The Null Device

The Onion draws another spot-on sketch of human despair: Goodwill Toy Section Most Depressing Thing Ever. (I think "Goodwill" is the US equivalent of the Salvation Army Family Stores or something like that.)

"The toy area has its own distinct odor: sort of a musty, mildewy, plastic, sour-milk, baby-vomit, metallic, rotting-cloth smell," Robichaud said. "It isn't quite the smell of evil--just despair."

¶ despair humour satire the onion 2

Some topical fiction for our times: The Moscow Times has a suitably nihilistic cyberpunkesque dispatch from US-occupied Iraq, circa 2004. And a Santa Claus techno-thriller for the Bush era.

Then he's over the wall and yelling and charging straight at the machine guns and somehow the bullets aren't hitting him. Gone is the Santa of old: fat, jovial, and bearded. Now he's clean-shaven, square-jawed, buff and barrel-chested in his signature red and white uniform, and the colors blaze amongst the desert browns and greys. And his bag, painted bright blue with little white stars to show his national pride, is slung over his shoulder. He's like a beacon, a big banner that says shoot me, I'm American.

(via bOING bOING)

¶ christmas fiction grim meathook future iraq the long siege 0