Welcome Cracked Readers!

The good folks at Cracked.com took my post about the secret history of Ayn Rand and turned it into a funny video. If you came to this blog because that made you chuckle, you should know that the written version is somewhat different, and it is the first part of a bizarre serial that involves conspiracy theories, death threats from John Stossel, and other insane and foul-mouthed wonderment.

Begin reading the whole, strange thing with:
I Was Shitting You People - A Message From Ayn Rand.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about and want to see my video on Cracked.com, it is here.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

What We All Wish We Could Have Told Ray Bradbury

Most of us never met Ray Bradbury, but he reached into our brains sometime between seventh and eighth grade, and he changed them. School officials probably put his books on their reading lists because his writing didn't have much explicit sex or violence, and because he generally used the kind of simple clear language that was accessible to kids. He got in under the radar. He seemed harmless enough, right? Just some stories about spacemen and haunted carnivals.

But to us, to those who read him at an early age, he was the first person who let us in on the secret. That life is strange and gorgeous and terrible. It would break our hearts, one by one. His stories taught that nothing is safe and nothing is without beauty. He was a sad, lyrical voice in our head that stayed with us through friendless lunch hours in the library, and late into the evening, long after midnight, after our parents stopped fighting and went to bed.

He was the first adult who didn't lie to us.

And we, millions of us, loved him for it.

(Photo by Alan Light, used under Creative Commons license. Information here.)