Has anyone else been following the Falun Gong uprising in China? The NY Times has covered it closely and I have been amazed at how familiar it all sounds. Beijing could be Viron, governed by a repressive, corrupt, half-dead Ayuntiemento, and here's this mystical popular uprising that seems to have come out of nowhere--Falun Gong has only been in existence since 1994--and captured the hearts of quite ordinary people, mostly middle-aged, all over China. They have rallied in the most remarkable way, considering the relative lack of modern communication in China. Just like Viron! I hope they find their Mint.
Also yesterday there was a report of two women snoozing under a tree in Hyde Park who were killed by a lightning bolt that stuck their underwire bras. Now what writer, modernist, post-modernist, whatever, could possibly have made that up?
-alga
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.