I picked up Chuck Klosterman's Rock* at the library the other day. Chuck's work isn't always great and sometimes I wonder if he finished thinking through his idea before starting to write, but I love the strangeness of where he often goes and I'd heard about this novel on a podcast. The premise is that it's 1967, and instead of Sgt Pepper taking them to a new level, it bombs and the Beatles (along with the Rolling Stones and the Who) become irrelevant. In their place, The Velvet Underground & Nico becomes the biggest album of the year. With this in mind, how does the next 30 years of music change?
I'm only a few pages in, and it's interesting and as I read I'm going back and looking online at various bands (like VU) that I am not that familiar with but are referred to as being influential during that period of time. But even beyond increasing my knowledge, I like this idea of "instead of _____, ______ other thing became important'. And while the various superhero and sci-fi franchises have jumped on this idea of there being an infinite number of universes in which an infinite number of things could have happened, I actually like thinking about the reality of what certain things in human history have made a big difference. And not just the tired 'what if the south had won the Civil War?' or 'What if Hitler got the a-bomb first?'
So as I mowed the yard on this cool November day today, here's five fun (or not fun) questions I was thinking about:
-What if Alexander the Great had not died in his early 30s? And his empire had not been divided up between four of his generals?
-What if Nelson Mandella had died in prison? Would peaceful change have come to South Africa?
-What if more than a handful of Republicans had stood up to Trump following January 6th? Actually impeached him and shamed him and even sent him to prison as he deserved?
-What if George Washington had had kids? Would he have had the time to fight the Revolutionary War and then build America? And if he had, would one of his kids become the second president/emperor of North America?
-What if the black plague of the mid 14th century had not happened? Would the Renaissance and Reformation have been possible?
Maybe this will become a new feature on this blog, histories that take place in alternative universes. Who knows, but these five are good starting points.
