Three Weeks Ago, Inspired by a Terrific Up-and-Comer

  Three weeks ago, inspired by terrific up-and-coming (well, she doesn't have any novels out yet, which is why I say "up-and-comer," but maybe I shouldn't because she's quite prolific at writing a lot of short fiction, (but that's important in the sci-fi market) but with all those short stories the volume of material is kind of the point of this post so anyway) science fiction writer Nancy Fulda, (nominated for this year's Hugo and Nebula awards for her short story "Movement," which is about autism IN THE FUTURE and which you can read here for free but you should totally support by downloading it) and the fact that she wrote stuff at all, I made a vow to myself to crank out a short story by the end of the week. The end result was something I had percolating in my head for a while, basically T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" only with the plot of Casablanca and set in a parallel universe's version of the 2006 Israel/Lebanon conflict, detailing a conversation at a Lebanese cabaret had between Bono, who in this universe is a war correspondent, and Ann Coulter, who in this universe is a showgirl.

   Yeah.

   I will not share it here. Or, at least, not today; it's one of those, "maybe later" things. It's imaginably got a lot of foreign politics, which I am fairly certain I might have gotten wrong, so, not sharing it quite yet gives me the opportunity to do more research if I feel like it. It's not published yet, so I can do with it what I want. Which would mean that I actually DIDN'T complete the story that week, for if I change it now it would not have been completed then. Huh.

   Maybe the politics of it are already alright, though, to justify me not changing it? If I was wrong on anything factually, I suppose I could chalk it up to "weird parallel universe stuff."

   Or not.

  Maybe neither of them know what they're talking about? Although I suppose that wouldn't make any sense, considering both of their roles in this universe. (Regardless of how you feel about them as political figures, how you feel about what they think, they'd know what they were talking about politically. (I just love politics, how it's basically the only realm where you can use a person's beliefs as a smear. You say, "I disagree with you," only you use it as an insult. (Politics is driven almost entirely by misunderstanding (the other part being driven by rhetoric, I guess.) What I mean is, any "issue" to anybody is actually a complete non-issue to them. They're fighting so other people can see things their way. Which is why they feel so heart-strongly about it. (That's a thing, right, heart-strong-ness? heart-strength?)) That's so juicy. I love it.))

   I know what you may be asking yourself, or may have been asking yourself four paragraphs ago: the reason I bring it up here even though I'm not sharing it with you today is just to have an excuse to post a thought here which I had a few mornings ago. It's on the subject of Casablanca, which just made me think of all of the other stuff. I couldn't post this thought by itself, since one observation does not an essay make, so I added all of the other Casablanca-related stuff.

   Anyway, here's the thought I had, which I'm shoehorning in now:


   Let's face it: even if Humphrey Bogart did say "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, (which, as everyone knows (or at least should know,) he didn't,) it would be one of the worst quotes in the history of cinema, not one of the best.