The Freedom to Die

Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,

    I know it has been a little while since I last wrote to you.  It was considered best that we evaluate our communications with your time stream more carefully before we proceeded with this project.  There are larger concerns, now, especially with the war on.

    I am writing today to talk about an issue that might seem foreign to you, that of "Freedom of Death."  In your time stream, there's much ado about end of life procedures and assisted suicide, but this is a little different.

   When you are effectively immortal, and you can go to the library and cross-reference your achievements in thousands of different time streams, the ideas of life and death become somewhat more nuanced.

Impostor!

Dear Readers,

  Something funny crossed my path today.  Via the Internet, I have discovered a person who may be an as-yet undiscovered version of myself!  I have no idea "who" this person is.  It makes me chuckle.

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople

A Potential Graduate Student?

Dear Readers,

  I found this earlier today.  As the artist says, he's not a time traveler!  But he's certainly good material for an Anachronist.  I can think of a particular time stream he might even want to study.

  Always,

    Dr. John Skylar
    Chairman
    Department of Anachronism
    University of Constantinople

Book-Rhyme

Image by levar via Flickr

Dear Readers,

  Today I've decided to share something with you that I've been scrawling inside the covers of my books since I first became a graduate student: my book rhyme!

  Book rhymes were popular in your 19th and early 20th century, to warn people against stealing others' books, or to help a lost book find its home.  Losing books is not so large a problem for me, with the resources we have here at the University, but I still like the idea of the book rhyme, partly because of Alfred Bester.  Furthermore, I have always offered dinner to anyone who finds a book I've lost, and without a rhyme, it would be hard for them to collect their reward.

  Thus, I've decided to share my book rhyme with you, my readers.

John Skylar is my Name
Byzantium, my Nation
Forever is my Stopping-Place
And Always, my Habitation

Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople

Back in the Saddle Again

Dear Readers,

  I've been away, working on a few different projects, and my bandwidth to your time stream has been taken up with academic correspondence and students' work.

  That period is now over, and I have begun to reevaluate the sorts of things that I put here.  My seminars will remain, as well as at least one narrative/source-style post per week.  However, I am considering adding at least one of two potential new components:

• Music: Might Have Been.  This would be a column where I examine interesting musicians from your time stream and tell you what their lives could have been like if they had not chosen to become such artists.
• City Salons: When I was a graduate student, I often had my friends and sometimes even my enemies over for frank discussion on strange issues.  I still have the records of these events, and I may share them with you.

   If any of you, my readers, have thoughts on either of these new ideas, I would be happy to hear them.

  Always,

   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman
   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople