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The following true (?) story can probably be found many times on the internet, but I just have to record it here so that I can find it again when my son gets to that age and I need to jug my memory.

A father passing by his son’s bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to ‘Dad.’

With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.

But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it’ s not only the passion… Dad, she’s pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter.  We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don’t worry Dad. I’m 15 and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday I’m sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your
grandchildren.

Love,
Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Tommy’s house.

I Just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a Report card that’s in my center desk drawer.

I love you. – Call me when it’s safe to come home.

Our language only becomes possible through its non-precision.  Think of the Eskimos who, evidently, have hundrerds of words for the different kinds of snow they deal with every day. It is possible for them as they probably have one one word for all the green stuff that you eat – vegetable.

Now, imagine that beside these hundreds of words for snow they would have hundreds of words in other specialized areas like screws, auto parts, fruits, colors, etc. These poor Eskimos would have to have a vocabulary of hundreds of thousands of words and would spend their whole life learning them all and never get anything meaningful done.

This why we need abstraction in our vocabulary. If I go into a hardware store I can ask for the department were I can find screws. Once there I can inquire more for a more specific screw and actually look and see what I need. In comparison, imagine if  I would have to ask at the front desk for the ardangwut, which is a metal bolt with a core diameter of 3.65mm, a thread depth of 0.43mm and a thread angle of 3.1 degrees (kidding here, there is no ardangwut) without having the word screw I would be screwed.

And here we are at the other side of the coin in regards to abstraction – hilarious (which has not really anything to do with Hillary – or does it?) mix-ups. Especially in the area of sexuality and genitalia  so much much abstraction has been introduced that things that look only remotely – very remotely – look similar, they are called the same. Think of wiener, nuts and balls, and, yes, screwing.

Following some dramatic stories demonstrating that too much abstraction in this arena may seriously backfire…

I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly, ‘How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?’ I turned around and walked back out and never went back My husband didn’t say a word… he knew better.

Or this story about a female golf player…

I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women’s type I had been using.
After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who works at the store.
He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, ‘I think I like playing with men’s balls.’

A tale from the candy store…

My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help. I replied, ‘No, I’m just looking at your nuts.’ My sister started to laugh hysterically. The boy grinned, and I turned beat-red and walked away. To this day, my sister has never let me forget.

It even happens on TV to the  anchor woman  and weatherman…

What happens when you predict snow but don’t get any! We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn’t, turned to the weatherman and asked: ‘So Bob, where’s that 8 inches you promised me last night?’ Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

Kathie (thank you!) conveyed this story of grave importance to me and I thought I better share it with you…

I reported on the little video

They are Made out of Meat

before and once in a while I go there and enjoy it again. Today I ran into the text of that story and can’t help but to leave it here on this site as well.

Terry Bisson
They’re Made out of Meat

“They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”

“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”

“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”

“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”

“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”

“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”

“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take long. Do you have any idea what’s the life span of meat?”

“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”

“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”

“No brain?”

“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So … what does the thinking?”

“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?”

“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”

“Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”

“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?”

“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”

“We’re supposed to talk to meat.”

“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.’ That sort of thing.”

“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”

“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”

“I thought you just told me they used radio.”

“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”

“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”

“Officially or unofficially?”

“Both.”

“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”

“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say? ‘Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?”

“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”

“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the Universe.”

“That’s it.”

“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”

“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”

“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”

“And we marked the entire sector unoccupied.”

“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”

“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”

“They always come around.”

“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone …”

the end

This story originally appeared in Omni April 1991 and was nominated for the Nebula Award. It is taken from the collection ‘Bears Discover Fire’, available at Amazon. You can find out more about Terry Bisson on his website.

It’s nearly half a year ago that I told about my progress with Escape Pod and I can again report that I am working my way to the top of the list. The top of the list is obviously the newest story on Escape Pod.

In case you don’t know about this podcast – Steve Eley publishes a science fiction story each and every week and I try to miss none. Thanks to pod-casting and mp3 players I am succeeding. The only problem is that when I don’t have to drive much, the stories accumulate on my mp3-player/cell-phone.

Just the other day I worked on a story from late December – OK – work might not be quite the right word. This story, City Talkers by Mur Lafferty fascinated me because it goes very nicely in the direction I am going. I am not much of a City Talker, which is something like a horse whisperer, but for cities – not the people in the city, but the city him or herself, but I’m a pretty good computer whisperer.

I would definitely recommend to subscribe to the Escape Pod-cast, but if I got a bit of your interest, this one story I liked a lot you can enjoy right here…

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