Here is a new short story, inspired not so much by the works of Jorge Luis Borges (who is alluded to in the title in a completely unpretentious way) as by a session chain-watching episodes of the original season of ‘The Twilight Zone’. This is a short story about twists. It is not a short story about sexual orgies…
Or is it?...
Hope you enjoy reading: ‘Lights out at the Borgesian Orgy’.
People requested Einstein, Jesus, Hume, Feyerabend, Feynman, Hitler – the list goes on (the list of people who other people want to see live out their lives on Twitter). I’ve finally chosen somebody to follow Wittgenstein: the so-called “father of the atomic bomb”, J. Robert Oppenheimer. I formally introduce you to: OppieTweets. Oppie will commence tweeting at 22:00 GMT tomorrow.
I’m very happy to be wheeling out a new short story: ‘Dawn’
At 4 pages, this is a perfect length for the app-addled minds of the Tweet Generation, and my choice to publish it as a PDF, which is so Web 1.0, as opposed to on a Kindle, which is probably somewhere around Web 1.4, makes it positively retro. The first lines are:
‘At around 9 pm GMT on a Wednesday, everybody on the planet started to feel a little woozy. The wooziness turned into drowsiness and the drowsiness became overwhelming…’
If this doesn’t send you to sleep, then have a read.
Edit 10/6/21: In 2020 this Pizza Express sadly closed its doors. It was a difficult year. In its place is a Firezza.
Following the critical acclaim of my first book, ‘Tesco’s Finest: A Comprehensive Review of 2, 715 Tesco Stores’, I’m very pleased to announce I’ve been working on a secret project, ‘423 Pizzas: A Review of Every Pizza Express in the UK’. The first draft is with my editor, but I thought I’d be naughty and give you a quick freebie:
Pizza Express #137: The Former Bank at Streatham Hill Continue reading “Pizza Express Review #137”
Let me tell you about fine dining in the 22nd Century. I was taken on a pastry chef at XL-Eat-Elite in Purley Way back in 2078 (when, as few now remember, it was called Cosmo-XL). Tomorrow I turn 85 and so am legally permitted to retire. I am going to kill myself. I harbour an odd nostalgia for this restaurant. It is now considered the finest All-You-Quadruple-Can restaurant in Croydon. It is certainly the hugest. I’m not sure whether I can say I feel ‘proud’; ‘responsible’ would be claiming far too much; maybe just ‘involved’. Is there a better word, for describing how a decent – yet replaceable – cog should feel about their role in a mammoth machine? I have been, at least, involved. Continue reading “Waste Not, Want Not”
Apologies (to the entire Zeph Auerbach fanbase) for the low rate of updates recently. I’ve basically been very busy. I don’t want to go into everything, but this summer I’ve had to work really, really hard to defend our power cores, in a number of strategic grid-based locations, from swarm after swarm of mindless alien scum. Look, if someone didn’t do it, we’d all be Homo Sapien Soup. Continue reading “Hiatus (for some)”
I was buying a BLT, Red Delicious and Tyrrell’s Vegetable Chips at the Sainsbury’s near Bethnal Green tube station, when I was faced with a now rather mundane modern decision: do I pay by using the self-service tills, or by using the human being? Man or machine? There were 4 of each (4 bays; 4 bodies), and I just stood there, torn between my two options, umming and ahhing, feeling like a complete (Buridan’s) ass. The queue bore down on me as I went through the following phases of vacillation. Continue reading “Arms Race at the Sainsbury’s in Bethnal Green”
I’m very happy to see ‘Only Once‘ published in Issue 8 of ‘Chemical Imbalances’ . ‘Chemical Balances’ is a great little prose / poetry / art / zaniness publication, and I highly recommend you getting hold of any number of issues of it anytime soon. This Issue is published under 5 titles: gotta collect ’em all! and all that.
All I really feel like saying today is that I don’t like beans.
That ‘Wittgenstein is dead’ should not come as news to most people (although you’d be surprised at the number of people who, when told about Wittgenstein Tweets, have asked, awkwardly: “Won’t this Whats-his-name-stein mind that you’re pretending to be him?”). Nevertheless, he is dead, just as certainly as before, and now his ghostlike, fast-forwarded impersonator @WittTweets has lain down to join him in his rest.
I am not suitably qualified to write an obituary for a virtual reincarnation of an enigmatic philosopher. I’d like to meet the man who is. But I thought I’d just share a few highlights of the project. I never thought I’d get sad (or make anyone else sad) with this silly project; let’s focus on the good times. Continue reading “Wittgenstein is Dead”
Zeph Auerbach 