“I just wanted to make food,” Lou said.

July 5, 2023 6:10 AM

"Please be informed, the notification read, that your business, the Sunlight Cafe, has been designated a Moderately Impactful Business. This replaces your current designation as a Negligibly Impactful Business. The Moderately Impactful Business designation comes with increased governance requirements which are listed below. Note that our decision may be appealed and is considered probationary until the appeals process is complete." In the short scifi story "Sunlight" by Shauna Gordon-McKeon, one woman loves that the little café she runs with her wife has become a community space. But her wife doesn't. [Disclaimer: Shauna is a friend.]
posted by brainwane (15 comments total)

I feel like this story really benefits from close to zero detail as to what the council actually demands, because otherwise we could mentally debate the merits of one thing or another when that's not what the story is about. It does a good job of capturing the anxiety you face when subjecting a thing you made to greater exposure to the world; it will and must change and you cannot say how.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 6:28 AM on July 5, 2023 [11 favorites]

I love the tension and ebb and flow of this story.
posted by brilliantine at 6:48 AM on July 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Since this post has been flagged, this is just a note to say that posting work of your friends or people you know is ok, and yeah this is a change from long standing practice, see the FAQ entry for details
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:08 AM on July 5, 2023 [18 favorites]

Always a good morning with a brainwane short story post! Thanks for sharing this 😁
posted by sixswitch at 7:13 AM on July 5, 2023 [7 favorites]

I want to know what happens when you become a Significantly Impactful Business.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:16 AM on July 5, 2023

I want to know what happens when you become a Significantly Impactful Business.

The story lays it out rather bluntly:

A thirty-minute bike ride away, on the other side of town, was a building that used to be a bank, one of the big chains with thousands of locations. When the Impact Councils broke it up, it became Windmoor Bank, but it had been out-competed by the neighborhood credit union.

posted by NoxAeternum at 8:59 AM on July 5, 2023

Lovely story.
posted by jferg at 10:42 AM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

That was a good story. Characters simply drawn, just enough world-building, solid emotion, and some speculation to chew on. Thanks!
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:43 AM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read this just after my weekly check of the NYC Landmark Preservation Commission's agenda. I check the agenda to make sure nobody is trying to landmark our house. I do not want bureaucrats to decide what color I'm allowed to paint my house. If the First Amendment means anything, it means the right to have my house look different from my neighbor's house.

One of the many things I love about my partner is that she has as little patience as I do for busybodies who want to tell us what to do with our house.

The author does a great job of noticing the perverse incentives of the Impact Councils: that if they hadn't donated food, they would be in a better position to keep their little cafe the way they wanted it. As for me, I am thinking of ways to make my house as ahistorical as possible now, before the LPC gets to it.

(The antimonopoly aspect of the Impact Councils seem fine, except that in practice large businesses tend to be better at gaming complex regulations).
posted by novalis_dt at 11:17 AM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I can't help but think that if Lou can't stand being more "public," maybe she needs to go work for another business that lets her hide? Maybe that would be the best compromise between the two? Because Clarissa clearly needs to be more public and helping and participatory, but I also get Lou's need to stay hidden, even if I'm not sure what she's hiding from. We live in a day and age where if you're Seen, you're in danger, and even if I'm not quite sure what the definition of that would be in this world, I get her not being comfortable with the situation.

I read a lot of Donald Maass and he talks about "tension on every page." This one does it over a small plot idea. Good job.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:23 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is excellent! Especially the premise of the Impact Councils.
posted by panhopticon at 3:23 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love this, a lot of world building sketched out against two people trying to connect.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:05 PM on July 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wonderful.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:12 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

This was deeply wonderful to read.

I love the idea of the Impact Councils, and I completely relate to both the inclination to trust them and the despairing fear of losing ownership of the thing you are daily creating.

And I also loved the clarity of Gordon-McKeon's slim sketches of the other characters - Wendy and Colin and Perry and Todd and Sofia. Just the barest handful of words for each one, but they are distinct and human and fully part of this world.

I am so glad I got to read this tonight. Thank you so much for posting it, brainwane.
posted by kristi at 8:38 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

'Sunlight" is fascinating.

I appreciate the authors I've read who do this kind of (to me, fundamentally optimistic) design fiction. Malka Older, Ruthanna Emrys, Iona Datt Sharma, Annalee Newitz, sometimes Neal Stephenson or Bruce Sterling or Charlie Stross but they are usually more cynical, MJ Locke in "Up Against It", Cory Doctorow in "Walkaway", Charlie Jane Anders and Naomi Kritzer. I love this stuff.

But so often the design fiction doesn't reckon with the personal struggles of sharing power with one's neighbors, or the governance structure piece is about The Big Picture rather than the local, or it's set so far in the future or outer space that it's hard to make it feel like the near future, OR the characters don't catch at my heart.

This is special.

Gordon-McKeon, as a researcher and activist, studies governance in small groups and helps groups implement their preferred forms of governance, and develops software tools to make that possible. It's so delightful, for me, to get to check out how that domain knowledge comes out in another dimension: fiction. I love getting to read speculative fiction deeply informed by the author's day job!

Fascinating.
posted by brainwane at 5:04 AM on July 11, 2023