As if to answer the call for more cheese-based sfnal items:
Cheese made with breast milk has been served at the launch of a new art exhibition in London.
The Alejandra Ortiz-Reynoso show is named after the woman who donated the main ingredient. Artist Raul Ortega Ayala wants to “explore our first encounter with food.” ABC News reports that the cheese was served on crackers, and that the milk was donated voluntarily.
Hello Kitty Cream Cheese Head by Slack-a-gogo.
Times are tough all over the world thanks to the economic implosion, and Japan is definitely feeling the pinch of its worst recession since the post-war years.
One of the proposed solutions is to funnel the growing number of recently unemployed back into the agricultural sector, which is predominantly comprised of an aging demographic; going ‘back to the land’ seems to hold a certain nostalgic romance for the urban dispossessed, but it’s a tougher gig than many of them expect it to be:
Despite the popularity of the training programs and of the government’s longer, one-year farm internships, many young people end up returning to cities, unable to adjust to life in the countryside. Last year, Fukiko Oshiro, a farmer in western Okayama prefecture, hired five workers from cities like Osaka, including a couple of former salesmen, to work at her nursery and fruit farm. She said she has already lost three of them.
“These young people think it’s their right to come and impose on us,” said Ms. Oshiro as she surveyed her busy farm stand recently. “They have no idea how much work we put in to teach them.”
I remember a similar romance with simple lifestyles lived close to the land emerging in the wake of the recession of the early nineties here in the UK; I suppose it’s inevitable that when modern life lets you down you start looking for alternatives, and looking backward is always easier than looking forward.
Japan’s aging agricultural sector may have the need (if not the desire) for an influx of new young hands, but in places like the UK and the US things are very different; I can’t see either government coaxing young people back into the fields as a solution to unemployment. But perhaps that urge for a simpler life will express itself in other ways – remember the small footprint communes setting themselves up in the bargain-price foreclosed properties of Detroit?
There’s plenty of land out there – more so in the States than the UK, granted, and not all of it suited to being lived on – and it may tempt people with the old dream of self-sufficiency. But that dream tends to pass over the degree of sheer physical labour that the lifestyle demands, alongside the other pressures that are slowly driving us towards wholesale urbanisation; many may still decide to try, but few will stay the course, perhaps.
Is self-sufficiency a dated idea unsuited to a networked globe, or does it still have valid lessons for us? [via MetaFilter; image by Nicholas T]
As you’ve probably already heard elsewhere, legendary New Wave sf author J G Ballard died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. There’s a decent obituary at the Daily Telegraph, and Jeff VanderMeer has posted an appreciation of the man at the Amazon Omnivoracious blog. [image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]
Regular readers may have noticed that I very rarely mark the passing of famous writers here at Futurismic, principally because I feel it would be crass to do so when I don’t really have much to say about them; I’m poorly read in the classics of the genre, and such things are better left to those closer to a writer’s oeuvre.
Ballard, however, is one of the giants of the scene with whose work I am fairly familiar, and whose work also played a large part in shaping the way I see things – in science fiction, and in reality as well. Comments and blog posts describing him as a sort of prophet are appearing in great number, and allowing for the hyperbole that such occasions tend to provoke, I think that’s a fair comment. Alongside Philip K Dick, whose style and approach was admittedly very different, Ballard was writing the world we now live in… half a century ago.
A very smart man, and – as VanderMeer puts it – a truly fearless writer. My world feels a little smaller for his absence.
Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the pre-Futurismic archives, and the strips that have been published here previously.
[ Be sure to check out the Does Not Equal Cafepress store for webcomic merchandise featuring Canadians with geometrically-shaped heads! ]
Another week flies by – is it just me or are they getting faster? Haven’t I said that before? What if I’m caught in some sort of temporal loop in a simulated universe? What if none of you are actually real?
Ah, who cares – it’s Friday, and there’s free science fiction stories to read on the internet. Get stuck in!
***
Here’s a couple at ManyBooks:
***
And a bona fide classic from one of the genre’s best known names at FeedBooks:
***
HUB Magazine presents “The Not Knowing” by Conrad Williams
***
Subterranean Online presents “Under the Honey” by Liz Williams
***
Strange Horizons presents “The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon, a classic from 1959
***
Jason Stoddard presents chapter 5.1 of Eternal Franchise
***
Jeremiah Tolbert presents “The Kansas Jayhawk vs. The Midwest Monster Squad“; this awesome geek-gonzo (geekzo? gonzeek?) story was published in Interzone a few years back, and comes with my sincerest recommendation as a fun read.
***
Shadow Unit has posted another DVD Extra: “Disintegration”
***
Via Tor.com (and others – saw it there first), Lone Star Stories are giving away a free PDF version of their recent anthology, the Lone Star Stories Reader.
***
Via Cory at BoingBoing comes an opportunity to read a story originally written for him and his wife as a honeymoon gift: “(Nothing But) Flowers” by John McDaid
***
Also via BoingBoing (and many many others), Steampunk Magazine returns after a long hiatus with the free-to-download 5th issue of the subgenre-defining zine.
***
Just sneaking into my inbox before I leave the house comes a message from Lee Giminez:
I wanted to let you know that my science fiction short story, “September 12“, was just published in The Cynic Magazine.
Cheers, Lee!
***
Unusually, we seem to have caught almost all the same things as SF Signal this week, though they do have a beefy round-up post from earlier today that might be worth looking through. And don’t forget they’ve collected links to all the free-to-read Hugo Award nominee stories as well.
***
As my schedule in the world beyond the internet demands I be elsewhere this afternoon, I only have one piece of Friday Flash to report at the time of compiling this post, namely “Patterns” by Gaie Sebold. All later arrivals will be collected up in next week’s post, as always.
***
And there’ you have it; don’t forget to send us your tip-offs, plugs and links about good sf stuff to read on the web. In the meantime, I’m off to London to meet none other than Tim Powers – have a good weekend!
