A New Dawn

Hello everyone! My currently nonexistent fans must be ecstatic to see this page created but in any case I plan to have some fun anyways.

On this inaugural and auspicious day, I would like to tell you a short story; the story of this blog's title. This story is adapted from a much beloved author of mine Spider Robinson. Everyone go buy his books (he’s Canadian too!).

The story that I am about to relate takes place in the distant future. Interstellar travel is commonplace; contacts with alien races are familiar experiences. One day, however, a planet is discovered out Antares way whose sole inhabitant is an enormous humanoid, three miles high and made of granite. At first it is mistaken for an immense statue left by some vanished race of giants, for it squats motionless on a yellow plain, exhibiting no outward sign of life. It has legs, but it never rises to walk on them. It has a mouth but never eats or speaks. It has what appears to be a perfectly functioning brain, the size of a four-story condominium, but the organ lies dormant, electrochemical activity at a standstill. Yet it lives.

This puzzles the hell out of the scientists, who try everything they can think of to get some sign of life from the behemoth – in vain. It just squats, motionless and seemingly thoughtless, until one day a xenobiologist, frustrated beyond endurance, screams, “How could evolution give legs, mouth, and brain to a creature that doesn't use them?”

It happens that he’s the first one to ask a direct question in the thing’s presence. It rises with a thunderous rumble to its full height, scattering the clouds, thinks for a second, booms, “IT COULDN'T,” and squats down again.

“Of course!” exclaims the xenobiologist, “It only stands to reason!”

So there you have it folks! From the mouth of Long-Drink McGonnigle to Callahan himself.

Here’s to Bushmills, friends and family and a possible future as a blog. Cheers!

(Taken from Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Tor Books ©1977 Used Without Permission – please don’t hurt me)

http://www.amazon.ca/Callahans-Crosstime-Saloon-Spider-Robinson/dp/0812572270/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268249503&sr=1-6

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