Wednesday, September 15, 2004

John Scalzi #Eleventy-two

This week's Weekend assignment [okay this is very late] asks AOL Journalers to pick out five things to give to a descendant living 100 years in the future. What does Mrs. Linklater pick?

1.  A book about excruciatingly perfect manners -- preferably one by Miss Manners herself. Nothing tells you more about a society than all the silly social rules they want you to follow. Nothing is quite so entertaining to people 100 years later, either. I'm all about the entertainment myself.

2.  A collection of Dave Barry columns.  He has made me laugh for years. I wonder if he would seem as funny after another 100 years. Same with Molly Ivins. Mel Brooks. Richard Pryor. Chris Rock.

3.  A description of every major scandal of the day, from Lewinsky and Jones to Enron and WorldCom to Kobe and OJ, and on and on, ad nauseum. With a DVD of Saturday Nite Live satires of all of them.



www.bongonews.com

4.  Serena Williams' silver studded black outfit from the US Open. Fitted carefully over a bronze mold of her body so people of the future know that a woman with "man arms" [thank you, Ann] was not just a figment of someone's imagination.

5. Fast food encased in lucite.  A Big Mac in all its glory preserved forever in plastic. Withan order of fries. The best of Taco Bell, Burger King, Chi Chi's, Chili's, even your favorite deli sandwich -- all made fresh and sealed in keep-it-fresh-forever lucite.  A little bit of culinary history that makes a great paper weight. Although paper may be history in 100 years.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, yes, YES!!!! Man arms!!!!!! You are so darn funny and it doesn't surprise me if Ann had something to do with that one line!!!!!

Anonymous said...

How about the nib pen and inkwell with which I first essayed into writing longhand in Grade Two....or a dog-eared copy of the Baltimore Catechism <Q: Who made you? A: God made me...to be memorized with punctuation marks>. Or, perhaps the most socially important artifact in my life: My ex-wife's birth control pill container from 1965.