Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 107

WRX– First Impressions

Britain didn’t merely shoot itself in the foot, but managed somehow to slice off both legs below the knee. At least it will be cheap to visit there in the future, if I can avoid being eaten by the starving cave dwellers lurking in the cellars of the once-great metropoleis. But anyway I want to talk about something more cheerful, namely my new car. The WRX has been immense fun, though so far most of my errands have been pretty mundane, and I’ve had relatively few occasions to really let the ca...

Return of the Whirlwind

The recently-ended promotion ofHardwired turned out to be the best ever, so I’d like to thank those of you who clicked the buy button. On the theory that one should reinforce success, I’m hoping to repeat or even top Hardwired’s sales witha 99-cent sale onVoice of the Whirlwind. You may findVotW at Amazon, Google, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo. Voice of the Whirlwind takes place in the same universe asHardwired, about eighty years later. Here’s the pitch: Steward is a Beta— a c...

Smokin’

So I was making the black roux gumbo of Chef Francoise le Vison, and when I make the roux there’s enough smoke to set off every fire alarm within a hundred yards. But this time the alarm for the whole lodge went off, and the whole building was evacuated except for maybe half a dozen of us standing on our balcony, drinking wine and telling the people below that nothing was on fire but the chef. We had to call off the fire brigade, and I tipped the maintenance guy who was sent to turn off the a...

Dueling Hams

Does anyone remember the TV series “Slings and Arrows,” which opens with the theater manager being run over by a truck full of hams? That’s probably how Tim Minchin feels in this tribute to the Bard, which features a rather formidable cast. This one’s been around for a while, but it hasn’t been available in North America due to copyright issues. See it before it gets taken down!

[via Oz Drummond]

How Much Work Could a Workshop Shop if a Workshop Could Shop Work?

I’m up a mountain in northern New Mexico, at the Rio Hondo Workshop. We’re in a beautiful valley of the Sangre de Cristos, so what did I do? Hike in the beautiful mountain wilderness? Go bird-watching? Get a workout on the ol’ mountain bike? Nope, I spent the day cooking a meal for twelve people. Linguini in ginger-garlic sauce, chickpea salad with hard-boiled eggs, fresh mint, and capers. And roasted pork loin with herbs. Michaela Roessner served up chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I ate...

The Scum Also Rises

It’s been a couple months since we’ve heard from the Panama Papers, the 11.5 million documents extracted from the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca, and detailing the financial shenanigans of the rich, famous, and connected. After various revelations about Putin’s clique, David Cameron’s father, Li Xinping’s relatives, the prime ministers of Pakistan and Iceland, and a clutch of British celebrities, the story seemed to sort of fade away. Which led me to wonder if the whole thing had been...

Nothing to See Here

“There would be absolutely nothing wrong with that except for the fact that absolutely everything is wrong with that.” You may have seen this already, but I thought it deserves as wide an audience as it can get, so here it is. There are all sorts of ways to buy debt in our country, and much of the debt an enterprising young capitalist can purchase is medical debt. Which is to say, the debt that people run up through getting sick, and being hospitalized, and undergoing surgery and having tes...

Greatest

So, who was the greatest martial artist of the 20th Century? Here’s a clue: he died last night. There are always going to be arguments about who could beat who, under what circumstances, under what rules. Maybe Joe Louis (or Joe Lewis) could have beaten Ali in the ring, maybe someone named Gracie or Silva could have beaten him out of it. But those people didn’t change the world the way Ali did. They didn’t speak truth to power the way Ali did. They didn’t inspire millions the way Ali did. He...

Champagne When I’m Thirsty

So last night I dreamed that I went fishing in the Jémez with Muddy Waters. Howlin’ Wolf and BB King were along, but I was mostly hanging with Muddy. He loaned me his Pocket Fisherman, and I pulled in some beautiful blue-and-gold butterfly fish, which is not exactly what you expect from a New Mexico mountain stream. Muddy kept going off to liberate people who had been confined in a hospital for political reasons, but I wasn’t a part of that operation because I was in charge of fishing. The w...

Hot

So I bought a WRX, which is this hot turbocharged rally car, and the only place I had to drive it to was Belen. Reality is once again failing to meet my expectations.