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Another blog about the virus-book

1: "I'm a man of my word," Jeevan said. At that point in his directionless life he wasn't sure if this was true or not, but it was nice to think that it might be.  And ...and then one night Jeevan opened his eyes at two a.m. and the news-room was empty. Everyone had left. He stared at the empty room on the screen for a long time. I chose the former because it's a somewhat comforting line, the idea that we're better than we maybe are. It doesn't come across as egotistic/self-serving in my eyes, but more hopeful. Hopeful that you can be a better person. I chose the latter because I can just imagine it so vividly, a slowly dwindling news-source eventually reduced to nothing. It's pathetically miserable, how it just gradually peters out instead of being violently destroyed in its prime via. a meteor or something. Powerless to stop as the momentum carrying civilization is gone. 2: I'm writing the utopia part, so I plan on writing about good infrastructu...

Utopia? I hardly KNOW 'eh!

Okay so my answer to this question depends on how realistic I'm allowed to be. On one end of the spectrum I could just say "everyone is happy and healthy all the time and there's no conflict because I say so." and on the other end I would say "I don't have a deep enough grasp of infrastructure/socioeconomics to describe a society that would for-certain be better." Assuming I'm constrained to modern day tech, but at the same time I don't have to take every single detail into consideration, here's what my Utopia would be: The Great Commune of Shlorpth (named because I like the sound "shlorpth" makes.) There would be UBI (universal basic income) for everyone at/over 18, tax-subsidized necessities (food, water, shelter, education, healthcare.) A reliance on nuclear energy over fossil fuels. Corporations would have elected managerial positions (discouraging the exploitation of workers, because then the person probably wouldn't be re-...

Forget this book, let's talk about Early Modern English!

-It's nice that they have a traveling acting troupe in the post-apocalypse. -I hope Jeeves died. Not because I dislike him, but because it would be narratively interesting. We get to learn about a person: their past, their hopes and dreams, their struggles... only for their story to be cut-short by the virus. -The farther we get from Shakespeare's time the more incomprehensible plays of that time become. "The safer sense will ne'er accommodate his master thus"?? What does "thus" mean in this context? In modern English it's used like "[cause] thus [effect]," you don't just end a sentence with it! And even if thus wasn't there to muck-up the whole line, what does it mean for a safer sense to not accommodate something? My best guess on what "safer sense" means is caution. Like, "Oh I would go play on the highway but I have a safer sense for that." or something. Does this mean that the person doesn't think cautio...

Pandemic Book Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

      I'm not sure how I'm supposed to follow the note because I can't see what passages other people picked until I submit this. -writing this as I read, I find it  mildly interesting that Jeevan was a paparazzo twice. I thought it was one solid block of his life, but nope. -Also, what kind of name is Jeevan? for the remainder of this blog I'm gonna call him Jeeves -calling it now I think Frank's gonna die or otherwise be separated from Jeeves. -"his hands ached from compressing Arthur's unwilling heart" is a pretty neat line, good contender for the line I'll discuss. -when Jeeves's phone rang and he said "hua" I thought that was an exclamation of surprise, like "HUH?!" -I'm disappointed to find out Arthur wasn't patient zero, makes him less interesting to me, and it also makes the original "and this is when it happened" line I praised very dull in hindsight. Because even if "it" didn't happe...