The big day is finally here! Three fun things are happening today:

The Towers

Fun thing one - The Towers is finally available for order. There are a couple different ways you can get a copy, all of which are detailed on my new Shop page.

• Read The Towers

Both paperback and ebook copies are available. Currently, you can buy the ebook versions from Smashwords or Amazon's Kindle Store.

Smashwords has every kind of ebook version you could need (.mobi, .epub, .pdf, .etc), so if you want to read it on your Nook, Kobo, or iBook app, then Smashwords is where you want to look. The Towers will eventually be available in the Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iBooks stores, but as of this writing, the book is not yet posted to those sites. I will update this site and various social media channels when that changes.

New website design

Fun thing two - The Double-J has a bit of a new look now, mostly because I actually have a navigation at the top of the page. I also have a new About page as well as the aforementioned Shop page. But don't worry, the light gray background will remain a cornerstone of my design for years to come.

Birthday

Fun thing three - It's my 27th birthday today. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this at year's end, but this has been without a doubt the weirdest and most rewarding year of my life. Thank you to everyone reading this, and everyone who has ever read any of the silly or serious things I've written.

And most of all, thanks to my wife, without whom The Towers (and this whole website really) would not be possible. Looking forward to sharing a piece of cake with you today. One of many more to come.

If you missed it, go to my Shop page to read The Towers. It really is a good book. I wouldn't ask for money for it if I didn't think so. And you know that's true because of how free everything else on the Double-J is. Extremely free. So give it a try.

As some of you know, I've spent a lot of time finishing up The Towers over the last few weeks - editing, formatting, praying, re-editing, re-formatting, and drinking copious amounts of orange juice. Though The Towers isn't my first novel, it is my first novel worth reading, and I think it's good enough that I would recommend it to you, especially if you like fantasy.

So I'm quite happy and relieved to be able to announce a release date for The Towers - Monday, November 18. The book will be available from a number of retailers in print and all ebook formats. A full list of ordering options will be posted to this website on Nov. 18. Until then, I won't be posting any new stories on the Double-J (That's what I call this website; I hope it catches on.), but you can expect a brand new story to come your way on November 20.

Here's a bit about what The Towers is about:

The Towers

Neither more nor less than one hundred towers shall shield you from the Nightmare. For each tower is a Prohibition, and each Prohibition is a tower. And the towers alone can save you from the death the Nightmare brings.

- The First Prohibition

For generations, the mountain people of Cairn Meridia have lived free, defending themselves from the dark army of the Nightmare with the strength of their towers, the wisdom of the Prohibitions, and the magic of shame and grace. But now, as a masked rebellion festers in the heart of the city, the Nightmare comes again, twenty years too soon, and the fate of Cairn Meridia hangs upon a terrible choice. Here is a tale of lies, loyalty, and above all love.

Jordan Jeffers would like to take this opportunity to tell you that this is his last signature in third person. From now on, I won't pretend to be an editor. Feel free to give me electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to me than you might think.

My newest column for McSweeney's is up today, about the moral implications of the recent wave of Art TV. You can read the whole column on McSweeney's. Here's a preview

I finally did something yesterday I had never done before: I intentionally watched a reality television show. The key word in that previous sentence is “intentionally.” I have, of course, seen reality TV before, a lot of it. But it has always been against my will. My wife would turn on an episode of The Biggest Loser every once in a while, or The Bachelor every twice in a while, or Say Yes to the Dress every marathon in a while, and I would sit in the same room and read and pretend not to be distracted but actually secretly watch the show because I like spending time with my wife and because I really, really like it when Randy asks the brides if-they-are-saying-yes-to-the-dress.

I felt like I could have written another 5000 words on this one, hence the footnotes you'll see at the bottom of the column.

Jordan Jeffers is currently rewatching the Cardinals 2011 World Series DVD in an effort to remove the horrible display the Cards put on last night from his memory. It is totally working.

Book review in one tweet

Two humans and two wheeled houseplants race across the galaxy to stop a demonic supercomputer and save 2 kids from a bunch of evil rat-dogs.

Favorite quote

How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.

Review

I picked up A Fire Upon the Deep from a 2011 NPR list of the 100 best sci-fi and fantasy books of all time. I wanted to get The Mists of Avalon but the library's copy was checked out. A Fire Upon the Deep was a wonderful consolation prize, however, with plenty of action and big ideas to keep me fully engrossed. I also really like Vernor Vinge's name. Well done, Vernor Vinge's parents.

The story begins when a colony of humans accidentally builds a hyper-intelligent artificial intelligence called The Perversion. As you might expect from the name, The Perversion isn't very nice, and it soon kills most of the humans and begins a slow takeover of the rest of the galaxy. A family of four manages to escape however, carrying a weapon that could stop The Perversion from spreading further. The family crash-lands on a planet full of intelligent dog-rats, who kill the adults and take the children captive.

Meanwhile, the spread of The Perversion leads to an attempted rescue mission of the children and the weapon they hold, conducted by a couple of humans and a couple of "Riders," aliens that are sort of like intelligent house plants with wheels and short term memory loss.

The dog-rats are one of the most fascinating species of aliens I've ever encountered in the pages of fiction (or in real life). Each dog-rat "person" is made up of multiple "members," and each member has a distinct body and brain. The dog-rats "think" through specialized sound waves, which travel from member to member, coordinating their movements like fingers on a hand. So where a human sees five different dog-rats working together like a circus act, the other dog-rats simply see one being.

This is sci-fi at its best, raising all sorts of fun questions. How does an individual emerge from a multitude of parts? What is the relationship between soul and body (or bodies, in the case of the dog-rats)? How much does an individual have to change in order to be, effectively, a new person? And what happens when one part of yourself battles the other for control over the soul? A Fire Upon the Deep asks these questions and more.

When a story is as big as this one, expanding to the size of the galaxy, there's a distinct danger that individual human (or super dog-rat, or short-term-memory-loss plant) actions will shrink to insignificance in comparison. This shrinking is a good thing to the extent that it leads to humility, but there's a fine line between humility and despair. At times, Double-V walks both sides of that line, but ultimately A Fire Upon the Deep comes down on the side of hope, the side where love matters, and where the greatest love is shown when a human/dog-rat/plant lays down their life for a friend.

Nerd rating

8 wizard staffs (out of 10)

A Fire Upon the Deep has pretty much everything you would want from a science fiction book: epic scale, weirdly fascinating alien life forms, blaster fights, immanent threat of complete galactic disaster, and real human emotion. I docked it a couple staffs because the middle third of the book is rather slow, keeping half the characters in cold storage in the midst of space. That's a nitpick, though. It's well worth the time.

Non-nerd rating

4 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

Not a book for beginning sci-fi readers. The jargon is heavy, and there's not a ton of hand-holding to get you grounded in the setting. If you can make it through the opening chapter, you might stand a chance.

Jordan Jeffers would like to take this opportunity to promote his new book, The Towers, an epic fantasy novel that will be released November 18. Early reviews on Facebook have been very flattering.

Dear Mother,

I'm writing this on a Thursday morning, about ten or so hours removed from last night's Cardinals victory in Game 5 of the NLDS. We don't have cable anymore, so I watched the game on an iPad, drinking Bud Light out of a commemorative Cardinals beer stein. This was the most St. Louis-y thing I could think of.

Game 5 joins a long list of Cardinals memories now, slotted in beside Carpenter's Game 5 in Philly, and Yadi's home run in New York, and three dozen diving catches by Jim Edmonds. They're all stored up in my head, these memories, like books on a crowded shelf. And every once in a while I'll pull one down and dust it off, read it a little, and think about the moment it happened, the people I shared it with, an unbroken line of nostalgia from the moment that I could remember anything at all.

But memory is an odd thing. I recall very little of the games I went to when I was a boy. (By the way, am I too young to start using phrases like "when I was a boy?" I defer to your judgment on this.) At least, I recall almost nothing of the actual games, what happened and who made what plays and who won. It's the other stuff I remember, the atmosphere, the environment, the people.

I remember the parking garage on 8th street and the aerial walkway that ran between it and the stadium, the crowds of fans we would weave through on the way to our seats, my hand in yours. I remember old black guys and young black guys and old white guys playing saxophones on the street corners, dressed in Cardinal red, and me always a little afraid of them, of their puffing cheeks and skillful fingers and open cases, lined with the scatterings of crumpled bills and bright silver coins, resting on blue felt. I remember the long, endless ramps that we walked up to our seats, the way I would always get distracted with counting the bars on the railing, or watching the cars on the Interstate outside, then run to catch up to you when I saw you had gotten ahead, like I was a dog in a park, and you my owner.

I remember tiny red plastic helmets filled with vanilla ice cream, and over-sized Cokes in souvenir cups, and paper boxes of popcorn, striped in red and white, boxes that always had the word "Popcorn" on them in bright red letters, so you always knew what you were getting into. I remember standing on the field in Busch Stadium 1, the grass perfect and green underfoot, the bases looking so much farther away from each other than they looked from above. I remember Ozzie Smith doing back flips, and Willie McGee getting standing ovations, and Brian Jordan smashing into the walls in the outfield to rob extra base hits. And I remember that every time Jordan would do this, someone nearby would make a comment about how he used to play football. Guaranteed.

I remember when Dad would pick me up from my own football practice in '98, and the first thing I would do when I saw him was demand to know whether McGuire had hit any home runs that day, and if so how many, and if not, how many Sosa had hit. The list goes on. I haven't come close to exhausting it (the organ and the kiss cam and the hat dance and the wave and the nachos and the beer vendors and...)

And every year, I add a few more memories to the list, home runs and double plays, wicked curve balls and screaming line drives, Yadi throwing laser beams to second, and the big "CS" flashed up on the video board. Paul going to a game on his 21st birthday and sharing his first (legal) beer at the ballpark with Dad, probably the first time I ever saw alcohol in Dad's hand. Photos of my new nephew at Spring Training, decked out in a complete designer line of Cardinals clothing, because of course he was. Dad taking me to Game 1 of the '11 World Series and buying me a stocking cap, like I was twelve years old again instead of a married man of twenty-four. And me feeling about as loved and happy as I could get when he did. Running around my apartment with Madelyn during Game 6, screaming at the top of my lungs after watching Freese go deep.

It's silly, in a way, to be that invested in a team, to care that much about the various adventures of a little white ball. But, really, it's not so much the game that I care about. And I think it's something I'm just realizing now, as I write this, why I love baseball so much. Because baseball is about family. And every time I say I love baseball, I'm really saying that I love my family. I love you, and Dad, and Paul and Katie and Grami and Grandpa and everybody who ever put on that "lovely shade of cardinal" with me, and stood in the stands or watched the TV or listened to the radio and cheered and thought, "This is just about as happy as I can get." I love thinking about baseball, because I love thinking about you. And so it will go with my family, if God blesses me more than I deserve. As he always has.

I hope that makes sense.

Remaining always, your loving son and Cardinals fan,

Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother in the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft.

Documentary review in one tweet

French guy who looks like General Ambrose Burnsides obsessively films street artists. Then he becomes a street artist? Maybe. Wait...what?

Favorite Quote

"I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art. I used to think everyone should do it.... I don't really do that anymore." - Banksy

Review

So I first heard about this doc a couple years ago from one of my former college professors, and I have been meaning to see it ever since. The premise sounded like something that I should have an opinion on, especially among all the intellectual arty people that I know. Which is four. I know four intellectual arty people. I figured they would want to know what I thought about it.

The film follows the story of a French immigrant named Thierry Guetta, a guy who has the full beard/sideburns/mustache/bare chin look that was so popular during the Civil War. Guetta has this weird habit of obsessively filming almost everything that goes on in his life. He never actually watches these tapes or does anything with them. When a tape fills up, he sticks it in a box and forgets about it.

At one point, we're told that this habit comes from an early childhood trauma, in which Guetta missed the death of his sick mother, leading to a compulsive need to record everything permanently. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's as good an explanation as any, I suppose, and it sounds more reasonable than "he's crazy."

At any rate, when Guetta goes back to France for a vacation, he finds out that his cousin is the street artist Invader, so named because he puts pictures of characters from the Space Invaders video game on public signs and walls. This leads Thierry to a whole bunch of other street artists with wonderful names like Seizer, Neckface, Sweet Toof, Cyclops, Ron English, Dot Masters, Barf, and Buffmaster. This, in turn, led me to spend about twenty minutes after the film trying to come up with a street artist name for myself, briefly considering "Gandalf the Pale" and "Onomatopoeia" before finally settling on "St. Penguin." I would probably paint a lot of serious looking penguins in mitres. (A mitre is a big pointy hat that bishops wear, for those of you who aren't Catholic scholars.)

Anyway, Guetta eventually meets Banksy, the most famous street artist in the world and the maker of this film. At this point in Banksy's career, he's just starting to become super famous, and his works of art are being sold for thousands and thousands of dollars, or "pounds" as the British like to call them. There's this vague sense of wrongness associated with this commodification of street art, a suspicion that somehow Banksy's art loses its creative power the moment you put a price tag on it. Banksy's response to this is to ask Thierry to put together a documentary about street art, to show people that its not about the money, money, money; we don't need your money, money, money; we're just trying to make the world dance, and spraypaint cartoons on walls.

So Guetta does so, putting together a little film called Life Remote Control, which is pretty horrible, even worse than What the #$*! Do We Know!?. Banksy kindly tells Thierry to go home to L.A. and "do a little art" while he's waiting for the documentary to be finished. But this is Thierry Guetta we're talking about here, and he doesn't do anything unless he can do it obsessively. So instead of just putting a few stencils up here and there, Guetta decides to put on a massive art show instead, renting out an abandoned warehouse and filling it with the street art of his new alter ego Brainwash.

And this art looks...um...let's say that it looks like a slightly more horrible version of the art Banksy does, like Guetta essentially just copied Banksy's whole style and repackaged it as his own.

Oh yeah, and he made like millions of dollars doing this. That left me with two questions:

Question 1: Guetta almost never creates any of this art himself. He pays a number of graphic designers and production specialists to do it for him. He gives them a vision and they execute that vision. So who is the artist? Isn't it the people actually putting paint to canvas (or clicking the mouse in Photoshop, or nailing the TVs together to make a giant robot)? So why is Thierry getting all the credit and money?

Question 2: Doesn't all of his stuff kind of look the same? (the answer to this one is yes, yes it does.)

By the end of the movie, I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be happy for Guetta, sad for the world, or whether I was supposed to just laugh at the whole thing. He's either crazy or he's serious or he's joking. And so is the rest of the world.

Final Rating

8 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

There's enough pretty stuff to look at here that even if you aren't into complicated questions about the place of art in modern capitalism you'll probably enjoy it. The crazy story involving Disney police and Guantanamo Bay is worth watching by itself.

St. Penguin would like everyone to know that you can buy his paperclip sculptures for $2.99 each. Though he'll take a million if you've got it.

My new column for McSweeney's, "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," debuts today on the Tendency. This one is about Ms. Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball, and the Biblical story of Amnon and Tamar. Here's a little preview:

As I sat there, the boom box started playing “Blurred Lines,” and the three frisbee men immediately stopped their game and began twerking in celebration. One of them was actually pretty good. Like, suspiciously good. Like, I have a sneaking feeling that he watched the VMAs and immediately began twerk two-a-days, practicing for this exact moment, and a dozen or so other moments in the years to come, at weddings and clubs and house parties, knowing he would get himself a cheap laugh at Ms. Cyrus’s expense. Well, mission accomplished, Twerking Guy.

Mission accomplished.

You can read the whole column at the McSweeney's Internet Tendency website. Comments are not allowed on the Tendency, so if you have something nice to say, you can do it on this page.

Jordan Jeffers is currently learning how to twirl baton. This is not a joke, just something funny that's actually happening. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.

Book review in one tweet

75 frantic pages from a mind that can't stop thinking, and a heart that can't stop breaking.

Favorite quote

Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering accept to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.

Review

There's this word in philosophy: "theodicy." I learned it during my intro to philosophy course in college. Roll it out to impress your friends. It's basically a kind of philosophical defense of God, a logical argument for the existence of pain in the world, an answer to the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

I hate theodicies. Hate 'em. You know how much I hate 'em because I've slipped into an old-timey dialect.

It's not that the people who write them have the wrong intentions, or even necessarily that they aren't convincing (because some of them are pretty convincing). I hate 'em because any attempt to explain the existence of pain is ultimately hollow. The problem of pain is not a philosophical problem. It's a personal one. It doesn't matter if the geniuses can reason pain out or not, what matters is what you do when the pain comes. Whether you hold onto hope, faith, and love, or whether you let the storm sweep you over the side.

That's why I chose to review A Grief Observed rather than Lewis's own theodicy, The Problem of Pain. Because in this little book, we get to see the greatest popular philosopher of the modern era in pain, living through the death of his wife, Joy Davidman, and all the heartbreak that follows from it. (FYI: He originally wrote the book under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk, hence the cover image above. Apparently he really liked abbreviating the first two initials of author names.)

His response is to turn again to his philosophy, to spiral round and round the same old questions. But even when he finds what seem like good answers, the answers don't help him where it really matters. The answers don't "make the pain not to be pain." Basically I'm saying that I really liked this book because it helps me prove a point, which is pretty much why most of us enjoy non-fiction books.

And beyond those larger questions of God and pain, Lewis has a fascinating take on the nature of memory, and his fear of losing the "reality" of his wife, the hard corners and rough edges, the way she would surprise him and disagree with him, the way her presence made it impossible for him to fit her into box of his choosing. This appreciation for reality is refreshing in a philosopher, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it comes in this, his least philosophical book.

Nerd rating

8 wizard staffs (out of 10)

If you're a true Lewis fan, spend the thirteen bucks and get the current HarperCollins edition. It's a beautiful looking book, with old timey pages that are different widths, so it's super annoying when you're trying to flip through it. It'll look good on the shelf though, or on the bus when you're reading it.

Non-nerd rating

8 cold, frosty beers (out of ten)

One of the few books with the same rating for nerds and non-nerds alike. Grief and pain are universal human experiences, and Lewis's style is (as usual) clear and accessible. I'd suggest borrowing it if possible, or getting a used version somewhere. Thirteen bucks is a little steep for 75 pages.

If you really want to read a theodicy, Jordan Jeffers recommends the Book of Job. You can give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.

Dear Mother,

There's a document in my Google Drive that I wrote about nine or ten months ago, when I was trying to decide what to do with my website. I titled it "Website Thunder Brain" because I like to be different, and this sounded cooler to me than "Website Brainstorm." It's basically a list of ideas for my website, this light-gray masterpiece that is jordanjeffers.com. Here's a direct quote from part of it:

Blog content should be mostly non-topical, humorous work, in the following order of priority:

1. Fiction - Along the lines of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
2. Nerd appreciation - Thoughts on wizards, books, making friends, and playing games.
3. Christianity - Thoughts on religious life, scripture, and pop culture?
4. Sports - Personal narratives, fun with baseball history, and shameless Cardinals rants

Let's focus on the first item on that list. When I said, "Along the lines of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency", what I really meant was, "Almost identical to McSweeney's Internet Tendency in every way." I basically intended to steal their model as much as possible, focusing on short pieces that smash genres together in different ways. (Stealing other people's ideas, of course, is a writerly tradition that dates back to Shakespeare.) The first two stories I ever wrote for this site -- Letter of recommendation for Ms. Amelia Bedelia and A series of letters to the boy who keeps cutting things off of the Giving Tree -- are pretty classic McSweeney's style stories, though longer than they normally publish.

I never really stopped copying McSweeney's, or "the Tendency" as I like to call it, though much of my work now is a bit less "conceptual," fiction that's closer to being a story than an idea. But I always felt like they had found a niche that was really worth exploring, little ideas that could have a big impact on the way we see little things, like lower back tattoos.

Anyway, this is all behind the scenes sort of stuff, and not particularly interesting. I really just quoted the passage above to show you how much I respect McSweeney's, how much I wanted to emulate them.

And that brings me to a few weeks ago, when the Tendency announced their 5th Annual Column Contest. They do this every year, as you probably picked up on from the word "annual," soliciting columns ideas from random people. The winners all receive a $500 prize and a chance to write for the Tendency for a year. This sounded like something I wanted to do/spend, so I decided to enter. I figured that, at the very least, I could use the opportunity to develop something new for my own site.

It took me about a week and a half to really come up with the topic and write something worth reading, eventually coming back to the third item on that list, "Thoughts on religious life, scripture, and pop culture?" The question mark should tell to you how confident I was about my ability to do this in a way that was both real and humorous at the same time. Writing about religion is dangerous work -- the ground is treacherous and thorny, peppered with land mines and banana peels. It's equally easy to blow yourself up and make yourself look like a fool. Often it's safer to circle around the long way, and try to come at God from an oblique angle.

Then Mr. Robin Thicke and Ms. Miley Cyrus decided to write humorists everywhere a blank check of comedy at the VMAs, and my new column came together around their particular insanity. I called it "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," and sent it off like a young child to their first day of school, with a tear, a prayer, and a few shoelaces untied.

A week or so later it came back to me, along with a nice little email from the Tendency informing me that I had not won. [emoticon sad face]

But...[dot dot dot]

I had been honorably mentioned! [emoticon happy face]

Look, you can see my name on the contest results page.

Though this mention comes with no prize money, it does come with much honor and, more importantly, the same chance to write my column for McSweeney's for the next year that the winners get. So starting sometime near the end of September, you'll start to see "Speaking for All Christians Exactly Like Me," on the Tendency. The columns will all be about pop culture in some way or another, and I'll post links to them on my own site, and tweet them, so you won't miss any.

I'm super excited about this, in a way that's really hard to describe. You know those times when something happens that you can't stop smiling about? This is one of those moments, for me.

Hope you are well and joyful, as I am. Can't wait to see the new baby niece again this weekend! She's going to be so proud of me.

With love always,

Your son Jordan

Jordan Jeffers writes letters to his mother on the Internet because stamps are a form of witchcraft. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.

Documentary review in one tweet

#wasteoftime

Favorite Quote

There's not a single quote in this movie I really like. See below for a few that I think are ridiculous.

Review

Let me preface this by saying that I was super hopeful going into this documentary, even with the double punctuation marks at the end of the title. Here's the Netflix description:

When she's thrust from her mundane life into an unfamiliar world, Amanda must develop an all-new perception of her surroundings and the people she interacts with in this quirky film that explores neurological processes and quantum uncertainty.

Sounds interesting, right? Well, it does if you are a nerd who spent significant portions of your life tracing the relationship between quantum mechanics and post-modern literature. The cover image is refreshingly 90s (the whole film feels super 90s, from the jeans to the carpet to the underwear, though it was released in 2003). The deaf Amanda in question is joined on the cover by a chubby, sassy looking African American kid who is, naturally, surrounded by a bunch of basketballs. Remember when this country was still refreshingly unaware of racial stereotypes? No question that this character would be an Asian American girl if the movie was made today, or else the black kid would have a bunch of paint brushes flying around him instead.

At any rate, in spite of high hopes and a cover that promised some good unintentional comedy, the doc proved extremely disappointing. Kind of infuriating, actually. Though it starts out rather well, discussing some of the spooky properties of quantum mechanics, the doc quickly moves into a mild form of insanity. Or at least an extreme form of unlogicality. (No, that's not a real word.)

Here are some actual quotes from the movie:

"There is no 'out there' [external reality] out there, independent of what's going on in here [in the brain]" - Balding Guy in Front of Fireplace

"Do I think you're bad? No, I don't think you're bad. Do I think you're good? No, I don't think you are good. I think you're God." - Blond Woman in What Looks Like a Red Drum Major Uniform.

"There is no such thing as good and bad." - Guy in Front of Obvious Blue Screen

You might be asking, "How can statements like this derive from quantum mechanics?" You might not be. I don't know. But if you are asking it, the only answer I can give you is that they don't. You'll notice I didn't put any names to these quotes, because the doc doesn't supply any. I have no idea who these people are, all I know is that the camera angle is supposed to make them seem like experts. Here's my attempt to explain their logic:

First of all, things get really screwed up in quantum physics; the normal categories of existence that we use to understand things start to disintegrate at a rapid pace. Basically, when you look at the absolutely smallest particles (I'm talking about the pieces that make up electrons and protons), it becomes impossible to pinpoint exactly where a particle is or where its going. That probably makes sense so far; little things are hard to see.

The crazy part is that this uncertainty is not due to a lack of adequate instrumentation. Rather, in quantum mechanics, particles with definite locations and speeds do not exist. Rather, these little bitty pieces exist as a range of possibilities. That's what all the basketballs on the cover are trying to teach you. That, left to their own, these little things act more as tiny waves than tiny basketballs. And their existence is so unstable that we can change them merely by observing them.

What this doc does is take that super interesting idea and decide it means that we are all gods, able to change the universe simply by observing it. Oh, and all religions are lies of course. And morality does not exist. But let's do "good" anyway, even if we have no idea what that means.

You can find a lot of takedowns of the doc on the What the #$*! Do We Know!? Wikipedia page, all of them from scientists, mostly critical of how the doc uses a lot of pseudo-scientific ideas to reach untenable conclusions ("untenable" is a fancy person's word for "stupid"). Although observation may change things at the quantum level, once you get to something the size of, say, an atom, that effect is gone. Matter doesn't really care if you observe it or not. If you stare at a rock, it's just going to sit there. If you stare at The Rock, you'll probably get a People's Elbow to the chest. Either way, you're not God.

Final Review

2 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

Your time would be much better spent punching yourself in the leg, or learning how to sew. Sewing, especially, is a valuable skill.

Jordan Jeffers recommends the New Scientist introduction to quantum mechanics if you want to learn more about how weird it is. Feel free to give him electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to him than you might think.