Why are you always on your phone?
(No response)
Why are you always on your phone?
What?
Why are you always on your phone?
You’re on your phone right now.
You’re the one who’s always on your phone.
You’re on your phone right now.
Not like you.
Like me?
Like you.
Always on your phone.
Have you seen this?
What?
This post?
Which one?
It’s funny.
What?
So true.
What?
I don’t believe it.
This story about those girls.
Oh, that.
Incredible.
I posted about that.
There will be a delay of 90 minutes. We apologize for the delay.
We have an update on the delay. We are experiencing technical difficulties. It is now three hours. Thank you for your patience.
Can I have a water please?
There is no service until we reach cruising altitude. Thank you for flying Delta.
Just a water.
We have begun our descent. Please replace all tray tables and put your seats in the upright position.
Is there any water? 
We apologize, but we will not be able to land. We will go to our alternate destination, which is also our departure point. Please remain in your seat while the seatbelt light is illuminated..
Is it possible to have a water?
Please replace all tray tables and put your seats in the upright position. Anyone making connections should report to the gate agent.
Connections? From where we left?
We will remain at the gate until we have clearance to return to our destination. We do apologize and thank you for flying Air Canada.
Is there any…?
The crew has exceeded the maximum shift hours permitted. We will have to debark here.
Any questions should be directed to the call center. However they will not be able to take your calls until the flight cancellation is processed.
How long…?
Thank you for flying People’s Express.
Dan Simmons’ epic novel Hyperion is a Hugo Award winner, highly praised in the science fiction world and evidence of why I cannot read anymore of the genre. 
Sci-fi should lend itself to dynamic narratives, to worlds beyond our repetitively predictable laws, but instead becomes mired in the same dreadful aspects: unimaginative writing, flat characters, ill-thought plot and unbelievably stupid words put together in the guise of world-building.
The second law of writing (after Keep It Simple Stupid) would have to be Never begin with “It was a dark and stormy night”. 
And yet Simmons opens: Bruise black clouds silhouetted a forest of giant gymnosperms while stratocumulus towered nine kilometers high in the violent sky. Lightning rippled along the horizon. (3)
Simmons’ protagonist, The Consul, is singularly bland: (He) turned and dropped into the cushions…nodded and absently raised the scotch to his lips…went to pour another scotch…went outside to lean on the railing…the only sentient being on an unnamed world. (4-6) Sentient? Really?
The story jolts forward, Chaucerien style, with each of the seven characters debating whether to share their back-stories:
“Those in favor of telling our tales?”
“I wouldn’t miss this little farce for a month in the orgasm baths at Shote.”
“I think it’s stupid,” said Brawne Lamia.
“The ayes have it. Who wants to start?”
(It’s a shame that they agreed; otherwise Hyperion would have been 400 pages lighter.)
They arrive on the planet Hyperion where the innkeeper informs them: “No food. No wine. No ale.” (113) And yet…a page later: Somehow Leweski had managed to send up a tankard of beer and a basket of bread and cold beef. (114) 
Truth is, the comically bad narrative often acts as a relief against a backdrop of nonsensical babble: If the fleet did construct a farcaster in time and the Hegemony committed the total resources of FORCE to defending Hyperion, the Worldweb ran the terrible risk of suffering an Ouster attack….yeah, and on.
My penis was getting bigger, right before my eyes, beyond anything I had experienced, massive, towering, suddenly like a god, too much. And right then, that moment, decided to separate itself. 
I held on, amazed, scared of how I would re-attach it, of my growing worship of the thing. I pulled up to the tip and saw it looking back, eyeing me, and then surged from me and was at the window, waiting to be let out. 
I watched it dash, flying, sleek into the night. I was worked up, very worked up and had to get that feeling out. My penis, the one left behind, was thin and rigid, like a small branch. It felt awful. It was erect, but girthless. I tried to get it to fill in. 
The screen saver on my computer started popping up old porn of me, a highlight reel, and I couldn’t get it to stop. There were people in the room, an old friend who hadn’t spoken to me in years.
“Nice.” He didn’t care that the videos kept popping up, my nakedness, my old penis, and all of those others, naked with me. 
He didn’t care that I was embarrassed by all of these secreted images playing one on top of the other; he thought it was impressive. But I had to get up. My old penis was out there and I needed it back.
Ernest Hemingway’s terse, humorous style verges on revelatory:
Nick came in carrying the log and Bill got up from the chair and helped him put it on the fire.
“That’s a swell log,” Nick said.
“I’d been saving it for the bad weather,” Bill said. “A log like that will burn all night.”
“There’ll be coals left to start the fire in the morning,” Nick said.
“That’s right,” Bill agreed. They were conducting the conversation in the high plane.
“Let’s have another drink,” Nick said.
Bill poured out the drink.
“That’s an awfully big shot,” Nick said.
“Not for us, Wemedge,” Bill said.
“What’ll we drink to?” Nick asked, holding up the glass.
“Let’s drink to fishing,” Bill said.
“All right,” Nick said. “Gentlemen, I give you fishing.”
“All fishing,” Bill said. “Everywhere.”
“Fishing,” Nick said. “That’s what we drink to.”
Bob Dylan, awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, has decided to ignore the honor. Wow! I mean, right!? Everybody Must Get Stoned! 
Bob Dylan excuse me, I mean Mr. Robert Zimmerman, is like a god! Literally so. The man just shrugs off what everyone else on this planet accepts, all of those pathetic dogs: Alice Munro, Jose Saramago, Gunter Grass, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett. 
Come on, Robert Zimmerman is so much more gifted, right? Waiting for Godot? As if. Blindness? Huh? The Flounder? Come on! What are they going on about? All you have to do is listen to Robert:
She speaks with a stutter and she walks with a hop
I don’t know why I love her but I just can’t stop.
The great thing about all of this is that Robert is sticking it to those elitist royals in Sweden. Sticking it to them! He’s speaking out on behalf of his downtrodden American brethren – so many ignored over the years – leaving us in glorious silence to consider his lyrical awesomeness:
I know all about poison, I know all about fiery darts,
I don’t care how rough the road is, show me where it starts
Or maybe it’s actually bigger than that. Maybe Robert is gone. Hasn’t everyone else died this year? Maybe they’re covering that up until Robert can figure out how to reincarnate. I mean, if anyone can pull off the Lazarus gig, it’s Robert fuckin’ Dylan Zimmerman.
The Battle of Algiers is known for its neorealism, cinema verite as they say, images so real that we have to be told they’re not.
Its strength, however, lies not only in its images.
But in its development of a central theme: our inherent inhumanity to one another.
The chaos of knowing that.
I need something that makes sense, that will make me whole. These words, that’s what I want. Need is the word. 
I think of it as simple, straight, nothing else in my head. It is why I get up, stand in the room, move through the streets, reach out to drink. 
And while I’m trying to keep the eggs evenly out, this is it: a stream of words, where I’m turning and move like I know, inciting right, others assent and are stirred. 
It’s not that none of the rest matters but that I lose the sense of what really is, what it might be, important made nothing and nothing jacked up, so that I don’t know what I’m doing and may seem like I’m screwing the wind. Everything else is distraction. 
Yeah, like I’m doing now, a direction, something clear, words published, understood, stamped forward. 
Yeah, that’s it. That.
Two homeless men, young, lay side by side in matching boxes, asleep in the dull rising light. The shallow boxes, flat and wide, looking like they had just been delivered for the morning rush, gave no warmth or shelter, no comfort of any kind, just a lip, an edge a few inches up, as if it might keep the bugs and dust out. I had walked almost a full block past before I realized I had to go back to take a picture.
It was a funny image, striking how they looked they had been delivered and slept so soundly for the people streaming past. I had my camera out as I turned around for the shot and saw the young man was awake. 
I was caught in an awkward stance, looking down at him, mocking him, and dropped my arms and continued past.
“Yeah, that’s right.” The young man muttered after my receding steps. “No pictures.”
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