Ambrose & Elsewhere

The US now leads the industrialized world in deaths preventable by health care.

(Seen at Paul Krugman’s NYT blog.)

A lateish Merry Christmas (or Newtonmass, or Tuesday, or whatever you prefer) to you and yours.

St. Lucy’s Day doesn’t coincide with the solstice anymore. But this is the poem I’m always thinking about at this time of year.

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,
Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The Sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world’s whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed’s-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interred; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruined me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death–things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love’s limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that’s nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drowned the whole world, us two; oft did we grow,
To be two Chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death–which word wrongs her–
Of the first nothing the Elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, Yea stones detest,
And love; All, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser Sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night’s festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her Vigil, and her Eve, since this
Both the year’s and the day’s deep midnight is.

Here’s a nifty post on slushpile clichés by ann_leckie (seen via buymeaclue). And Mithraists should not miss her post with the origami tauroctony.

Actually the barrels are full of water. But one of them serves as a candle-stand, so…

My story “The Red Worm’s Way”–one of my personal favorites, as it shows Morlock at his surliest and drunkest–has been sold to Flashing Swords. Again. FS first bought the story when Howard A. “Indiana” Jones was the editor. When HAJ left for greener fields and blacker gates, the new editor, for reasons best known to himself, dumped my story with some others in an unedited e-book which was available briefly before the publishing company folded. When Flashing Swords came back to life, the editors set about resuscitating the anthology, adding some new stories and authors. It should appear next year as Return of the Sword. Judging from the honor roll of authors, not to mention the cover art, it looks like a venture I’ll be proud to be a part of. (Actually, I already am.)

And John O’Neill at Black Gate has bought the latest Morlock story, a lighthearted piece titled “Destroyer.” It has dragons, and a horde or so of the buglike Khroi, gigantic carnivorous spiderfolk, teenagers, a werewolf, prophecies of doom, an Orestes complex, magic, murders, and fun for the whole family, at least the ones who survive. My guiding principle on this one was “Enough! or Too much!”, I guess. “More jokes and less dismemberment” might be a good recipe for the next one–but I’m not too far into it yet, so don’t hold me to that.

After reading a couple of recent Livejournal threads (here and here), I find myself wondering: do we need some new Hugo Awards?

How about anti-Hugos, to abolish misgiven prizes? Could be named for Clifton & Riley. (The Clifley? The Rifton?)

Alternative Hugos from a parallel universe where something else won? (The Para-gos.)

Awards openly purchased to advertise someone’s backlist. (The Pay-gos.)

Awards given by oneself to one’s own best work in a given year. (The Yugos.)

Awards given to the best works of science fiction actually hacked out of wood by an axe. (The Hew-gos.)

I woke up this morning and found my solar system was dented. Will my insurance cover this?

Giant Magnetic Ropes of Space! Sounds like an early Leigh Brackett story.

Saturn: lord of the ring currents. “Ring current” sounds better than “big electric doughnut”, anyway.

Pat’s Hotlist.)

Alberto Gonzales has been named Lawyer of the Year by the ABA Journal.

I suggest we designate 12/12 as International “Let’s Not Do This Again” Day.

We’re being blitzed by campaign material in NW Ohio–not only is Ohio traditionally a swing state (i.e. one of the few US states where one’s vote for president seems to count, thanks to the electoral college), but we’re facing a special congressional election next Tuesday to replace the late Paul Gillmor. The national parties seem to be pouring a lot of money into this race so that they can claim some sort of trend going into the next election. This barrage of advertising makes me, like you, I expect, think of only one thing: rabbitandmouse. (There are some cusswords speckled through the video below.)

The truth is that I’m sort of in favor of attack ads, as long as they’re accurate. They tend to have more content than the warm fuzzy commercials that show the candidate-we-are-supposed-to-love standing on a hill under a rippling flag or walking in shirtsleeves among the Regular Folk. And it’s not swiftboating if the charges are actually true, and relevant.

For instance, I saw an ad yesterday directed against the candidate I plan to vote for. The ad made clear that she was an X and a Y, and advocated polices W and Z. Since those were four solid reasons to vote for her in my view, I thought it was a fine ad (though I did wonder if it was having the desired effect among voters generally).