Two and a Half Incredible Stories
I read two and a half amazing things this weekend.
One
Pauline Dakin’s recounting of the Weird World on the BBC. This was such a riveting and heartbreaking story that I couldn’t do anything else until I finished reading it. Wow. I’ll admit that I saw the ending coming when it got to the part about the doubles, but… it was still moving to see how it resolved. If you can only read one thing, read this one all the way to the end and then let me know what you think.
Two
Jerry Selbee breaking the pattern to win the lottery. It felt like a real life Sherlock, working in a cereal factory. A math genius who could see and break patterns that other people don’t notice. It gets even better when the MIT kids enter the story. It’s also an eye-opening look at how to play (or why you shouldn’t casually play) the lottery.
The Half
Not really a great read, but definitely an interesting thought: Atlas Obscura asked if you could be homesick for a place you’ve never been. There are plenty of real places and fictional places that I feel homesick for. Fillory, definitely, enough so that I just start the first Magicians book again when I get through the third one, so I’m always somewhere in the loop, reading about Fillory. But then also Middle Earth, Hogwarts, and the world beyond the Phantom Tollbooth. At the same time, I feel fernweh for the Faroe Islands and Newfoundland and Holland Island — three places I’ve never been (and one of which I never can because it’s underwater now).
Is there any place that fills you with homesickness even though you’ve never been, as if the space is somehow genetically coded into your heart and it’s a place you’re supposed to see?
3 comments
Fionavar. I will long for it for the rest of my life.
The article on scamming the Massachusetts lottery had me rolling my eyes. Of course MIT students would figure this out. Of course Massachusetts would look the other way for so long. More interesting is the story about that factory worker from Michigan and what he figured out. Still, now I’m wondering how long it will be before the next scam.
Places I’m homesick for that I’ve never been? Hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes to Middle Earth, also Noirmoutier, Asilomar and others.
And now you have me dreaming about how to make visits happen
Thank you for these reads. Just went down the rabbit holes for an hour or so.
As for your question, I can’t think of such a place. But the question remains with me for further consideration.