A (Science Fictional) Thanksgiving Prayer for You
Posted on November 25, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 21 Comments
Photo by Josh Wedin. Used via Creative Commons license. To go to the original, click on the photo.
So it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, when the family will be all around the table, ready to dig in — but someone will have to say grace first! And it might be you! And if you’re worried that you will draw a blank in the heat of the moment, sputtering nonsense until the gravy grows cold, fear not. For I have recorded a Thanksgiving Prayer for you. Just memorize and repeat!
Don’t say I never did anything for you on Thanksgiving.
(Original text, if you’re into reading for some reason, is here.)
Well, that should let you off the hook. Maybe Cousin Chet would like to say grace; it sounds like he has a thing or two to be grateful for.
This year, I’m specifically thankful to those cancer patients who participate in clinical trials, whether out of hope or faith or trust.
I’m thankful that if I ever got that long-winded at dinner, my family would make me sit somewhere else while they ate.
You were going so well until…
‘Thank you for not allowing the total moral and economic decline of the United
States,’
That’s debatable when you look at the country as a whole. Especially for some of us from outside the US looking in.
Hopefully the many good people who post on this site will continue to keep you from falling over the line.
Hope you all enjoy the holiday.
How do you know that the aliens haven’t started replacing us one by one, but you just haven’t been targeted yet? They might just consider your part of Ohio not worth taking over yet. After all, it might explain the popularity of certain GOP candidates.
That is an excellent list of things for which we can be truly thankful. I add my grateful thanks to the staff, volunteers, and other supporters of my local SPCA. Due to their efforts, I’m reading this right now with my little hound lying across my feet. She’s warm and safe and happily dreaming of Thanksgiving manna. Last year she found an entire cooked turkey leg in the woods.
Amusing :). I’m into reading it because I’m severely deaf so I’m not thankful for what I felt was a slight snark there. However, the general point is well made: many of us, in whatever country we are in, have a lot to be thankful for.
Hmm. Who or what is this ‘Lord’ you keep referring to? Another bit of Science Fiction?
Or not being turned into Zombies. Or finding a source of Unobtainium with a backwards alien species we can subjugate. Or for a plucky astronaut making it back from being stranded on Mars, a steely-eyed rocket man, and the brave crew who ignored NASA and rescued their crewmate they thought was lost on Mars. Or for the quake that took out LA, much to the relief of the rest of the world. Or to the latest Star Wars reality show. Or the parallel universe Spock. Or the end of (shudder) cute vampires.
Not sure that would pass muster where I live. My son would start eating after the first paragraph, muttering “Jesus” or similar. Still, it’s something to think about. I may have a go at it just for kicks, see how far I can stretch that puppy.
Oh and you forgot to mention transporter beams. Forget the speeder thingies. I wanna take a step and be in Barcelona.
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!
Hahaha, great!
(1) Moistening Aliens — OK, yeah, glad I don’t have to moisten any aliens! — But I somehow missed the reference. What’s that from?
(2) Leather-Clad Miscreant — Hmm, apparently, I have a thing for leather-clad miscreants and didn’t know it until just now. Hmm…. Intriguing.
(3) Speeder Bike — Dude, I want a hoverboard. Where’s my hoverboard?
(4) Cousin Chet — Yeah, I have a different Cousin Not-The-Chet, yet somehow very much Chet-Like. While I could wonder if Cousin Chet is simply misunderstood, well, again, I know the type. He’s not misunderstood, he’s just a boor.
(5) On the other hand, there must be a few sci-fi geek cousins out there who would be very cool.
(6) What should we do if we bring a friend over for the holidays, and it turns out the friend is really an alien? Oh well, it really might go better than some family dinners…. It could also depend on the family involved. We’d hope any visiting aliens would take into account that not everyone is like Cousin Chet.
Is it just me, or does “Josh Wedin” sound like a low effort pseudonym for “Joss Whedon”?
Sooz, I think it wasn’t snark directed at would-be readers so much as it was self-mocking sarcasm, on account of how our host makes a living by writing words for people to read and would certainly hope that folks are into reading.
That said, the more audio(/visual) things that come with transcripts the better, for sure. Especially if the “audio” part was created off a written script in the first place, which is a case where including a transcript basically takes zero additional effort.
You could also go with the Selkirk Grace.
Bluecatship. – the moistened aliens are from the movie “Signs, ” which I actually enjoyed up to the point when the aliens turned into men in alien suits. I hate it when that happens.
I am totally addressing this to the Flying Spaghetti Monster if I get picked to say grace. (No one in my family is dumb enough to let me say grace.)
I thank John Scalzi for being so entertaining and for probably being just made of bugs. Keep up the good work. Also, kittens.
Thank you for adding the written portion (another deaf reader).
Another Laura — Aha, thanks, that explains why I didn’t get the reference. I’ve somehow missed seeing that movie.
Hmm, there are also those pesky aliens in human-suits, and talking alien dogs, but that would be another movie altogether. ;)
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I’m legally blind / low vision / vision-impaired. Those terms don’t do a very good job of conveying the meaning or the experience of it, just like hard-of-hearing / partially deaf / legally deaf / hearing impaired, and so on, don’t really get across the meaning to the average person.
I got our esteemed host’s self-deprecating humor on the reading bit. Multiple forms for media (text, audio, video) are good in order to help people who are handicapped (or “differently abled,” etc.). Text and audio can be very helpful for blind folks, text and video with subtitles / closed captioning can help out deaf folkls. Even though we’re in 2015, there is still a long way to go before things, including computers and mobile devices and buildings and homes, are accessible to as many people as possible.
Providing text as a backup is a really good and much appreciated idea. (Personally, I get along well with audio and OK with video, but others don’t. Every case is unique.)
“Moistening Aliens” is probably a reference to the M. Knight Shyamalan (Thank you, Google, for the spelling on that one) movie “Signs”. In it, aliens are defeated from conquering our planet when it turns out they are susceptible to the Wicked Witch of the West disease–they crumple in the face of tap water. For some reason, they decide to visit a planet which is 71% covered in water (again, thank you Google.) and yet they choose not to wear space suits of any kind. I do love the turn of phrase, though. Can’t you just picture the character “Aiger” from Men in Black saying, “I’m gonna go moisten me some aliens.”
You mentioned dune buggies twice. BOTH times like they were BAD! Did one run you over when you were little?