Tim Jones's Blog, page 52
June 28, 2010
Tuesday Poem: Gemini Spacewalk, by Harvey Molloy
I was out there
with the flag
and the mission instructions
for the EVA
on my sleeve
but I fell behind schedule
caught by the blue arc
of sky and ocean
against the black
a hurricane-stirred
cappuccino cloud
covered the Gulf of Mexico
except for the transparent
flea of the Florida peninsula
even the small
drops of ice
from the coolant tank
formed perfect worlds
and I thought
of Trey's letter
from the 365 US Marine
helicopter squadron
a fortnight spent cleaning the a...
June 23, 2010
Why You Should Be At Au Contraire
I've banged on a couple of times on this blog about how voting on the Sir Julius Vogel Awards will be taking place at Au Contraire, this year's New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention, taking place from Fri 27 to Sun 29 August 2010 at the Quality Hotel, Wellington
But what I should have stressed is how good Au Contraire is shaping up to be.
The convention gets a sizeable helping hand from taking place the weekend before this year's World Science Fiction Convention, Aussiecon 4...
June 21, 2010
Tuesday Poem: No Oil
Bad news from the north
and the queues growing longer.
Late winter, I remember,
when the shipments ceased.
There was still oil for some
which showed
where power intersected with need:
Agriculture.
The rich.
Ministerial limousines.
The rest of us walking,
riding bikes, taking trains,
living
as our grandparents had:
valuing land
for what it can grow.
A Great Leap Forwards
in reverse
our faith now
in the wisdom of the old.
The world to the north
turns to poison
a battle
of each again...
June 16, 2010
My Goal
I scored a goal once. It wasn't a leaping header, three minutes into injury time, to give New Zealand its first point in the 2010 World Cup. It wasn't a leaping anything; it was more of a plod. But it was very satisfying to me.
I used to play social football in Dunedin for a team then called, if I recall correctly, Lord Louis' XI - also the name of the cricket team many of us played in during the summer. We had some good players, but I wasn't one of them. I used to play as a fullback, but I ...
June 14, 2010
Tuesday Poem: Homing, by Helen Lowe
Homing
He hears it, in every slap
of wave against wood,
as the ship cleaves water
like a seabird, hears the word
that he has hungered for
through the lost years,
whispered to him now
by the sea as it bears him up,
speeds him on like a lover
to the consummation
of his long-held dream
of home: home, lilts the sea,
soft as a lullaby, and home,
sings the wind, slipping
through rigging, soothing
him to rest, not to wake
even as a clear dawn
pares away night, reveals
rocky...
June 9, 2010
How To Vote In The Sir Julius Vogel Awards
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, the anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, is on the final ballot in the Best Collected Work category at the Sir Julius Vogel Awards - and there are many fine works nominated in all the categories.
The administrators have now released this handy guide on...
How to Vote
To be eligible to vote, you must be a member of SFFANZ or an Attending or Supporting member of Au Contraire - the 31st New Zealand National Science Fiction & Fantasy...
June 7, 2010
Tuesday Poem: Good Solid Work
Good Solid Work
We'll laugh at this world one day.
It was all a simulation, we'll say -
nodding our virtual heads
smiling our virtual smiles -
why didn't we spot it before?
Nature could never
have come up with the emu
and the hammerhead shark was clearly a clue.
We talk without moving our lips, mind to mind.
Quantum theory's the clincher.
Don't sweat the small stuff, so those in charge
left the edges fuzzy
let the smallest particles
roam where they may.
Still, they did some things well -
June 4, 2010
The Saturday Serial: Win A Day With Mikhail Gorbachev, Part IV
Part IV: Expedition To Earth
After the evening meal, Raisa and Mikhail would normally head out to the theatre or a movie, or invite a few friends round for a Pepsi. Tonight, however, they're off to Sheremetyevo Airport to greet the winner of the U.S.-Soviet Friendship Society's "Win a day with Mikhail Gorbachev" competition. This competition attracted over 10,000 entries, despite unfavourable comment in the U.S. media, and represents a significant...
June 2, 2010
An Interview With Penelope Todd
Penelope Todd is a writer, editor and manuscript consultant currently living in Dunedin. She has had seven young adult novels published by Longacre Press, including her Watermark trilogy, and a memoir, Digging for Spain: A Writer's Journey. Her latest novel is Island, published by Penguin (2010), an adult novel.(Photo of Penelope Todd by Claire Beynon)
Has it been a difficult transition from writing fiction for a young adult audience to writing fiction for an adult audience - and is it a...
June 1, 2010
Boycott BP? Boycott The Lot Of Them!
There's a "Boycott BP" movement growing on the Internet at the moment - a response to BP's lamentable inability to plug, kill, cap, or otherwise contain their "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
It's an understandable response, but BP is the wrong target.
Why?
First, BP is hardly unique among oil companies in its arrogant disregard for the environment, human rights, democracy, life, and anything else that gets in its way. A few examples:
Shell has been spilling oil all...
