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2020/10/26 - Reply - Bronzie - 5Q

Bronzie’s 5 Questions

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I hitherto didn’t spot you had devised your own set of questions inspired by Christina’s, old chap. It’s a delightful notion. Please accept my contribution!

1. Pick one of these dystopias...

Our own timeline’s Los Angeles is more than I could well handle, ha. And I have only seen two of your four films: Running Man and Demolition Man. Neither appeal to me, I daresay... But I’d rather go with the latter, I reckon. The “three seashells” and all seem fine to me, and the above surface culture anodyne enough for my somnolence.

2. 1960, 2080, or die?

That’s a toughie, what. I’m presuming one makes the time hop from one’s current location on Earth? And all one could carry would be the clothes on one’s person? I’d probably go for 1960, which probably speaks to my pessimism that the planet will be endurable in 2080 more than any love for 1960. There’s a kind of insurance in foreknowledge. I can’t say I’d play the markets to become megarich, Marty McFly style. But keeping one’s head down, eating well, some choice commodities investments at the right times, an old age into the 90’s... It wouldn’t be half bad in North America. Thank the high modern liberal state, ha.

And there is a bit to beguile about the early sixties NorthAm, before it totally went tits up in pathos of ‘68. It was perhaps inevitable that Kennedy era optimism would turn sour. But I wouldn’t mind kicking down that book bindery door and giving a certain CIA deadbeat a solid whatfer. Or handing out bullet proof jackets to a certain vicar in Memphis. Some experimental timeline interventions like that would be nice. More for the effect on the common morale than anything.

3. Last dinner bell before Mars?

Ohhh, a lovely question.

Most of it, I would make. It would be a ten day feast, really, featuring splendid 19th century style extravaganzas of indulgent cuisine.

Pizza. My own fascination for deep dish brought some skill, i hazard. I’d bake my own pizza, an inch tall freshly made baking powder dough cake, piled in a large family cast iron skillet. Piled to the rafters with green peppers, onions, whitecaps, broccoli, three cheese, Sri racha chunky spaghetti sauce, curry... Broccoli is a must, and goes on last so the oven roasts them to crispy. Barbecue sauce will also tame the broccoli bite. And all of it slathered in olive oil to slow cook.

Cookies of every kind. Dark chocolate. Fudge gelato. (The real kind specially imported from Florence.) A choice assortment of merlot, Malbec, and Bikaver wines. Some mellow cannabis tincture to perk up the appetite for more.

Mushroom, baicai, and wild onion (leek?) baozi. Freshly made and steamed. Dipped in plum sauce and soy sauce and vinegar. Oh, goodness.

An apricot wine or moscato Rosa to perk the palate. Some havarti and Brie on those crisp, thin crackers you can only get at a swank country club and snap like rich white people’s old money.

A stir fry or high sauté of portobellos a la merlot to contrast with the sweet aperitifs. Rich and dark and earthy, served with an Argentine Malbec, salted to a crisp and fried with green peppers in Irish butter. You can taste the chives and black pepper in the air as much as smell them.

I might hazard to break my fast and indulge in some French Dip sandwiches, with lean smoked roast beef. EU stuff, Swedish beef, not this marbled monsanto hormone pumped USA Kansas shite. Alternately, a nice thin veal with currants and lemon juice on it, so young and tender you can still hear the poor little calf bleating. A bit of sadism is always true with any dinner... Or perhaps a real 火鍋, with the fire cranked up to sizzling at heights to make any Canadian fire inspector faint, with real Mongolian mutton as thin as a dollar bill...

But I’d probably lay off on the meat. Pizza and stir fry would be capital.

4. 15 Minutes of audio a day on the Mars trip?

First of all, I didn’t know old man Murdoch was sponsoring a Mars mission. I’m seriously not sure I’d arrive sane on the red planet if force fed such fare. Can’t we turn it off? I’d turn it off, and just sing to myself.

I’d take a good assortment of CA/USA country, folk, and 70’s pop. Pedestrian fare to most smolneteers, maybe, but I fancy it. Some Kunqu and Yueju operas. Lectures. Some Cornel West and Chomsky to offset the Fox.

5. We all live in a computed simulation. How do you feel?

I’d be jake. I’m more disturbed by the “intelligent design” ramifications socially than anything. Westerners ranting about God or not again. But I don’t generally hold to firm dualisms, so wouldn’t find it too disturbing. QED, this simulation is rather grounded in an intimate and immediate way with whatever substrate underpins it, much less alienating and indulgent than our own cybernetic simulations. A rose by any other code will smell as sweet. I’d surely want to get to know the computers and devs better...

Thanks!

A lovely series of whimsical questions. This makes the net worthwhile. Cheers, Bronzie.

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