IncoRporating Electrolite
This time next year, we ll bring back the Greek, Old Church Slavonic, three kinds of Swedish, Haitian, Icelandic, and Quenya. Right now, they don t render. They will, in the Making Light to come. Just a little longer. It s dark, but the dark never lasts. We ll see you in 2024, in a world where commenting works, [ ]
As I said earlier today on both Twitter and Facebook, I ve done just about everything I can to get this site going again. Unfortunately, this doesn t include getting the comment system to actually work. And the kludges I ve added to Making Light s ancient Movable Type templates in order to prod the site back to life [ ]
The door creaks softly as I push it wide. It s not complaining, really, just surprised That anyone would come. I, mesmerized, Breathe deeply, lift my chin, and step inside. The house is still ineffably itself. The places where we talked, or laughed, or wept, Abide (albeit cobwebbed and unswept). And written there atop the mantle-shelf: [ ]
Hello! Today, Patrick surprised no one more than himself by resurrecting the Making Light front page, archives, and CSS. He was deep in it for 6+ hours. Comments worked for a while, then stopped, which is not terribly surprising; but old ML is readable. If you re having trouble loading something you know is here/there, amend [ ]
We re working on bringing this place back. We miss the fluorosphere, and many of its regulars have emphatically said the same to us. For most of the last couple of years Making Light has existed in a dimly lit half-life. The CSS didn t load, and the front page didn t load, but if you happened to [ ]
Someone elseweb crossed a couple of wires and mentioned Robert Frost when they meant Robert Burns. And I got that awful itch in my brain that I get sometimes. So first this happened: For though yer land an mine Are neighbors near, an a that: We split the apple frae the pine A Wall s a [ ]
Well, that took a couple of hours, but I think I got all of the spam from the past few weeks. If anyone posted a long stream-of-consciousness-style Joyce parody about Tumblr, dating sites, and hormone supplements, it probably got deleted too.
For Teresa and me, March 1 has long been the anniversary of the day we moved to New York City, back in 1984. This year, it was also the first anniversary of the announcement of the first known case of COVID-19 in New York City. With any luck, we ll live to mark future March 1sts [ ]
Blacow* speaks of four players: the Wargamer, the Power-Gamer, the Role-Player, and the Story-Teller. The Wargamer, what does he say? What foe do we fight, and what is the lay of the land? You, in turn, shall describe the battlefield, and challenge his tactical abilities, including the morale check for his henchmen. The Role-Player, what [ ]
Reading about all the people venturing that maybe it would be better to stop the social distancing and reopen the businesses, because tHe dAmAge tO tHe EcOnoMy is So mUcH wOrSe thAn A fEw MiLliOn dEaThS. As someone on Twitter put it, throwing millions of people into a volcano to appease the Market God. I [ ]
So now the rest of the world is discovering virtual communities. I m feeling very hipster; we were doing it before it was cool. What are some of your favorite resources? I want to point out Jo Walton s Decameron project on Patreon (free, but contributions encouraged) and Ada Palmer s #SomethingBeautiful hashtag on Twitter. As they say [ ]
I largely gave up political blogging after November 8, 2016, when it became obvious that I have no idea what I m talking about. I still don t think anyone should pay any attention to what I think. If you re still reading, here are some of the things I recently thought were smart. Keep in mind that [ ]
Just posted to Slate, by Isaac Butler: The Disappearance of John M. Ford. Key takeaway to Making Light readers who remember John M. Mike Ford s brilliant run as a co-blogger here: Tor will, indeed, be reissuing all of Mike s novels, plus a new collection of short fiction and marginalia. We ll also be publishing, for the [ ]
I should be explaining what s been going on in the British Parliament, with links and explanations. Unfortunately I can t, because Patrick and I spent the evening talking about it, finding bits of good stuff to read aloud to each other, and cooking and eating dinner. This was irresponsible of us, because how often does one [ ]
Nobody reads this blog any more. But do read Kieran Healy. A fundamental lesson of Sociology is that, in the course of making everyday life seem orderly and sensible, arbitrary things are made to seem natural and inevitable. Rituals, especially the rituals of childhood, are a powerful way to naturalize arbitrary things. As a child [ ]
The year 222 BCE saw the Roman Emperor Elagabalus assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, to be replaced by Alexander Severus, who was only 13 years old, young enough to have attended Hogwarts and studied potions under a teacher with whom he had a name in common. Or, alternatively, to have attended the fictional Walt Whitman [ ]
It s been a long time since I ve posted a new entry to this community, and I know the comments on the last one have gotten unworkably long. I m sorry. You deserve better. There s been stuff. There still is stuff. I ll explain in the comments. But I d just like to point out that even with my [ ]
Pretty sure we ve all heard Tom Lehrer s Lobachevsky, right? A song about plagiarism where all the bits of melody are stolen from other songs. I just learned that even the idea for the song was stolen! Danny Kaye used to do a routine about the Russian theatrical director Konstantin Stanislavsky, and it s the obvious basis [ ]
Here s something I put up on Facebook (originally as a reply to someone else s thing) in March that I should have put here: Hear the beating of the heart, Deadly heart! What a world of agony that music does impart! How the beating, beating, beating, Like a watch wrapped up in cotton. Neath the flooring, [ ]
Our buzzer goes off. About 8 PM. We re not expecting anyone. I go downstairs. Police, announce the two guys outside our building front door. WTF? I can t think of any reason actual police should be demanding admittance to our Park Slope apartment. (Yes, we moved since the last time I posted to Making Light, back [ ]