Chrononautic Log

March 31, 2004

I mean, Jesus. How long do we have to put up with this crap?

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March 30, 2004

This is why I haven’t finished my novel. Yep.

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Update: This.

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I don’t know why, exactly, but I have the feeling I’ve met other residents of this girl’s fantasyland, and maybe spent some time there myself.

But not for a while, now.

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March 26, 2004

The Catholic Church has condemned Santa Muerte services as devil worship, and law enforcement authorities have linked the cult to violence committed by drug traffickers and child prostitution rings. . . .

Still, the real power behind the cult comes from Mexico's impoverished and neglected masses. . . . Those who attended this month said they were devout Catholics, but they said they adored Santa Muerte because she was their creation and because she had been created in their image.

According to her followers, Santa Muerte is not above pleasures of the flesh, even though she has no flesh. She prefers feathered boas and sequined gowns to celestial blue robes illuminated by the sun. She likes chocolates and flaunts rows of rings on each finger. She chain-smokes, and drinks her whiskey straight. . . .

Hayde Solís Cárdenas, 65, offered typical testimony. She sells smuggled tennis shoes for a living. . . . She said the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint, would not sympathize with a life like hers, tending rather to well-off people with college degrees and nice clothes. Santa Muerte, she said, hears prayers from dark places.

“She was sent to rescue the lost, society’s rejects,” Ms. Solís said.

“She understands us, because she is a cabrona like us,” the street merchant added, using a Mexican expletive. “We are hard people and we live hard lives. But she accepts us all, when we do good and bad.”

—— Ginger Thompson, “On Mexico’s Mean Streets, Sinners Have a Saint,” NYT, 26 March 2004

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March 23, 2004

Who says new technologies don’t create new jobs?

Permanent full-time position for a personal social coordinator for a New York-based web designer.

Your primary responsibility will be managing my accounts with various online social networking sites including, but not limited to, Friendster, LinkedIn, Tribe, Orkut, Ryze, Spoke, ZeroDegrees, Ecademy, RealContacts, Ringo, MySpace, Yafro, EveryonesConnected, Friendzy, FriendSurfer, Tickle, Evite, Plaxo, Squiby, and WhizSpark.

Future duties may include discouraging companies and individuals from starting new social networking sites so that additional staff won't be necessary in the future. Past employment as a bouncer, “heavy”, or hired goon may be helpful in this regard.

Okay, so he’s kidding. But look: Somebody really needs to invent something new, soon, so tech companies and venture capitalists will stop chasing all these trivial little ideas expecting one of them to be the next Tulip Bubble.

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March 22, 2004

Nearly slipped my mind, and I'll bet it slipped yours, too: Hugo nominations are due — like, must-arrive-by “due” — Thursday. I’ve got this massive Wille zur Macht deficiency that keeps me from nominating my own stuff, but that doesn’t have to stop you.

• Novelette: “Theo’s Girl”, Polyphony 2
• Novelette: “The Memory of Water”, Strange Horizons
• Short story: “Fetch”, Strange Horizons
• Short story: “Long Past Midnight”, Say . . . what time is it?

Plus, it’s the last year of Best Professional Editor eligibility for Mary Anne Mohanraj, at least in her capacity as Editor-in-Chief of Strange Horizons; all kinds of cool people are eligible for the Campbell (though not me, not yet); and, oh, yeah, a bunch of other good stuff was published last year.

(Not to mention Gollum’s MTV acceptance speech. Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, or I don’t know what any of those words mean.)

So if you’re eligible — and I know a bunch of you are, ’cause six or seven months ago I was drinking with you in Toronto — then surf, don’t walk, over to the Noreascon web site and get nominatin’.

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March 18, 2004

“If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined,” Scalia went on to say.

No shit, Tony. And whose fault do you think that is?

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March 17, 2004

It’s an election-year idea, so who knows if it’ll get anywhere, but it’s worth a shot. From a Kerry speech at George Washington University:

Civil Affairs personnel, almost all of them reservists, are stretched to the breaking point, building schools and hospitals. . . .

In small towns and cities across this country, there are judges, public administrators, educators, economists, civil engineers, and public safety professionals. They represent a vast untapped reserve of citizens capable — and I believe willing — to make their contribution to national security. . . . I propose that we enlist thousands of them in a Civilian Stability Corps, a reserve organization of volunteers ready to help win the peace in troubled places.

Like military reservists, they will have peacetime jobs; but in times of national need, they will be called into service to restore roads, renovate schools, open hospitals, repair power systems, draft a constitution, or build a police force. A Civilian Stability Corps can bring the best of America to the worst of the world — and reduce pressure on the military.

Of course, the subtext to the proposal is that in the 21st century the US is going to have a lot of nation-building to do, which is a little scary. But that doesn’t necessarily mean knocking them down first. And maybe the right wouldn’t yammer about sending the CSC to help out, say, the UN, the way they explode any time anyone talks about US military units operating under foreign command.

Okay, they probably would.

By the way, if you haven’t already, you should check out Kathryn Cramer’s coverage of the ongoing, and increasingly suspicious, South African mercenary / West African coup / US oil interests story.

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I had this idea I was going to not post until we had the TOC ready for ASZAS, but, y’know, screw that. (We’ll have it soon, honest.)

First things first: apologies to Ms. Livdahl for not acknowledging her as a Ratbastard. English needs a gender-inclusive plural that’s more interesting than people, less folksy than folks, and that, unlike ladies and gentlemen, allows for one lady and many gentlemen, one gentleman and many ladies, or possibly just one lady and one gentleman.

Next, apologies to Ms. Bond. I’ve still only written answers to three of those five questions, and they shouldn’t be hard questions, either.

Third, I’ve just had news of the 2003 Strange Horizons Reader’s Choice Awards. In the fiction category, we have:

• First place: “In the Late December,” Greg van Eekhout
• Second place: “Sleeping with Bears,” Theodora Goss
• Third place: “Living with the Harpy,” Tim Pratt

and

• Honorable mention: “Fetch,” yours truly.

Ms. Goss and Messrs. Pratt and van Eekhout are folks [see what I mean? —Ed.] I have no trouble giving place to. Well done, all.

I’d also like to congratulate Ms. Goss, my TOC-mate for Polyphony 2, on having her story from that volume, “Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold,” selected for the Hartwell/Cramer Year’s Best Fantasy. It’s a hell of a story, and you should all read it. Mr. Pratt has one in there too — nice work, Tim.

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March 9, 2004

One hundred ninety-two submissions; 1,105,000 words.

Sorry to keep you all in suspense. We’re hoping to get all the responses in the mail at once, and before the end of the month.

(Now, bitte entschuldigen Sie, I’d better dive again, before the coastal patrols catch my schnorchel on the surface. It’s a long way / to Tipperary / it’s a long way / to go . . .)

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