But suddenly I was 29, earning my living as a freelance public-relations writer—an activity I can recommend to no one—and it was increasingly clear that I had better write a novel soon.
(Richard Yates, “Some Very Good Masters”, in The New York Times Book Review, 19 April 1981).
I’m currently reading Blake Bailey’s Yates biography, A Tragic [...]
“I now think that it’s a mistake to reject the logical (or even physical) possibility of time travel on the grounds that it cramps our style”.
(Kadri Vihvelin, “What Time Travelers Cannot Do”, in Philosophical Studies, Vol. 81, No. 2-3, March 1996, p. 317).
In the year 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States of America sent two remote-controlled rovers to Mars, hoping to discover traces of water on the barren desert surface of that planet. From a scientific and political point of view, it was uncertain whether the mission could be justified, however [...]