The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that comprise all of reality —Wikipedia

Editor’s note: Based on our extensive research into quantum physics, we learned that an infinity of realities exist, one for every possible outcome of every event in the universe. We recently sent our science correspondent on a mission to find the best possible universe in existence and to report back on what she found. Here are highlights from her report:

A college basketball star goes on to devote his life to medical research and soon invents a drug that tastes like salted caramel and cures all forms of cancer. After he donates the patent to the World Health Organization, the Nike corporation rewards him with a billion-dollar endorsement for a shoe called “Dr. Jordans.”

A wealthy real-estate developer’s plan to run for president of the United States is derailed when he is jailed for a fraudulent “educational” scheme called “Trump University.” In response to his plea for a pardon, President Christie states, “Umm…nah.”

NATO forces, led by the United States, easily drive Russian forces from Ukraine a few days after Vladimir Putin’s ill-advised invasion. “Russia’s got a big army,” states the American secretary of defense, “but their equipment is obsolete and their training is a joke. Thank goodness they never figured out how to make the bomb!”

17 years after the documentary An Inconvenient Truth convinced American politicians of all political stripes that global warming represented a planetary existential crisis that required immediate action, the planet cools back down to its pre-industrial age baseline. To tell you the truth, it’s a little chilly in the morning.

The summer blockbuster movie 12 Years a Slave is a box office bust. The alternative-history dystopian epic, set in a fictional 19^th century America in which the enslavement of Black people is tolerated, was seen as too unrealistic. “We’re supposed to believe that you could treat somebody so horrible just because of their skin color?” asked one disappointed movie-goer. “Yeah, right! And maybe we should pay some people less just because they’re women!”

Millions of lives are saved when a vaccine for malaria is invented. Yeah, I know we got that one too, but still, awesome, right?

Garden of Eaton’s author wins the first Nobel Prize for literature by a blogger. “This is pretty cool,” he states in his acceptance speech. “The human condition, blah-di-blah. Is the bar open yet?”

The Wall Street Journal analyzes the cause of the complete failure of AI technology to gain adoption. “It’s kind of a cool gimmick? I guess?” says Megan, 14. “But, like, it’s not that hard to just write some words yourself.”

The CDC announces it will soon put its stamp of approval on the beer and bratwurst diet, which has been shown to reduce obesity and promote heart health. A press release states, “We’re just waiting until we better understand the role of French fries in reducing bad cholesterol.”

The Beatles’ Reunion wins this year’s Grammy for best album. Says Yoko Ono, producer, “It’s great to see all four of the guys together again, making music.”

How hot is it here in Texas? A couple of weeks ago I took a large hunk of old shriveled-up clumped-together ice cubes out of my freezer and dumped it over the railing of my little apartment patio. A few minutes later I heard a sound like rocks being ground up. A white-tail deer was chomping on its giant popsicle.

I remember watching the news on TV one evening in the early 70’s. I would have been 10 or 12. Back then the big 3 networks allowed an anchor or correspondent a few minutes at the end of the broadcast for a short op-ed piece, maybe once a week. On this particular night, David Brinkley—ABC’s answer to CBS’s authoritative father-figure Walter Cronkite—was describing something some scientists had just discovered called “global warming.” He concluded his piece with a big smile, declaring (as best I remember), “’Global warming’…you can’t see it, smell it, or taste it, and we have a long time to figure out what to do about it. Now that’s the kind of problem I like!” And I had a funny feeling that this problem was serious and that nothing serious would ever be done about it…because responsible grownups like David Brinkley were treating it like a joke. And here we are.

With the wisdom of hindsight, I can see now how wrong it was for Hillary Clinton to disparage Donald Trump’s supporters as “a basket of deplorables.” After all, mean-spirited insecure gun-worshiping racist xenophobic anti-democratic anti-intellectual misogynistic bible-thumping flag-waving Trump-adoring conspiracy-subscribing morons have feelings too.

There was much press over the past week over whether one should go see Barbie or Oppenheimer or both. The former is a feel-good fantasy based on a plastic doll marketed to little girls. The latter is about the man who brought nuclear weapons into the world.

You’ll find me curled up in a dark closet, eating cheese curls and watching A Fistful of Dollars again on my phone.

The doll won, by the way. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Flamin’ Hot is a film based on the life of Richard Montañez, a man who claims to have invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto.—“Flamin’ Hot” Is So Bad It Burns, The New York Times, 6/26/23

Air is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film directed by Ben Affleck and written by Alex Convery. The film is based on true events about the origin of Air Jordan, a basketball shoeline[…]–Wikipedia

Editor’s Note: After seeing a slate of recent big-budget films based on the story of consumer product marketing campaigns, we decided we needed to get into the action.

The Claude-Etienne Minié Story

Tagline: When the world needed a hole in the head, one man gave it his balls

The Hostess Twinkie Story

Tagline: When the Freshness is Gone, Nothing Can Bring It Back. That’s Why We Add Potassium Sorbate.

Dunlop Shuffle: the Untold Story of Those Tennis Balls Cut Open and Stuck on the Feet of Aluminum Walkers

Tagline: Because I have to come up with an idea for a docko by Tuesday or I don’t get paid

Ilene’s Taco

Tagline: True Story of the Woman Who Invented the Taco, Though it Might Have Been Someone Else, Or Probably A Bunch Of People

Patio Furniture: The Untold Story

Tagline: Because You’ll Watch Anything. Starring Matt Damon as the first all-weather seat cushion.

Sargento: The Cheese That’s Pretty OK

Tagline: At Least It’s Not Too Expensive

The real scandal no one’s talking about: the gauche squalor of Donald Trump’s bathroom in Mar-A-Lago. The garish faux-Louis XIV gilded mirror frame. The tiny space dominated by an oversized crystal chandelier. The fake-fancy decor combined with a gray vinyl shower curtain and spring-loaded curtain rod with one end stuck awkwardly on top of an apparently clear and blindless window. And the mountain of cardboard boxes filled with our nation’s diplomatic and military secrets don’t help the décor. How could we let someone with such terrible taste govern our country?

The growing crowd of announced Republican presidential candidates seems to have confused the primary process with one of Donald Trump’s reality shows. Call it Not-Quite-Celebrity Apprentice. Oh, they’ll all be fired. Or maybe a better comparison would be to one of his Miss USA pageants. I can imagine Trump strolling through the dressing room before a debate, a fat old lecherous king scouting the available meat for vice presidential material.

Idea: Mar-A-Lago Federal Golf Resort and Maximum Security Detention Facility.

After a years-long investigation by a special prosecutor, Hunter Biden decided to plead guilty to tax evasion charges in exchange for no jail time. Maybe there’s a lesson there, Mr. Trump.

Of all the surprising heroes and horrible monsters to surface in the war in Ukraine, the most fascinating to me (from the latter category) is the convicted robber/caterer to tyrants/troll-bot magnate/private general/political-military gadfly Yevgeny Prigozhin. I wouldn’t sell him a life insurance policy, though. He seems to want to make enemies not only of Ukraine but also the Russian military and even Vladimir Putin. As we go to press, he appears to have made it more than halfway from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow before deciding to turn around and get the hell out of Russia. He may not be a military genius, but he’s evidently smarter than Napoleon.

Re: the recent film Babylon: we didn’t make it halfway through our home viewing of it before abandoning the enterprise. So busy, such an effortful struggle to convince us that the Sixties had nothing on the Roaring Twenties in terms of drugs, sex, music, and artistic innovation. All right. But it makes me appreciate all the more an auteur like Quentin Tarantino, who knows how to take his time in telling a story, and the value of a thoughtful conversation in between the noise and gore.

Another hideously hot summer has begun in the Garden of Eaton, located somewhere deep in the sun-drenched heart of Texas. Please send us your limes, your tonic water, your gin, and regular pallets of ice.

A man wearing the life jacket he retrieved from under his seat stands in the open door of the airplane looking out serenely. He is in his thirties, perhaps, neatly, but comfortably, dressed—a perfect “casual (but not too casual) Friday” outfit. The look on his face brings to mind Juliet telling Romeo “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Yes, he must leave the plane soon, but first, he’s taking a moment to appreciate the beautiful sunrise. We can deduce that he’s looking at a sunrise from the warm, yellow-orange light that illuminates him. He’s not in any hurry—there’s no one inside the plane behind him screaming or pushing to get out, and the plane isn’t heaving or rocking—not in the least—the waters of this ocean (we assume it’s the North Atlantic) must be remarkably calm this morning. He’s got all the time in the world—why not take in the view before plunging into the icy waters?

There’s no telling what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s wondering about the three other passengers on the plane. There was a young woman and a little girl—no doubt mother and daughter. Where was the father? Was the mother taking her daughter back to him—or fleeing him? Probably not fleeing him—she looked too happy—both of them looked too happy—to be having that kind of trauma in their lives. Yes, he’s certain they were going home—probably had a wonderful visit with grandma (too bad daddy had to work!) and now they’re going home. When he saw them at gate, he smiled and waved at the little girl, and she smiled and waved back.

How remarkably calm those two were when the cabin depressurized and the oxygen bags fell from the ceiling! The young woman pulled the mask downward sharply, then placed it over her own face. The little girl, who couldn’t be more than five or six, clearly took after her mother—showed no fear whatsoever—even smiled up at her mother as her mother helped her with her own mask.

Where were they now? Possibly floating off into the sunrise on one of the emergency slides that could be detached and used as a life raft. Maybe the one other passenger on the plane—the flight attendant—was with them. What a sharp-looking blue uniform she wore! How impressed the little girl was when the flight attendant walked by them at the gate. Maybe that encounter will inspire the little girl (if she survives) to become a flight attendant one day!

It’s time to go. He pulls the cord on the life jacket, but as far as we can tell, nothing happens. He blows on the tubes, but that seems to have no effect either. Is that a problem? It doesn’t seem to bother him. The life jacket might already be inflated—maybe he already inflated it, and forgot. It’s really hard to tell.

As he stands there, perhaps wondering whether or not his life jacket is inflated, darkness slowly falls and he fades from view. Maybe it was a sunset he was looking at, and not a sunrise.

(A description of “The Man in the Life Jacket” scene from the animated short “In Case of Emergency” shown to passengers by Condor Airlines prior to departing Frankfort airport for Portland International.)