Challenge 867

Daring Don’t

In James Rumpel’s Earth Treasure: Why might Cam and Jumon conclude that the interstellar garbage scow could indeed become a “treasure” and that Earthlings are missing a bet?
In Saarthak Haldar’s Awakening of Soul: What grammatical license does the poem take with articles and word order? Is the poem less easy to understand because of it? What might its function be?
In Gary Clifton’s Under the San Luis Bridge:
1. List the characters in the story and note at least one salient physical or social characteristic of each.
2. Does the difference between physical and social characteristics systematically distinguish the “bad guys” from the “good guys”? Who are the “bad guys” in the story, anyway?
In Liane Gabora’s Truth or Dare:
1. What new meaning does Stella give to the traditional metaphor “the mind’s eye”?
2. Which side of the surface of a sphere is concave? What is the shape of the other side?
3. What is “Mandelbrot madness”?
4. In playing “truth or dare,” all the characters choose “truth.” What questions make the characters most uncomfortable? How might the game proceed if anyone chose “dare”?
5. How might Stella’s network of light image be ironically confirmed — to a certain extent — by the Covid-19 pandemic?