I don’t know what’s more surreal - the fact that an ice cream truck was driving through my neighborhood during today’s solar eclipse or that it was playing “It’s a Small World.”
I saw a website today that began, “Strange things may happen during the eclipse, and NASA wants you to document it.” Maybe I’ll share my ice cream man story. I think they’d find that fascinating.
You don’t have to look very far to discover strange things. Just go to any public place and observe. You’ll see plenty of strange things. Or work at a public institution like your local library. I once saw a guy walk into our branch with what looked like a parrot on his shoulder. (I wasn’t about to get close enough to see if the bird was real.) He and his friend circled the library once, then departed. Neither of them said a word.
One of my coworkers once received a phone call from a patron who claimed that her late fees were not her fault. The caller had been on the planet Venus and simply could not return her books. (Maybe the Venusians couldn’t look into the future to discover that the library would soon be fine-free.)
I like weird. I don’t know why, I just do.
One of my favorite writers, Jeffrey Ford, writes wonderfully weird fiction. He’s a great novelist, but I particularly like his short fiction. Ford’s work is often hilarious, often terrifying, and sometimes both in the same story. He’s written several collections, but my favorites are The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant (2002) and The Empire of Ice Cream (2006). Want novels? My faves are The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque (2002) and The Shadow Year (2008). You can thank me later.
I was talking to my friend Ernest (who knows lots of weird tales of both fictional and nonfictional varieties) the other day. He mentioned how much he enjoys the stories of Andy Duncan, as do I, especially his collection Beluthahatchie (2000). You should check out his work as well as Ford’s. Any new book from these guys is cause for celebration.
And cinematically no one does weird like David Lynch. If for some reason you’ve been on another planet (maybe Venus, reading overdue books?) and haven’t seen a David Lynch film, The Elephant Man (1980) is probably the best entry point.
I could go on and on with weirdness but do celebrate the weird wherever you can find it. You usually won’t have to look too far. Happy Solar Eclipse Day!