place) 2 out of 12 robot alien invasions.

24. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - This was a pretty funny movie, lots of parent jokes, which I always appreciate. The kids were a bit scared when things went crazy, but they made it. I really liked the characters too. 8 out of 10 foods.

23. The Goods - I cant believe I believed in Piven enough to watch this dud!! So many great character actors and it still stunk. The doc that this is based on was 10 times the movie this was, and it had no stars. Of course Will Ferrell still rocks in his 5 minutes of screen time. 1 out of 9 cars

My summer goal #2 - 40 movies in 75 days

2010-06-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

How I spent my Summer

22. Despicable Me - Think of the Incredible meets Dr. Evil, meets Annie- This is my top animated movies this year! Funny,with lots of humor for the adults, and not to scary for the kids. Steve Carells voice is hilarious too! Best of all it was a free screening and it was in 3D. The kids were amazed!! 11 out of 11 spies!!

21. Slumdog Millionaire- This is one great movie!! I love that it puts an exclamation mark on the saying "You are the sum of your experiences" Danny Boyle rocks!! The way he tells a story is art! Cant wait for "Solomon Grundy" Freida Pinto, has to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Just an amazing story from start to finish! I give it 20,000,000 rupees out of 20,000,00000 rupees!!

20. Time Crimes- A recommendation from Tweedy Paul. He was dead on with this pic. I wont give anything away, because it has more twists then my spine. But the box says it all " A naked girl, a murder in bandages and a man who accidentally travels back in time." AWESOME you had me at... well every part really!!This is a Spanish film, so you can get it subbed or dubbed. This is a GREAT movie!! 4 out of 4 time machines (for people who have seen it already I give it 4 out of 4 Hectors)

19. The Last One/ The Underground Homeless of New York City- The first is about a guy who makes moonshine in a home made still, not that interesting. The second was about how in the 90's over3,000 people were living in the old subway tunnels. After 9/11 they kicked most of the people out. They live in these weird shelters and some dont come above ground for days. I counted them as one because they were not that great. Maybe 2 out of 6 yawns

18. Layer Cake - A poor mans, Lock , Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, with James Bond in it. I'm not saying it wasnt good, it was. It did have some rough spots, but worth the hour and a half.I am surprised someone ripped off Guy Richie like that. Daniel Craig is good and Sienna Miller must have been left on the cutting room floor. I give it 5 out of 8 Kilos

17. High Score- A doc about a guy trying to get the high score or world record on Missile Command. Apparently the CPU's cant handle the use and restart.The last 1 minute he dances on roller skates, which is one of the funniest things I have ever scene. Well it was kinda funny. Oooops I just told you the best part! I give it 4,000,000 out of 80,000,000 points!

16. Role Models - Surprisingly not that bad. Paul Rudd I am not a fan of, but the kids are great especially Mclovin, that guy rocks!! The sword fighting joke went Waaaaay to long but there was a line about a whispering eye, that made Kel and I laugh so hard we cried. Believe it or not I give it 3 out of 4 whispering eyes.

15. Alice in Wonderland- I loved this movie, it was very dark, like how the Mad Hatter went mad. It also had a great message, especially for girls. The red queen was great, white queen a bit freaky. While it was dark at times and the kids pushed their fears the payoff for them was the Fudderwupping dance by Johnny. Fletcher has been doing it ever since as a sign of victory. I give it 9 out of 11 hats!! More if there were great songs like the TV mini series

14.Hannah Montana- Macy loves this movie- I was surprised to find out that Hannah and Miley were the same person. I quickly called Clark Kent to do the story and had Peter Parker take pictures, and asked Diana Prince to give some advice on what a good secret identity should look like. "You dont need a wig, just put your hair up in a bun and wear glasses, Clark doesnt even use a wig, just parts it to the side" Well hey enough about that movie. 1 out of 20 wigs

13. G-force - All the action of Bruckheimer and the fun of fury little creatures. It was ok- Not very note worthy- 2 out of 4 food pellets.

12. Precious -This too is a movie I didnt really want to see, I dont want to see a movie thats depressing, I can find that in real life. I figured since I had just seen Blind Side and Notorious I had a theme with BIG actors going, so now was the time. They really were amazing performances by Gabouray and Mo'nique. I was pretty shocked that Mo took such a risk, looking BAD and behaving worse. Probably one of the top ten villains in a movie ever. My real question was, why did Oprah or Tyler Perry need the other one to get this movie done, I cant believe for a minute it needed the two. I give it 8 out of 9 frying pans--- Side note: When Macy saw Gabouray at the Oscars she said" WOW!!! Why that girl have so big these things!!! (pointing at her boobs)

11. Blind Side- Well I resisted this movie for a long time because, I already know how it ends and was pretty sure I knew the begging and the end. Turns out I was right, but there is a reason people always pay to see the inspiration story of the year, there pretty darn good. I think the part that was more interesting is that they say 90% of it was true, not the usual 10%. Plus I found myself thinking, for the first time,the girl from the bus who was also in the net, was pretty darn cute!! I give it 7 out of 9 footballs.

10. Cleaner- Sam Jackson is always good, and even though this felt like something I may have seen before, Think "sunshine cleaners" vs every film nior. Either way it was really interestingly shop. I loved the cinematography so much I looked up the director on IMBD thinking I NEED to see more of this guys movies. The Director was Renny Harlin.ooops you know "Driven,long kiss goodnight ( ice skating chase scene), Cutthroat island,Cliffhanger,Adventu

res of Ford Fairlane,Diehard2,elmstreet 4,and THE Deep Blue Sea( one of the worst movies ever) Some how this guy keeps getting work. Check out the cleaner anyway. 4 out of 6 cleaning products.

9. Notorious- This was a pretty good movie. I found myself twice saying "oh that song from girl talk is Biggie, I always wondered!" I thought that Biggie was well played, so was little "hottie" kim" WOW maybe on my top ten list. The Tupac and Puffy I couldnt stand, which may mean they were played exactly, dont know. Right after words I had to put in "Biggie and Tupac" Doc, I just knew the truth was not in Puffy's version of what happened. 7 caps in your a$$ out of 10

8. Couples Retreat- Every now an then a movie comes out that is so amazing that it changes they way you see things. Before I saw this movie I thought Vince,Jon,and Jason were great comedians- and Kristen Davis was not even in my top 200. After words I realized the sun has set on Vince and Jon, Jason gets a pass, and Kristen is a hottie! Don’t tell me your movie is a comedy if it's not funny, this was just brutal to watch... (Thank goodness I am a time traveler and can go back in time and not watch this movie) I cant believe it didn’t win a razzy. I don’t want to give it anymore time, because it wasn’t worth the virtual ink. 1 out of 102 stars.

7. Clash Of the Titans- Release the "CRAPen" I LOVED the original, watched it a million times when HBO ruled the EARTH in the 80's. I knew that movie, I was friends with that movie,... this sir, is not that movie. Even Sam "I am the new Cristian Bale" Worthington wasn’t good. This was the problem- The whole story made no sense, Argos declares war on the gods, as a result they destroy Zues's statue, and bystanders are killed, Persues's family. He wants revenge, somehow he ends up on a journey to save 1 princess, who must be sacrificed to appease Zeus. Why doesn’t he say , I need to kill Zeus or Hades, who killed his family, or they say, that seems fair, we will give one life of an aristocrat, who waged war on the gods, to save the entire population of their people.- I don’t even get why I am cheering for him, and his quest. 2-The second problem is why is it called "Clash of the Titans?!?! According to mythology the Titans were killed by the Olympians, so how is it the titans are clashing???!?!? I give this movie 10 out of 27 gods

6. The Wrestler- WOW!!! I was blown away!! This was a great movie! This is THE role for Mickey he is that guy to me. And Marissa, I can’t believe her career has come to her doing doing nude scenes! She was perfect to, I kept thinking what did happen to her, she was everywhere, then no where. This is a top 10 for the year! Of course, I heard the JOURNEY , “Don’t Stop Believing” ,Sopranos ending coming. 9 out of 10 rings

5. The Princess and the Frog - This is a good movie!! I was not excited about it, however, Macy really wanted to check it out, and behold I liked it! The songs are great, no Elton john, Randy Newman or Phil Collins. 4 out of 6 flies

4. Avatar- Sure i already saw this in the theater in 3D, but I thought lets see if it is still good at home. - Eeeeeh, it was ok, but not near as spectacular. The story really was such a retread it was a bit boring the second time. It is a bit weird being so attracted to a 10ft tall, blue alien, kinda feel like Captain Kirk. 16 out of 23 stars

3. RIP - A remix manifesto- Amazing movie!! Featuring Girl Talk, and all about how the copy right laws have changed over time and 6 companies control all media. This is a must see, and it can be seen for free, and remixed on an open source website. http://www.opensourcecinema.org/project/rip2.0. 6 out of 7 downloads

2. Sherlock Holmes - Robert D, and Guy are the man, they made Sherlock less stuffy and more cool.I like the sl ow mo , Lock stock and two smoking special effects. It had action, humor and was smart. I loved it!! Based on the ending, I assume we will be seeing part 2 in a year and a half or so. 4 out of 5 clues

1. Meet the Robinsons- I actually love this movie, I do love my time travel stories. Bowler hat guy is a bit creepy, but this is a good Disney movie! 3 out of 4 time machines- Should I be counting kids movies in my 40??

A Day In The Life Of A TimeTraveler

2010-02-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

- or -
Been there done this

5:55 My alarm goes off. (2010) If I'm lucky, the sound wakes me up. If I'm not lucky, I've already been up for a while.

I take a shower, get dressed, look through my closet. I become unstuck in time jumping from 2001 to 2004, 2010 to 1998, 1976 to 2007. I pick something from the past and then go downstairs.

Fletch is awake and I make him breakfast. We sit together for 10 minutes and watch Mickey Mouse. (I slip through time to 2006.) I think they make 5 a year, so I have seen this one a few hundred times.

I go to the car and warm it up. (I am in 2002.) I start to work and put on Mike and Mike in the morning. They talk about yesterdays football games. (I am exactly one day behind.) I switch over to NPR, where they're talking about President Obama's town hall meeting tonight and how he will offer bail out money to small businesses. (I have slid 8 hours into the future.)

I get to work and walk into the building. (I step into 1954.) I say hello to several students. (I speak to the future.) I pass a few teachers. (Jumping from 1986 to 1998 to 2003, based on the clothing and hair styles.)

I get to my classroom and log onto my computer. (I am in 1998 based on the OS.) I look over what I will teach today, it will take me from 1967 in literacy to 500 AD in Math to 1776 in social studies and finally to the future in science. Depending on the text book I use, I will pop up in 2001 or 2004. I have lunch it's leftovers. (I am 16 hours in the past.) I discuss current events with co workers. (I am finally in the present.) One of them changes the conversation to a debate over school reform. (I am 3 weeks in the past, he has already brought this up before.) The conversation changes again to departmentalizing. (I am not sure if I am in October, November or December, since this conversation comes up every few weeks.)

I go back to class and say "You rock!" as I high five a student. (I am obviously in 1994.) He is wearing converse shoes (jump to 1917). (Yes, 1917...look it up!)

I finish my day and head back to my car (2002). On my way home, I put on NPR. The news is about what Obama said in his speech. (I am 3 hours in the past.) I think about tomorrow and what lessons I will teach (future). Then I put on some music. (I slip from 1967 to 1986 to 2002 then briefly to 2010, but just briefly.)

I arrive home and step into the present, stretch my legs, and walk into the past. (My house was built in 1974.) I say hi to the kids. (2007, 2005, 2004) and my wife. I cook up dinner and we all sit. My mom talks about her day and the news. (I am back to where I started this morning at 6:30 am.)

We all spend time together playing games (1963), reading some books (1985), and the kids go to sleep. I sit down on the couch (sliding into 2004) and watch some TV (2010). Ahhhh, back in the present where I belong!

I wish I had a time machine so I could go forward and find out what funny title I used to describe this essay

2009-09-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

OR
Sometimes you work hard to not work

HOW I GOT OUT OF WRITING AN ESSAY ON H.G. WELL’S THE TIME MACHINE.

By Justin Kahn

(Because it’s also the International Year of Astronomy, over the next few weeks, we are happy to present a few reprinted funny pieces that relate to this business of space - Enjoy!)

January 17, 2005
I received the syllabus for my Humanities course. A humanities course should not be required for my B.Sc degree in Physics. To add insult to injury, we are supposed to do an analysis of Well’s The Time Machine. We are to focus on the historical context when the topic is time travel?
Who reads a book on a time machine for social insights? I would do anything to get out of this essay.
At dinner, my friends complained about this assignment. I tell them a way out: I will build a time machine.
They mocked me, but they will see.

January 18, 2005
9:20 A.M. Building a time machine is harder than I thought. There are all kinds of technical challenges I didn’t anticipate. Frustrated, I decide to make a mix tape with songs like Cher’s If I could Turn Back Time.
Noon. Finished my time machine. The book report is due in a couple of weeks, so I need to get down to business.

January 19, 2005
Watched Groundhog Day. What a great movie.

January 20, 2005
After lunch I get in my time machine and press the lever forward. I don’t know what to expect and am somewhat surprised by the sound emitted which is that of a very large blender. Stranger yet is the smell emitted by my contraption—which is that of cinnamon vanilla.

August 14, 1996
I have successfully transgressed the boundaries of time. I have moved backward in time.
I create an internet company called eToys. If I am rich, I don’t need to stay in school.

February 12, 1997
I’m rich. I have no need to go to school. Returning to the present with no worries about stupid papers on stupid books.

January 20, 2005
I return to the present. My company has flopped. I’m in debt. Must figure out a way to finish book report. Less than a month until it is due!

March 08, 1920
I go to Harvard, to see Professor Santayana, guru of arts and culture and stuff. I tell him my situation, the whole thing.
I ask him if he’ll help me.
He says to me, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

January 20, 2005
I believe Santayana was trying to give me a suggestion about the significance of Wells. I come up with a couple of ideas. After a good night’s rest I’ll return to Professor Santayana and see what he says.

March 08, 1920
I take my ideas to Santayana.
He says to me, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I can see where this is going. I make my way back to the future.

December 16, 2004
Today is the day I signed up for the humanities course.
I try to intercept my past self from taking the humanities course. The lines for registration are painfully long. Unwilling to wait, I decide to not bother.

July 13, 1880
I meet H.G. Wells and try to persuade him he shouldn’t be a writer. H.G. claims he isn’t that interested in writing.
He asks me where I am from and why I am dressed the way I am.
I tell him that I have come from the future.
H.G.: “The future? Say, that is an interesting idea. Someone who can move through time. Speaking of writing,that would make for an interesting book. Don’t you think?”

I return to the present, depressed.

January 21, 2005
I realize I’m doing this all wrong. I should go to the future. Get the book report, I have already written, and than take it back to the past! The present! You know before the due date.

October 26, 2056
Overshot by a bit much.
I am so sick of my mix tape. I was sick of it the first time. But after fifty years? You can understand, if I am a bit on edge.
I assumed that the future would be infinitely more complex. Really is much simpler and I suppose it makes just as much sense to imagine that human society would work to make everything simpler rather than more complex.
The fundamental unit of currency is the ‘Ice Cube.’ I load my pockets with these, as proof of my adventure when I return to 2005, but also because I find them very helpful in cooling off room temperature drinks.

February 28, 2005
I meet my future self, who has already had his book report returned to him. He got a C-, the slacker. That’s good enough for me, though. So, I take my future self’s essay and run.

February 18, 2005
I submit my paper on The Time Machine.

February 28, 2005
My paper is returned to me with a C-. I feel like this doesn’t reflect the amount of effort I have put in. I tell the teacher so.
On the way out of my professor’s office, a young man (handsome, introspective and yet obviously ambitious) steals my book report. It doesn’t really matter since I’ve already received my grade. But it was still a painful reminder of how tough you have to be in this world.

October 3, 802, 701
I call a meeting. I persuade the Eloi and Morlock to live peaceably together. I warn them not to go back to their old ways.
I look at them and say “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Sphere: Related Content

Justin Kahn puts stuff on his blog, conceptofirony.blogspot.com

This Blog is now fully operational

2009-08-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

There are things you can't unsee

2009-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

or "I wish I didn't look after all .....

So I recently read Paul Levinson's blog post review on The Shield. It reminded me of the last episode and how traumatized I was after seeing it. I have always said that there are certain things you can't unsee and that is absolutely true with The Shield. After the finale I thought about it and realized The Shield has had three of the most disturbing scenes I have even seen on TV. The rest I have seen in movies or on the internet. These are things I can never get out of my mind, I think about them with the same emotion as when I first saw them __ years ago. They are so disturbing and powerful that you are changed, permanently, just a little bit.

So here are the top 9 things I have seen that can't be unseen.

1. The Shield - final episode. I don't want to have a spoiler on here so lets just say it's the scene in the episode titled "Family Meeting". I still think of it now and again and get a bit depressed.

2.The Shield - Season 2 (I think Barnstormer?) When Gardoki has his face burned on the stove by Armadillo. I had never seen such a brutal thing actually happen on TV. Usually the guy is saved at the last minute, not scarred for life!!

3. The Shield - Season 3, Riceburner. Tavon and Shane have a huge fight over a lie from Shane's horrible wife. It is a violent, nasty fight with the N-bomb dropped. Mara hits him in the head with an iron and he stumbles out onto the street, dazed and confused. He drives off and is eventually thrown through the windshield of his van after hitting a parked car. The digital filming at first makes the broken glass look like blood splattering onto the street. Words can't quite describe it. There's that feeling in the bottom of my stomach again!!

4. Two girls and a cup - Viral Video - After all the hype I "had" to see it... It is THE single worst thing I have ever seen. DON'T look it up if you haven't seen it. I won't be held responsible.

5. The last scene in "KIDS" - Movie 1995 - Just about the entire movie is disturbing, the use of unknown, young actors makes it that much more creepy. Telly, the main character, is HIV positive and tries to deflower as many young girls as possible without protection. The final scene where a boy takes advantage of a passed out girl who has HIV is just the icing on the cake. Having a teenage daughter myself, this movie shakes me to my core!

6. The rape scene in Leaving Las Vegas - Movie 1995 - When Elisabeth Shue is brutally raped by a bunch of jocks, it made me need to take a shower. The way the scene was shot, so choppy and rage filled, it was the darkest scene in a very dark movie.

7. The Blair Witch Project -Movie 1999 - The movie was mostly lame but the last 15 seconds were very traumatic. I couldn't go into the basement for years without the hair on my neck standing up.

8. Requiem for a Dream - Movie 2000 - The story line with the mother was upsetting, it made me think of my Grandma, and I hoped her life didn't end as lonely as that (and I was glad she didn't lose it like that). The arm amputation, the girlfriend prostituting her self out and being degraded...80% of the movie is so very tragic and sad.

9. A cadaver - Sophomore year in college I took Anatomy and Physiology. We dissected a new (fresh?) female cadaver. I will never forget seeing the chest cut open and then the teacher lifting the skin and breasts to the side like it was just wrapping for the insides. All the muscle and stuff underneath, heart, lungs, liver and intestines just popping out, right there for all to see and smell.

Marc's Fine ART of the Day

2009-06-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Marc's F ine ART of the Day-

Made possible by a cooperative agreement between Google, BlogSpot, Facebook and Marc Brown ( However only I am aware of it.)

Blue Dog at the Lone Branch - 2009 Oil on linen

I fell in love with the Blue Dog on a trip to New Orleans. I almost got a tatoo of her but friends tricked me into something else. ( long story)

The Blue Dog story:
One particular Cajun legend, the loup-garou, became the inspiration for the first Blue Dog. Painted for a book of Cajun ghost stories (Bayou, Inkwell, 1984), Rodrigue chose a photo of his studio dog Tiffany who had died several years before as his prototype. Rodrigue painted this first eerie Blue Dog a scruffy, pale grey-blue, with red eyes.

Want to buy a painting http://www.georgerodrigue.com/

Akeelah and the Spelling Zombie

2009-04-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Top Zombie Movies and Books

World War Z: (Book)

I loved this book and can't say enough about it. I love the way Max Brooks built such a rich fake history. I also love that the Zombies freeze and then when thawed they attack again.

Shaun of the Dead: (Movie)

When they are walking by the zombies and think they are just some wasted street people, I laugh every time.

28 Days Later: (Movie)

Danny Boyle directing (big fan), love the digital photography. The way the camera moves while the infected attack is just unnerving. I hate when that drop of blood falls down into the dad's eye.

The Serpent and The Rainbow: (Movie)

Director Wes Craven made an awesome movie, that is based on the book by Wade Davis. Bill Pullman is sent to Haiti by a pharmaceutical company, and is pulled into a government conspiracy of Zombification.

Night of the Living Dead: (Movie)

THE ORIGINAL , they just never stop coming.

Dawn of the Living Dead: (Movie)

What can I say, I like the whole mall set up. even though it is the weakest of my picks.

Return of the living Dead: (Movie)

When I was a Punk Rocker in High School, this was the movie we watched over and over. The girl who has sex in the graveyard, loved it. The barking half dog , one of my favorite scenes.

The Evil Dead: (Movie)

I am not so sure I count this as a Zombie movie but the dead are brought to life and it always stuck with me. Directed by Sam Raimi, this is one of those movies that had one or two scenes that scared me to the core. When the girl starts playing with the knife.... eeeep.

The Zombie Survival Guide: (Book)

Max Brooks again, the whole idea of this book is great.

Pride, Prejudice and Zombies: (Book)

Haven't read it yet, but I can't wait. Love the idea!

Who watches "The Watchmen" answered!

2009-03-26T19:18:00.001-07:00

or

What did I come to see again??

Since I'm a time traveller, I went back two weeks and finally saw "The Watchmen". The best part of the movie was that I answered the question, "Who watches the Watchmen?" The answer is geeks...lots of geeks (well 10, approximately). Granted, I saw the movie at noon on a Monday, but still there were exactly 10 guys, by themselves, perfectly spaced out so they wouldn't have to talk to each other. And yes, I know that makes me a geek too. Takes one to know one.

Apparently, the marketing people know who goes to see these movies too. The trailers were just a giant nerd orgy. Star Trek Origins looks great, thank you J.J. Abrams. Though Sylar playing Spock makes me a bit leery. Then it was X-men Origins. Not a huge fan of the last two X-men movies or Liev Schreiber (he's going to take on Wolverine...come on!?) but it does look good.

Next up was The Terminator Salvation. Man, can Christian Bale be any hotter right now? (Said in a totally hetero way...) He is in everything. You can't be Batman, Pablo Escobar, John Conner and Jack Kelly... save some roles for the rest of the guys. When I was in 1992 everyone in "The Player" says "We'll get Bruce Willis for the lead!" Then Brad Pitt was Bruce, then Colin Farrel was Bruce, then they wanted Shia LaBeouf to be Bruce.

Anyway... I thought the movie was great! I loved Rorschach, he was perfect. The guy looked just like him and "the Batman" voice was great! I am not sure if they decided to hire actors just based on them looking like the characters in the book, or not, but they were uncanny.

Well... I think that's enough about the movie.

Have a nice day!!

Everything I learned, I learned by myself off of the computer

2009-03-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Wii ! It's not just for breakfast anymore!

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-build-an-infrared-smart-board-with-a-wiimote-174101/

Why is education so expensive?!? I could pay $2,000 dollars for one of these if there was a 10% chance it would make it through a budget... or I could offer a class in the district high schools where we teach the kids how to do this, then we send a team of students to each elementary school to make one in all willing teachers classrooms. When they set it up they train any other kids that want to learn how to do it. Total cost $200 + each student has a skill that just may lead to more innovation. The snowball effect of this would be enormous!! The only question would be how can we "no bid" contract this out to a company, who could then charge $1,000 each to oversee it, otherwise what is really the point.

This vidoe shows how to make a Wii remote, a marker, and a laptop into a smartboard.... go, go, go, Macgyver.

The Revolution starts now!!!

Things that make me laugh... EVERYTIME!!

2009-03-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

1 Wiener dogs- the are so long and floppy eared and overly confident.

2 My son with his underwear backwards. / when he gets right up to my face and breaths his stinky breath on me.

3 Some one laughing uncontrollably, tears in their eyes.

4 Myself in my sleep.

5 The words
Tickled / / Noodles / Boogie / Scooter/ Booboo/ scooby doo
Sherbet/ Schubert / Doofenshmirtz / octopus/ soup / shampoo
Wiener / Uranus / Nipple/ anything in a candian accent
Suessical / all Suess words pretty much./ turtle/ moose/ wood pecker

6 When people sing the wrong words to a song.

7 Team names at trivia night –Touched by An Uncle, Free Tibet with Purchase of a Large Drink. Nine inch Males.

8 A sit com set up that I see a million miles away

9 Will Ferrell’s President Bush- have some margaritas at Chi Chi’s

10 A platypus – especially Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb- Plus they sound like a beaver lay eggs like a bird, common.

11 Will Ferrell in Elf- I’m singing a song about…

12 How I met Your Mother...wait for it..wait for it…. I think it has some great writing you don’t find around much any more.

13 Ground Hogs Day… it is funny, over..and over..and over!!

14 Unnecessary Censorship – from Jimmy Kimmel

15 Phineas and Ferb- A triangle kids and a rectangle kid, whose sister is a half circle.

16 People act like they heard the words wrong- like a Grandpa saying “start” instead of “stop”
17 Old silent movies – love the physical comedy – “Modern Times”

18 A “SPIT- TAKE” always makes me laugh, mostly because you see it a mile

19 When I try NOT to laugh because it's an inappropriate time!!!!

I Had A Dream

2009-03-16T14:31:00.000-07:00

Marc Brown: It's Not complicated

I had this dream last night. I'll describe it the best I can, then tell you the back story. You know, since I don't follow time linearly.

So, I was in my southern mansion having a dinner party (Hey, a man can dream!). I was walking around entertaining and saying hi to all the families. I would say there were maybe 20 families. Suddenly I heard a ruckus in the library. I opened the door and it is a huge Sherlock Holmes style library, and there was a mess everywhere. There was this boy on the floor throwing all my favorite, leather-bound books as hard and spitefully as he could. There were other boys all over with cuts and scrapes and this boy was throwing the books right at them. There was blood everywhere, on the floors and on the shelves. I tried to stop him and he went crazy. I had to restrain him (thank you Denver Public Schools for the training). I was so mad and wanted to just punch him out to stop him, but I didn't and he kept getting worse. He was like a rabid dog, a la Stephen King. He just kept attacking, and attacking. Finally I got him to calm down and he just started to laugh at me.

I went out and looked around for his dad, but when I found him I couldn't speak . It was like my throat was clogged. No sound would come out. I finally got some words out and he just shrugged, "so what". I walked him around explaining to him and showing him how other families were playing games with their sweet kids and others were sitting around doing crafts and laughing. I told him I would have to have him pay for the damages his son did to my moms house (yes ownership somehow changed). He walked over to some other guys and they discussed something, while they hung out downstairs in the basement.

I went outside and saw this bird or pterodactyl on the roof by it's nest. While I was watching, some eggs started to roll off the roof. I caught one and as I did it hatched and a baby came out. I thought I didn't want it to look at me because then it would think I was it's mother and I wasn't. Then another rolled off and I tried to save it to, but it landed on the ground and when the shell cracked we saw it was already dead.

Meanwhile, in the basement, my Mom and my (deceased) step Dad were working on their room, when the men asked them why they were living in the basement of this house. Why weren't they living on the main floor, which was were I was going to live. They started getting mad explaining that it was illegal to rent out the rest of the house because it was a single family dwelling. "No! No! We are just renovating - that's all!" they explained. Things started to get heated. The guys said they were going to turn everyone in. I tried to stop them by saying that they were just trying to get out of paying for the crazy boy's behavior. They said all the damage was my problem, too bad, I would have to deal with it myself.

Now here is the back story: it's complicated.

My mom moved in to my house over the summer, she lives in the garage that we renovated. We just hooked up the water last weekend ourselves, no permit. (hypothetically) We are adopting two kids from Ethiopia in the next few weeks. My son woke up last night at 1am, and was screaming and arguing like he has done for the last 3.5 years. I finally got him to stop and go down to his room, where I put him to bed, but then I was to hyped up to go back to sleep. I was up until 4:30, when I finally drifted to sleep and had this dream.

I'm thinking I probably don't need a dream analysis on this one.

Top 19 Media About Time Travel

2009-03-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

If you are ever bedridden, here are somethings to do.

Only slightly in order. And just some quick thoughts -- not long winded reviews.

Primer (movie) Great Movie so minimal and washed out. Love the idea that business uses technology just to make money- see how the Porn industry has driven our top tech inventions. Like VHS, DVD, Internet.

Donnie Darko (movie) Love the 80’s sound track and remember Frank is just trying to help you – maybe. I Love how time travel is always blamed on symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

12 Monkeys (movie) One of Brad’s top 5 performances. Love how Brad and Bruce have possible symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

Time Bandits (movie) Why does there have to be evil? Supreme Being: I think it has something to do with free will. Look, do you want to be leader of this gang? No, we agreed: No leader! Right. So shut up and do as I say..

Rant – An Oral Biography (Book) Can’t give anything away, so I’ll just say this is a delightful story, just like all of Chuck’s books, if you are a twisted soul. A quick read I finished in only 3 months, with time travel factored in.

Does Groundhog Day count? (Movie) I had groundhog for breakfast! I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It's inspiring in a way.

The Butterfly Effect (movie) one of the only movies with Ashton I can watch…. Plus it goes with A Sound Of Thunder (see below).

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (Short Story) The movie sucked, but I love the idea of changing history by stepping on a bug. Some rich business men pay big money to hunt a T-rex. Trivia Ray actually didn’t coin the phrase “butterfly effect” though; it was an MIT dude in the 80’s

The Simpsons episode "Time and Punishment" which was part of Season 6's Tree house of Horror V. The spoof of the short story above. Later stolen to make the butterfly effect.

Time After Time (movie) My name is H.G. Wells. I came here in a time machine of my own construction. I am pursuing Jack the Ripper, who escaped into the future in my machine. One of those movies you saw 50 times because it was the summer you got HBO.

Timeline by Michael Creighton (book) Movie sucked. Book makes sense though, you know if you suspend disbelief.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (movie) High school movie to watch over and over and over.
Back to the Future 2 and 1 (movies) I really like the second one when Biff uses his time travel to make money. But the popular answer is the first one.

Terminator 2 and 1 (movies) He was right, he did come back.

Planet of the Apes (movie) Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape! You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Lost (TV) who doesn’t love this show freckles? Think of how so many of us thought they were dead and in purgatory.

Peabody's Improbable History (TV) Talking dog historian/time traveler, Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman. The two would jump into their time machine called "The way back machine". Getting up at 5:30 as a kid to watch the Lone Ranger and this was on after it. With Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads (Song) 1980 “…and you may tell yourself. This is not my beautiful house! And you may tell yourself .This is not my beautiful wife!”

Time Splitter 2000 (PS2) I know it is an old game but its one of the few I have played- as referenced in my Blog Unstuck in Time. I am cheap and only have old games.

Time Machine by HG Wells (Book) was published in 1895. Are you kidding me?! The Island Of Dr. Moreau, War of the Worlds The Invisible Man. HG Wells was a true Futurist.

And finally a poem:

A mammoth, frozen

in Siberian tundra

for twice 10,000 years
Is exhumed at last.

Embedded in the right tusk:

a tracking device

-- Keith Allen Daniels

The Problem With Being Unstuck in Time

2009-03-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

- Or -

It’s not cool until I say it’s cool.

Sometimes I feel like I am Billy Pilgrim in Slaughter House Five, or Desmond (from LOST) in “The Constant” episode. I seem to have problems with slipping around in time. Sometimes I’m in the future. Mostly I’m in the past, mostly, and many times I hear Tyler Durden telling me “This is the greatest moment of your life and you’re off somewhere missing it. Stay focused on the moment, don’t think about other things just enjoy the moment.” How often am I in the present, not thinking about what happened today or what I will do later, just enjoying right now? I digress.

This week I have been obsessed with the White Stripes. I listened to them for the first time a couple weeks ago. Now of course I’d heard them years ago… and changed the station, but I never really listened to them before. The song was Blue Orchid – wow, soooo good -- then I listened to Seven Nation Army. Also awesome. I even created a crush for Meg. I know, I know they have been around since the late 90’s but to me they are a brand new band, because I just slid back to that year for a week. I didn’t really listen to Nirvana until their MTV Unplugged CD was playing at my friend Pat’s house in 1997. Kurt wasn’t even alive any more. You see, I spent several weeks crashing at Pat’s house in Tucson, not knowing he had no TV until I got there. I remember in 2001 I was living in the 1990’s and discovered Paul Oakenfold and electronica music. That was an amazing summer. Of course my wife says I am not time traveling but rather I never listen to FM radio or new music or her. True. I have a closed loop for music, kind of like the Amish and breeding.

The best part is I ALWAYS say I don’t like things that I have never actually heard, tasted or seen, just because the masses think it’s cool. I used to think that started when I was in high school when Joe, Pat, Mickey, Brian and I were punk rock guys. I loved to hate everything people loved. I was totally different and unique, exactly like my friends were. However I realized I had been doing it years before. I remember telling my friend Jay Penny in middle school that I didn’t want to go with him to see U2 at Red Rocks. Yes. In 1983. I have spoken to 14,000 people that went to that concert and, yes, it holds just under 10,000. It’s just like how I have met at least 40 people now that were with Darent Williams the night he was shot and died. I am sure he had a big posse that NYE, but I don’t actually know that many cool people that he would have hung out with. Anyway, I didn’t want to go to the concert because I thought he was talking about the B52’s which were popular, therefore I didn’t like them. I know in 1987 at college I always listened to them and proclaimed they were the best.

The same can also be said for TV and movies. I finally watched Weeds, season 1, this summer. Loved it! Welcome to 2005. I started watching the Wire (one of the best shows ever made) when season 3 started in 2004. When I make it back to 2004 I can finally start Battlestar Galactica -- I’ve heard it’s good. Just thinking of the irony of watching Donnie Darko three years after it was out and thinking “I used to love this INXS song” when it was big in the 8o’s. That is some real time traveling.

I just finished the last episode ever of “The Shield”. Yes, I am currently living in November 2008. Wow!! That’s all I can say. The end is so perfect and soooo disturbing it would be wrong to describe it… it really must be experienced. I was going to post the trauma I suffered from watching this… but I will save that for another digression.

This Christmas I was stuck in 2001, My wife bought me one of those hats that looks like a snow hat but it has a bill on it. I LOVE this hat. I remember when they came out and I said ‘I hate those hats, and those dumb kids that think they are sooo cool wearing them.” Two years ago I was in 2002, where I bought cargo pants for work. I love them, so I bought 4 pairs. Just like the hats with the bill, I hated them until that then. Too many kids wearing them…and why do they need so many pockets? I don’t need so many pockets. Heck I figured while I was there I might as well buy some skateboard shoes too. I wear them every chance I can. Now I am trying to buy a black leather jacket for spring as long as I land in any year from 1980 – 1999. Unfortunately for me, my wife acts as Doc Brown as I go backwards in time, preventing me from buying anything that might change the future. Therefore I am not allowed to buy a leather jacket because she says they are “out”. Hello McFly??? Anybody home!! I guess she may be part Biff too. Of course my wife would say I’m no time traveler it’s just that by the time clothes are 75% off on the clearance rack at Target I am finally willing to buy them.

When I think about it, I have never experienced electronics in the present. I am always a year or more behind. I would never think of buying a new computer in the $1500 range with whatever is new and great. What do I need 4 gigs of ram for? That would explain why I have never played a video game in the present, only the past. I would never consider buying a blue ray until they are two years old. What do I need 1080 dpi for? I would never buy a blackberry, what do I need to check email on the road for? I almost bought a PS3 the day the came out … but they were 600 bucks. I can still use my PS2. Plus when I jump back two years, a year from now, I will be able to buy it for a quarter of the price. I would never buy a brand new, on-the-market video game. I can wait a year and get it for half price. Sure this means I play Madden football when the players have already been traded or retired, and it’s on a Sega, but I am still enjoying it. I am an expert of all sports players and the team they were on 3 years ago.

Of course my wife says she can explain my time traveling and there is a logical scientific explanation for all this… I am extremely cheap!!

I am Jack's copyright ethics..... or

2009-01-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

Members

Fight Club

The Return of Hobbes

Hobbes is reborn as Tyler to save "Jack" (a grown-up Calvin) from the slough of un-comic despair.

::: Galvin P. Chow

In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give "Jack" more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. "Jack" is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.

Part I: The Hobbes-Tyler Connection

Picture this: a hyper, self-absorbed child initially concocts an imaginary friend as the ideal playmate, to whom more realistic qualities soon become attributed. This phantasm becomes a completely separate personality, with his own likes, dislikes, and temperament—and the imaginer and the imagined clash and argue constantly, though remaining fast friends. This pattern continues to the point where the child begins to perceive what was originally mere fantasy to be reality.

Just as Calvin has an imaginary jungle-animal friend named Hobbes, whom everyone else believes to be nothing but a stuffed toy, "Jack" in Fight Club has an imaginary cool-guy friend named Tyler, whom no one but Jack can see.

In both cases, the entity that began as the ideal companion soon took on a more realistic, three-dimensional quality. In other words, they became real. This is evident in that both Hobbes and Tyler also began to function as scapegoats for their creators. For instance, consider that Calvin often blames broken lamps and other assorted household mischief on Hobbes, and that Jack is inclined to believe that Fight Club and other various anti-society mischief is brought about by Tyler, not himself. Calvin claims Hobbes pounces on him every day after school; Jack believes Tyler beats him up next to 40 kilotons of nitroglycerin in a parking garage—the list goes on and on. The relationships between the two sets of friends are the exact same. Is this mere coincidence?

"There are eight rules of Fight Club."

Filling in the time-gap between Calvin and Jack, we can imagine the story as something like this: Once Calvin reaches the hostile environment known as the seventh grade, the constant teasing from the other students and the frustrated concern of his parents finally becomes too much, and a reluctant, disillusioned Calvin is finally forced to grow up, or at least begin to. This decision is sealed by one of the hardest things young Calvin will ever have to do in his life: un-imagine Hobbes, an act which to Calvin is essentially no different from murder. After being Calvin’s best friend for over a decade, Hobbes is packed away in a box, or tossed carelessly into a garbage bag, perhaps even stuffed under the same bed that once contained so many monsters. This is all, of course, very painful for Calvin, so much so that he represses it all in shame. Little does Calvin suspect that while he is busy growing up, deciding what "dinette set defines him as a person," Hobbes is also maturing in the recesses of his mind, waiting to be unleashed at an appropriate time.

It’s worth noting that during these twenty or so years, Hobbes never bears a grudge against Calvin nor wishes any ill upon him. Hobbes, remembering the depth of their past friendship, does not hate Calvin but rather hates the society that made Calvin put him away. Hobbes, residing in Calvin’s mind, sees and experiences all that Calvin does—and truly despises all of it. He witnesses a bright, superbly imaginative kid (with a genius-level vocabulary) reduced to nothing more than another nameless cog. Fighting off the tears wept for his conventionalized pal, Hobbes resolves to set Calvin free, paying special attention when Calvin idly looks up homemade-napalm recipes on the Internet.

Flash forward to the timeframe depicted in Fight Club. Calvin/Jack has reached an all-time low. He has done everything society has told him to do but is completely void of happiness. Hobbes, newly adjusted as "Tyler Durden" (after all, grown-up Calvin would no longer accept a jungle animal walking, talking, and eating canned tuna), re-enters Calvin/Jack’s life, determined to show Calvin everything he’s done wrong, whether he likes it or not.

Tyler to Jack: "I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I’m smart, capable, and most importantly, I’m free in all the ways you wish you could be."

Calvin has always idolized Hobbes. In Weirdos From Another Planet, he dresses up like a tiger and attempts to live in the woods. Like Hobbes, Tyler is cool, collected, and incredibly cerebral. Given this evidence, one can conclude that Tyler is Hobbes, reincarnated after being trapped inside Calvin/Jack’s brain for so many years. Just as Calvin is Jack, Hobbes is Tyler.

Part II: Marla Singer—Avatar of Susie Derkins?

Somewhere between the end of high school and beginning of college, uptight, grade-obsessed Susie Derkins lost her way. The pressure to get good grades, the pressure to succeed, simply became too much for her, and she snapped.

Marla remembers the girl she used to be.

Free from the protective bonds of her parents’ guidance and the bland safety of her suburban home, Susie loses her moral bearings entirely and sinks into a dark, seamy, grim world of sex, drugs, and eccentric Albert-Einstein-like hair. Her transformation is so complete that she no longer even remotely resembles the upright citizen that her parents and society wanted her to be: thus, she changes her name.

Like Calvin, Susie has become a misfit, one of society’s lost lambs. It is for this reason that she soon finds herself frequenting support groups such as "Remaining Men Together." Fate has brought her back to Calvin, whom she probably spurned back in junior high. But the two have changed so much that they no longer recognize each other!

The pink dress Marla wears in one scene slightly resembles something that "Binky Betsy," Susie’s favorite childhood doll, once wore: the doll that Calvin stole and attempted to ransom. While Calvin and Susie mostly teased and tortured each other, Hobbes was infatuated with the raven-haired beauty. Accordingly, Jack despises Marla, whereas Tyler takes an *ahem* sort of interest in her (definitely inappropriate for the Sunday Funnies).

When we are first introduced to Marla, she is but a tumor on Jack’s slowly deteriorating world. She is disenfranchised, morbid, socially apathetic—and Jack despises her because she is a mirror image of himself, his own female double. On the other hand, Calvin hates Susie because she is his exact opposite: Bright, obedient, demure—the unruly Calvin has every reason to hate her. However, certain strips definitely infer that Calvin has somewhat of a crush on Susie, and some even imply that Susie shares these latent feelings. But as a cootie-fearing grade-schooler, Calvin may only express these strange feelings through attention-getting antagonisms such as constant snowballs to the head, ransoming her dolls—and through his separate, conveniently more mature other personality—Hobbes.

Unlike Calvin, Hobbes has never been bashful about showing his affection for Susie. Calvin’s imaginary tiger-friend has called her a "cutie," worn swim jams to impress her ("Girls flip for guys in jams"), and even claimed he would betray their club’s secret code if she gave him a tummy rub (which is one of the key differences between Tyler and Hobbes). Naturally, all of this confuses and frustrates Calvin beyond words, even though Hobbes is really nothing more than a product of his own mind! And though Hobbes and Susie never consummated their love for each other (he’s a stuffed tiger and she’s a kid, you sicko!) this is, of course, the exact same deranged love-triangle that is shared between Jack, Tyler, and Marla, or at least a natural progression thereof. Perhaps Marla puts up with Jack/Tyler’s apparent nonsense for so long, because it’s the sort of thing she became used to as a child? And perhaps, in the end, Jack finds solace in Marla because it’s the exact same connection he should’ve made long ago, in his suburban youth. A connection that may have saved them both.

Part III: GROSS—Precursor of Fight Club

In a scene eerily reminiscent of Fight Club, Hobbes blithely informs a sulking Calvin that he decides his own level of involvement in G.R.O.S.S.

When you boil it down, the Fight Club that Jack and Tyler start is really just an odd sort of boys’ club—no ovaries allowed—where men can be men, and the so-called stronger of the sexes can take solace in the fact that, even in our politically correct times, some exclusivities of manhood still remain. (As a side note, imagine how much more controversy the movie would have generated if it involved scenes of men fighting women on equal ground!)

And clubs like this, of course, have their beginnings in backyards, tree houses, and garages all over America. Not surprisingly, Calvin started such a club when he was six years old. Little did anyone realize that he would construct another one much later in his life, again with the aid of an imaginary friend. For just as Calvin, Hobbes, and Susie have dark future versions in Jack, Tyler, and Marla respectively, G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) has the same in Fight Club.

G.R.O.S.S. shares the following characteristics with Fight Club:

Both have catchy names (although the "slimy" part of G.R.O.S.S. is redundant, otherwise it doesn’t spell anything).
Both are co-run by a friendless male and his imaginary companion (Calvin is Tyrant and Dictator-for-Life; Hobbes is President and First Tiger).
Both are exclusively male organizations, although Fight Club’s membership is considerably larger.
Along with that, all members of both organizations are very loyal.
The leaders of both organizations constantly engage in fisticuffs (but only in G.R.O.S.S. does a member receive a demerit for biting).
And in said fights, in both organizations, there is only one fight at a time!
Both are supposedly very secretive (though Jack never tells his mother about Fight Club).
At least one leader of both organizations is fond of giving speeches (though Calvin never uses the term "space monkey").

G.R.O.S.S. and Fight Club both wreak havoc on their respective neighborhoods (G.R.O.S.S.’s target is considerably more focused, i.e., Susie). Clearly, the roots of Fight Club can be seen in G.R.O.S.S. Calvin shows his penchant for such male-oriented, destructive organizations. Also, just like cardboard-box-time-machines and water-gun-transmogrifiers, G.R.O.S.S. was likely created as an escape, a release—as, of course, was Fight Club.

Part IV: Moe Develops Karmic Bitch-Tits

Moe secretly seeks atonement for past sins.

Robert "Moe" Paulson, Calvin’s grade-school bully, becomes a six-time weight-lifting champion, and somewhere along the line develops large man-boobs as a result of testicular cancer. This of course leads him to his support group, where he is shocked to find Calvin.

Moe greatly regrets his bullying days, but, too ashamed to reveal his true identity to Calvin, he instead offers his ample bosom for him to cry on, as a measure of retribution.

Part V: The Root of Evil

Although we’ve already learned of the fates of Hobbes, Susie, and Moe, there are a couple of other people important to Calvin that are missing. People that are even more integral to his development than (arguably) Hobbes: his parents. Mr . . . uhm . . . , and Mrs . . . uh. . . . Okay, so they don’t have names. But then again, there is no need to know them. Because in the comic strip, they’re not supposed to be important characters in their own right. They only matter in regards to how Calvin is directly effected by them; an effect which, by the time of the film, doesn’t seem to have been very positive. From what "Jack" mentions, he’s not exactly close to his parents, particularly his dad, on whom he seems to pin many of his problems. And this matches perfectly with the relationship depicted in the comic, as well as with what happened afterwards (in Part I).

Calvin’s dad seems to have done quite a number on his son. As stated, it was probably at his urging that Calvin "grew up," that is, finally started to conform to society’s rules, which was the death of Hobbes. Of course, his father wasn’t without his playful side—good-naturedly teasing Calvin at every opportunity—but perhaps this is why "Jack" resents him so much. Maybe after Jack reached the end of his dutiful journey, only to find emptiness, he thought back to the day his father told him that the sun sets down somewhere in Arizona every night. "Maybe," thought Calvin, "maybe ALL of it’s been just another one of Dad’s cruel jokes."

In the "bathtub" scene of Fight Club, "Jack" and Tyler discuss their woeful parents. In this scene, crucial information is revealed, as well as some inconsistencies. "Jack" claims his father left when he was six, an age when Calvin’s dad was obviously still around, but this statement is contradicted soon after, when Tyler mentions his own dad telling him to get married when he was thirty, to which "Jack" responds, "mine said that too." The self-pitying "Jack" is most likely seeking to garner additional sympathy from his newfound friend by making his childhood sound worse than it actually was.

But even more interesting is Tyler’s hostility towards his father: when "Jack" asks him who he would fight, if he could fight anyone, he answers, "I’d fight my father." But, since Tyler is only a figment of Jack’s imagination, we can only assume he’s referring to Jack’s father. And while this hatred would only make sense given that the two are sharing the same brain, why is it that Tyler seems to hate Jack’s father even more vividly than "Jack" himself does? Maybe it’s because Tyler hasn’t forgotten who’s ultimately responsible for the un-imagining that took place years before . . . maybe he’s still not too happy about it . . . and maybe he’s got some pretty good ideas for revenge.

The role of Calvin’s father in all of this is no small one. Other than to "save" Calvin, it’s entirely possible that Tyler’s real motivation for taking down civilization is simply to get back at Calvin’s father. For by destroying the society that forced Calvin into repressing Hobbes, he’s also destroying the society that Calvin’s father, after all, epitomizes. And this of course allows Hobbes an indirect measure of revenge.

Part VI: Calvin—"I Am Jack’s Lost Youth"

Although the personality differences between Calvin in the comic strip and Calvin in the movie are pretty large, it can be explained as easily as taking Id and introducing him to Superego ("Jack" actually seems to have sort of a Super-Superego). Nearly all people go through the same thing when first confronted with the crushing grind of reality. But, as they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall—and in terms of imagination and dreams, Calvin was a giant.

Still, it’s not as though common traits between Calvin-Calvin and Jack-Calvin can’t be identified at all. Besides a preference for imaginary friends over real ones, and an inability to express affection for girls, Calvin has never done well when forced to play by any sort of rules. Take, for instance, his utter inability in any sort of organized sport, compared to his unbridled joy while playing the make-it-up-as-you-go-along "Calvinball." Furthermore, even at age 6 Calvin never exactly thrived in stifling, authoritarian establishments (i.e., school), and he’s always had clashes with authority figures since the strip began (his parents, the doctor, his teacher, Rosalyn)—which actually may have initially planted the seeds for Tyler. Beyond that, his excellent vocabulary and way with words are still with him in the voice-over narration of Fight Club, and his rampant materialism that started with mail-order propeller-beanies ends with yin-yang shaped tables. As for the differences, they can be credited to the demoralizing effect of reality.

In the end, Calvin’s involvement with Fight Club and return of Hobbes can be boiled down to two words: "Personal Responsibility." For although Fight Club and Project Mayhem were both mostly Tyler’s doing, by the end of the movie, Jack readily accepts his own part of the blame, as Tyler is his creation. And by doing so, he also accepts responsibility for the undesirable condition of his own life—his father may have pushed him, but Calvin himself was the one who chose to obey. It is through this newfound self-accountability that Calvin/Jack is able to take control of his own life at last. As skyscrapers flash and crumble in the background, and blood oozes from the bullet hole in his head, Calvin says that he is "okay." And we are apt to believe him.

Part VII: Conclusion

Calvin’s world in the comic strip is pure, romanticized idealism, whereas in the movie, he lives in gray, bleak reality. Within the safety of the panel, Calvin is perpetually six years old, terrible things can never happen, and no matter how crazy a stunt he pulls, everything always returns to status quo. Because of this, our hero is free to do as he wishes, free to chase his dreams as wildly as he desires, never having to worry about tomorrow because there essentially will never be one—unless it’s part of a continuing storyline. This makes the reality of Fight Club all the bleaker, because it depicts what happens when you take someone weaned on dreams and limitless possibilities and jam him into a cramped cage confined by rules and regulations. It probably only took poor Calvin a few years in the adult world (or growing-up world) to fully make the sad change.

This transition from gleeful Calvin to dull "Jack" is not uncommon. Little Nemo became a banker, Peter Pan became a lawyer, and Garfield was caught and butchered by the chef of a Chinese restaurant. (One exception is Charlie Brown, who from all indications was mentally middle-aged at the time of his birth.)

The moral of the story is that reality bites, kiddies. Calvin and Hobbes in Fight Club are proof of this sad, sad truth.

Discussion Questions:

1. In the film, Calvin and Hobbes actually reversed many personality traits as Jack and Tyler. Is it possible that Calvin is the personality that got repressed and Hobbes is the one that did the "growing up"? Discuss.

2. Tyler wears a fur coat near the end of the movie. What is the significance of this garment, given his past incarnation as a jungle animal? Discuss.

3. If Calvin really wanted to change things, why didn’t he just dust off his old cardboard-box time machine and hop in? Discuss.

4. After the end of Fight Club, when Calvin realizes he’s effectively killed Hobbes twice now, do you really think he’ll still be "okay"? Discuss.

A Wrinkle in the Space Time Continum

2009-01-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

or

A great article I copied and posted 10 minutes from now...

Thank you Paul Levinson for the link on your facebook page. I enjoyed the books so much I had to post it on my Blog.

MIND MELD: The Tricky Trope of Time Travel
In which we get a lovely and diverse panel to discuss the best and brightest genre uses of time travel.
Q: Time travel is one of the trickiest SF/F tropes to use well. Why use it at all? What stories have used it to the best effect?
Paul Levinson
Paul Levinson's The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and mystery short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. His eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), and Cellphone (2004), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into nine languages. New New Media will be published in 2009. Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" (PBS), "Nightline" (ABC), and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog. Paul Levinson is Professor and Chair of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.Why use time time travel in stories? That part is easy: it's because time travel, written about properly, engenders the most exquisitely intellectually pleasurable paradoxes that a cognitive being can experience. All paradoxes do some of that. Consider "this statement is a lie". If it's true, that means it's a lie. But if it's a lie, that means it's true." You struggle, like a fish trapped in a net, to break free. But you cannot. And, for some people - like me - your eyes water with tears of pleasure as you continue to struggle.
Time travel's paradoxes are just a tad less inextricable, and that adds to the fun. How can an older, familiar-looking man appear to me, to tell me how to time travel, when I am that man? One way out is you can posit two universes. In U1, someone other than my older self teaches me how to time travel. That turns the universe into U2, in which my older self goes back in time, and teaches my younger self. Both universes exist, simultaneously. In another enjoyable, well-known scenario, I go back in time, and prevent my grandparents from meeting. So, how did I come to exist in the first place, and travel back in time? One answer: In Universe1, my grandparents meet, and I am eventually born. I travel back in time, prevent the meeting, which creates Universe 2, in which I was never born. At that point, I am Version1 of myself, living in Universe2.
In all time travel stories, there is the question of whether or not trips to the past can change the future. If they can, then part of the fun is shaking up all of the characters in the future, and mapping out the new universes that come to exist. The other approach - that nothing can be changed - leads to one of my favorite kinds of time travel stories, in which an attempt to change something bad in the past actually is the thing that makes the bad event happen.
In writing, Asimov's The End of Eternity and Heinlein's Door into Summer are the best time travel novels, in my view. Heinlein's "By His Boostraps" and "All You Zombies" do it for short fiction. In movies, 12 Monkeys takes the paradoxes the most seriously, and the most enjoyably. Deja Vu does a pretty fine job too. In television, "Yesterday's Enterprise" from Star Trek: TNG, and the "The City on the Edge of Forever" from Star Trek: TOS are the single best time-travel episodes on any series. I also thought Journeyman, last year, had some superb time travel episodes near the end of its too-short run, and Lost this year and last year has had some outstanding time travel threads - see my http://InfiniteRegress.tv for detailed reviews.
I'll leave it to the public to decide how well I handle time travel in The Plot to Save Socrates, in my Loose Ends story saga, and, some time in the future, in The Genesis Virus on the screen.
Maureen Kincaid Speller
Maureen Kincaid Speller is a reviewer and critic, as well as being a former administrator of the British Science Fiction Association and a former Clarke Award and Tiptree Award judge. She earns a living as a proof-reader and copy-editor, but is mostly a graduate student which is why so much of her life seems to be 'former'.I think time travel is, or ought to be, such a great science-fictional device. The trouble with using it in a novel is that it too often becomes difficult to see beyond the device itself. More than any other literary device I can think of, a very precise set of conventions have accrued to time travel, and it is all too easy for the reader to become distracted by the need to check that all the chronological loose ends have been tied off, and to be distracted if they haven't. It often seems as if the only way for the writer to get past this dilemma is to acknowledge it by trying to do it as well as possible. which can lead to a very self-conscious kind of fiction. Audrey Niffenegger's The Time-Traveler's Wife is beautifully constructed in the way it moves back and forth through time but even its final chapters are inevitably predicated on the reader knowing that there are loose ends to be tied off, during which the novel fell off the cliff of restraint and into the abyss of sentiment. I think Niffenegger uses time travel with considerably greater panache than many writers, and I especially liked the way she deals with the immediate difficulties of her male character's plunges through time (though not the 'scientific' explanation for them), but the constructional problem remains.
The big question, of course, is what is time travel for. The SF Encyclopedia talks of it as a 'literary convenience', and there is this sense of it being a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. I personally find that very problematic. Wells used time travel to go into the future, to speculate about the collapse of society, and William Morris's protagonist in News From Nowhere travels into the future to make a plea for (ironically) a return to the kinder ways of the past. Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound of Thunder' seems to me to be emblematic of the kind of time-travel story in which a tiny event can have huge ramifications much later on, though one wonders why it is invariably bad; are there any stories where someone treads on a prehistoric insect and comes back to find that a liberal regime now pertains? No, I couldn't think of one either.
However, I think time travel too easily and too often ends up being an excuse for a jolly romp in the historical past, with the plot driven by a need to ensure that the future is not damaged by the past being disturbed. There is something inherently conservative about that form of time travel, in that it looks constantly towards either restoration or restitution of the perceived status quo, and you ideally get a nice little history lesson along the way (though both Wells and Morris touched on precisely the same sort of thing with their movement into the future). Didacticism and time travel often go too closely hand in hand for my taste.
It is also very difficult to get away from the historical romp, with the pleasure theoretically deriving from watching historical events being twisted and restored; the only novel I can immediately think of which uses time travel and manages to escape that is Connie Willis's Doomsday Book, which starts very badly in terms of 'romp' but eventually becomes one of the most harrowing novels I've ever read as a 'modern' protagonist comes face to face with the full horror of medieval plague. Much of time travel into the past is about verification (and the Willis works for me because it so graphically illustrates how much history and reality can be at variance, even if you do the research), whereas travel into the future as a modern literary trope seems to me to be ...not pointless, precisely, but why would you do it when you can set your fiction in the future to start with?
My current favourite time-travel story is Ted Chiang's 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate', which explores the philosophical implications of time travel with exquisite precision, and frames the concept itself in very different fictional terms to those we are used to. As a contrast, and as a comment on the ludicrousness of so many time-travel stories, I point to Garry Kilworth's 'Let's All Go to Golgotha', where the audience at the Crucifixion turns out to be mainly comprised of time travellers who've come to see the Crucifixion rather than locals. I leave people to unpick the implications of that one for themselves.
Gwyneth Jones
Gwyneth Jones is a writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, who also writes teenage fiction as "Ann Halam". She lives in Brighton UK. Her latest novel is Spirit, Gollancz UK.I don't really know what's wrong with time travel as science fiction, I just know I have a resistance to the idea. In our current science, "we" don't understand what time is; or why the forward arrow dominates one set of circumstances and vanishes in others. All we know about time travel as a potential real-world phenomenon is that (rather curiously) nobody has turned up talking to the evening news about being a visitor from 25090, or telling the tabloids they were snatched from their bed for a visit to the past or future. In short, sfnal time travel is like aliens: why not? You never know, it could become possible one day & in some way that explains why "they" never came "here". Yet messing around with time has never caught the public imagination the way aliens have & maybe that's telling us something.
The only no-kidding science fiction time travel story that ranks highly with me is a novel, Gregory Benford's Timescape, an intense lab-procedural about escaping the inescapable, involving more tachyons than an entire season of Dr Who, but I never for a moment read it as fantasy, in fact, it's remained one of my all-time greats.
On the other hand, I also read and write teenage fiction, a genre where time travel stories are hugely popular, no more scientific than Narnia, and I love them. It's a way of opening a magic door onto the past, and experiencing history vividly, through the eyes and the emotions of characters from your own present day. My favourite is A Traveller In Time, Alison Uttley: a UK classic in which a girl (young woman, we'd call her now) goes to stay at an ancient farmhouse in Derbyshire, and finds herself slipping in and out of the sixteenth century; where she gets involved in one of the doomed conspiracies to rescue the imprisoned Mary Queen Of Scots. Wonderful.
Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang's short fiction has won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards. He lives outside of Seattle, Washington.I think that there are, broadly speaking, three reasons for using time travel in fiction. (Obviously, more than one may apply to any given story.)
The first reason for using time travel is to gain easy access to a wide variety of settings. If you want your characters to interact with dinosaurs, or Julius Caesar, or Shakespeare, then time travel offers a convenient way to do it. If this is the only motivation for using time travel, then it's acting as an enabling device in the same way that FTL is an enabling device for stories set across interstellar distances. In such cases, I'd say the story uses time travel, but isn't really about time travel.
The second reason for using time travel is to investigate the philosophical questions it raises, most of which (I claim) boil down to the question of determinism vs free will. To oversimplify, a story in which it's possible to change the past and create paradoxes can be taken as an argument that we have free will and that our decisions matter. Conversely, a story in which it's not possible to change the past can be taken as an argument that certain outcomes are predestined and that we can't change our fate. And while we as readers might get bored of seeing particular paradoxes over and over again, the question of whether we are free or constrained remains interesting.
The third reason for using time travel is to examine the problem of regret. (This is sort of the emotional counterpart to the intellectual questions described in the previous paragraph.) All of us can think of past decisions we'd do differently if we had the chance, but unfortunately, real life doesn't offer "do overs." And while time-travel stories can act as simple wish fulfillment in this matter, they don't have to. In the same way that SF/F in general can use impossibilities in order to help us understand what it means to be human here and now, stories about time travel can offer us perspective on how to live with the mistakes we've made.
As for recommending specific time travel stories, I'll skip that and instead offer a non-fiction title: Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin, published by Springer Verlag in 1999. It's a pretty comprehensive survey of how time travel has been handled by philosophers, physicists, and fiction writers.
Robert Charles Wilson
Robert Charles Wilson is the Hugo winning author of Spin. Other works include Mysterium (Philip K. Dick award), Darwinia (Aurora award), and The Chronoliths (Campbell Memorial Award). His latest novel is Julian Comstock: A Story of the 22nd CenturyTime travel may be tricky, but it's also one of the keystones of the SF genre. H.G. Wells used it first (and perhaps best), but it's too fascinating and useful a premise for other writers to leave alone. Time travel lets us de-privilege the present moment -- it reminds us that "all times have been modern." The year 2009 is someone's dazzling futurity and (if we're lucky!) someone else's quaint, primitive dark age. H.G. Wells showed us how to mine that wonderful and frightening truth for both drama and humor, and as SF writers we're all standing on his literary shoulders.
Veronica Hollinger
Veronica Hollinger is a professor of Cultural Studies at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. Her science fiction conversion experience happened in the mid-1970s, when she was given a copy of Samuel R. Delany's incomparable novel, Dhalgren. She co-edits the journal Science Fiction Studies and currently is fascinated by ideas about the coming technological Singularity.In 1895 H.G. Wells introduced readers to the idea of a machine that could control travel in time, but The Time Machine wasn't by any means the first time-travel story. One of my favourites is the somewhat earlier tragicomic fantasy by Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), in which time travel is induced by a blow to the head. In many cases, time-travel stories are fantasies about controlling destiny - a good recent example is Ted Chiang's story, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007), in which characters move backward and forward in time as they try to nudge their own lives in more positive directions.
I particularly like the way that juxtaposition works in so many time-travel stories as they jump-cut between and among past, present, and future space-times. The jump-cut from 1895 to 802,701 lets Wells compare, in a very immediate way, the vibrant present of Victorian industrialism and the devolved far-future of the barely human Eloi and Morlocks. In Connecticut Yankee, time travel lets Twain develop bitingly satirical comparisons between fifth-century England and nineteenth-century New England.
As far as I'm concerned, the most devastating use of this technique is in James Tiptree, Jr.'s Hugo-Award-winning novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (1976), the story of three twentieth-century astronauts who fall through a temporal fault and find themselves trapped three hundred years in the future. This is a lesbian-feminist future - a sort-of utopia - from which men have long since disappeared. This future can't afford the presence of these all-American men and, the story implies, they're put down: "We can hardly turn you loose on Earth, and we simply have no facilities for people with your emotional problems."
Robert Reed
Robert Reed has published more than 180 stories and several novels. His novella, "A Billion Eves", won the Hugo in 2007. Another novella, "Truth", published last year by Asimov's SF, is on this year's Hugo ballot. Reed lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and daughter. Why time travel?
Today wasn't a school day. I spent the afternoon at the university museum, walking beside my seven-year-old, the two of us examining ancient bones and mock-ups of life in Nebraska stretching back two billion years. At least fifty times today, I thought, "If only I could see these extinct beasts for myself." Which of course is one of the main reasons to write and read time travel stories: To put my eyes on lost vistas, if only as a mental experiment dipped in a useful plot.
On a more personal note, I first toured that museum when I was a boy. Morrill Hall was a central reason for my passionate interest in dinosaurs. I also attended University of Nebraska, taking classes in the lecture hall in the museum's basement. Still more years later, I taught gifted high school students at UNL, and I made sure to force them into dreary marches past dead elephants and stuffed whooping cranes. These pieces of my life are past, and besides some increasingly cloudy memories, unreachable. But wouldn't it be nice to have a fancy chair carrying a whirring blade--an ungainly Victorian machine that would carry me back a decade or two? Wouldn't it be lovely to hold your life like a book, flipping back and forth, living again whatever chapter struck you as interesting that day?
It's pretty to think so, and that's all it is. Thought.
Which is probably for the best. If go back to any past, and even if I'm a very careful tourist, I'm afraid that something will go wrong--a misplaced mote of dust, or a molecule put out of my place, and in one terrible fashion or another, my seven-year-old will cease to be.
Paul Graham Raven
Paul Graham Raven is a freelance writer, editor, publicist and web-presence manager to busy independent creatives, and PR guy for PS Publishing, the UK's foremost boutique genre press. He's also ed-in-chief of near-future sf webzine Futurismic, a learning fictioneer and poet, a reviewer of books, music and concerts, a cack-handed third guitarist for a fuzz-rock band, and in need of a proper haircut.
Why use it at all? Well, the innate appeal of time travel stories is pretty easy to guess at - which of us hasn't at some point thought that they'd like to move forwards in time to an anticipated moment, or go back in time to change what seems to be a pivotal decision or event (be it personal, like making a phone call that went forgotten, or more global in scope, like killing Hitler)? Time tricks us, teases us, teaches us, builds us and breaks us down. Playing fictional games with it - a luxury that, until recently, only sf has really had access to - is inevitable; it's one of the few things in life that is so intrinsically wrapped up in the way we perceive reality that it will never be an irrelevance. Unless we someday somehow transcend our current one-way experience of time's arrow... but that would be a sort of epistemological singularity, I think.
The problem with time travel as a stand-alone trope is that it's almost impossible to do well, as you point out in the question. There's a very simple reason for that: the pure idea has been explored about as fully as it can be without either introducing more variables and assumptions or stepping outside the frame of reference that time itself forms. The latter is technically impossible, so the former has to occur. Heinlein pretty much owned the pure time travel paradox idea in the written form, and that was a good long while back; the last three decades of cinema have made time travel a household cliché way beyond the borders of original sf. So where do you go instead for that same brain-kick?
The logical extension of time travel is the many-worlds idea - you know, every event causes a probability branch in history, leading to a panoply of possible realities which differ from the 'baseline' reality to a variety of degrees, so on and so forth. This may have something to do with relativity (you can't travel in time without travelling in space, and vice versa, or something like that; ask a physicist, because I don't fully understand it and I've probably got completely the wrong end of the stick), but it's more due to its utility as a literary device. It makes explicit the "what if?" question that lies at the heart of much sf writing.
Time travel fiction quickly begat and/or blended into and enhanced 'alternate history', which is to my mind very closely related to Singularity/metaverse fictions (a post-Singularity or metaverse setting implies a completely new rule-set in the same way that a branched-reality setting does, though by leaping forwards instead of sideways or backwards) as well as being, in some respects, modern written sf's baseline mode. Alternate history speaks to modern cultural concerns, as we discover the slow influence of our own actions at the scale of decades and centuries; the success of the form beyond the genre ghetto in recent years makes this plain (Yiddish Policemen's Union, The Plot Against America, etc etc).
As such, I can't think of a favourite story or novel that uses time travel as a pure trope. But I can think of one that uses a very limited and one-way form of time travel as a central enabling trope... which means that yet again I'm going to get on my soapbox and remind everyone that Julian May's Saga of the Exiles is one of the most ambitious and well-constructed sf series of its era, and repays close re-readings many times over. Go and read it... if only so Adam Roberts and I have a third person to enthuse about it with.
Tom Purdom
Tom Purdom's entry in the 2008 edition of Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction was a time travel novelette, "The Mists of Time", which appeared in the August, 2007 Asimov's-- exactly fifty years after his first published story appeared in the August, 1957 Fantastic Universe. The editors who have bought his work include science fiction legends like John W. Campbell and Frederik Pohl and currently active editors such as Sheila Williams and Eric Flint. For the last twenty years, he has mostly been writing short stories and novelettes which have ended up on the contents pages of Asimov's.
Time travel presents the writer with a number of intriguing possibilities. One of the most interesting, to me, is the opportunity to bring people from different eras into direct and immediate contact. What would the eighteenth century look like to a visitor from the twenty-second? How would a visitor from the future look to a courtier in Louis XIV's Versailles?
Many literary writers have been attracted to this aspect of time travel in the last thirty years. The literary devices they use accomplish some of the same ends as our time machines. The movie version of The French Lieutenant's Woman contrasts the life of a contemporary couple with the life of the couple they play in a historical movie. In A.S. Byatt's Possession, scholarship substitutes for a time machine; two twentieth century scholars fall in love as they ferret out a Victorian romance hidden in documents and published works. Bharati Mukherjee's lesser-known novel The Holder of the World combines conventional scholarship with a science fictional device: a computer program that intergrates all our knowledge of a period and generates a detailed simulation of past events.
In science fiction, Connie Willis' Domesday Book contrasts the era of the Black Death with a twenty-first century response to an outbreak that could have been just as devastating. I consider it one of the most successful and powerful time travel stories ever written. Poul Anderson's short story "The Man Who Came Early" pits an ordinary modern with a gun against the successful merchants and political leaders of a pre-gun society-- and the ordinary man discovers a technological marvel is no match for high-level social sophistication.
The time travel story can also serve as a kind of meditation on history. This is one of the strengths of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories. Anderson built the series around a rather conventional series-hero structure but he permeated it with his profound sense of the irony and tragedy of history.
The time travel story lies on the outer edges of science fiction. Many people feel it shouldn't be considered science fiction, since we can come up with good reasons why time travel violates the laws of physics. But we really don't know very much about time. Why does it exist? Why does it only move in one direction? We take the flow of time for granted. But should we? A good time travel story can intensify our awareness of the fundamental mystery at the heart of the physical universe.
David Brin once noted that many of the science fiction writers he knows read about science but all science fiction writers read history. He suggested the field should really be called "speculative history." I liked the idea as soon as I heard it because it bundles the time travel story, alternate history, and the story set in a possible future into a single genre, tied together by a unifying preoccupation. Time travel and alternate history have become permanent fixtures of the science fiction genre because they deal with basic science fiction subjects such as time, change, and the way big-picture historical events affect the day to day lives of the individuals who have to live in the societies we humans create.
Stefan Ekman
Stefan Ekman is a doctoral student at Lund University, Sweden, writing a dissertation on the environment in fantasy literature. He's also fantasy specialist at Sweden's main fantasy publisher; technical translator; and free-lance lecturer on all things fantastic. In his copious free time, he enjoys volleyball and cooking (and is investigating ways to do both simultaneously).
Determinism and time paradoxes - two demons of time travel stories. Regrettably, it seems that careful planning is no sure-fire way of avoiding either; in fact, a carefully constructed story runs just as great a risk of suffering from these as a sloppy story. (At this point I should mention that I've chosen to believe in free will; determinism thus annoys me. So, by the way, does "pretend time travel" where the journey is really to a parallel universe based in quantum mechanics.) Elaborate explanations of the nature of time tend to create elaborate paradoxes and, at worst, unravel not only the story world but any sense of wonder that world brought me. And stories which constantly have the time traveler do what has already been done, confirming the immutability of the time stream, simply say to us: doesn't matter what you do, it's all gonna end up the same way anyway.
But the topic of time travel is fascinating, and the best way to discuss it seems to be by not taking it seriously. Embrace the paradox, as it were. In fact, my favourite time travel writer is Jasper Fforde, who, in the Thursday Next books, throws any number of paradoxes at the reader, happily admitting them to be paradoxes, and explaining that the nature of time is incomprehensible (even to the ChronoGuard, who are charged with policing the time stream). Confusing, certainly, but wonderful.
Fforde's disregard for temporal paradox and cogency is uncommon but not unique. Douglas Adams, in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, similarly ignores the need to establish a comprehensible nature of time. Like Fforde, he revels in paradox. The very phenomenon of the restaurant at the end of the universe is defined by its defiance of traditional temporal impossibilities, and the only explanation of the nature of time (illustrated with handy tableware) is never concluded.
There is an alternative to heaping the plate with paradoxes, and that is to simply ignore them. Time travel is useful, after all, when we want a story where modern sensibilities clash with those of the past (or the future). An excellent example of such a story is Octavia Butler's Kindred, where there is no explanation for how the protagonist is hurled back in time. The story simply gets on with the important stuff instead, and we're too intrigued by how a modern-day African-American woman handles the slavery of the 19th century South to miss esoteric discussions about the inner workings of time. In a way, even Well's Time Machine works like this: little enough time is actually spent on trying to explain how the temporal velocipede works, more on exploring the future of the world.
So ignore or embrace - that's fine by me. As long as I don't have to read yet another sleight-of-hand explanation of the nature of time

Originaly posted on http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/04/mind-meld-time-travel/
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