"You maniacs! "

"Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

George Taylor, The Planet of the Apes

And here we are on the morning after the American presidential election, looking at the news that Donald Trump is the next president of the United States. In some strange way, I'm excited - between this and the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, it's obvious that at some point in the recent past we've gone through the looking glass, or maybe down the rabbit hole - something like that, some kind of departure from the linear, probability-based, cause-and-effect reality that we used to inhabit.

As a result, I now fully expect Bigfoot and his wife to come strolling out of the forest, space aliens to land on the White House lawn and ask if they can talk to the new guy, cold fusion to become a proven source of cheap safe energy, and the Loch Ness Monster to rise to the surface of her cold, watery home and take a deep, deep breath.

After this, anything's possible.

  - Sid

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November."

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V."

V, V for Vendetta

I know of no reason the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.

  - Sid

Voyages' End.

In my previous post I mentioned buying a replacement copy of Stephen Tall's The Stardust Voyages, a collection of short stories that I originally purchased in 1975.  The stories deal with the travels of an interstellar exploratory vessel - the Stardust - and a variety of alien first-contact plotlines.

Replacement copies are one of the sad inevitabilities of being an avid re-reader: bindings crack, pages are accidentally dogeared, covers become creased and worn, and finally it's time to retire the text in question and buy another copy. 

When I do this, I prefer to purchase the same edition as the novel being replaced - it's an odd quirk, but I feel that it gives my collection a sort of continuity.  I was quite pleased to find a matching copy of The Stardust Voyages, but I'm a bit surprised that anyone could own an 41 year old book in such good condition. The copy on the right must have belonged to a collector. I feel a bit proud that my copy - on the left - is so obviously the property of a reader.

  - Sid