Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 146

I Work On My Stuff A Long Time

It takes meagesto finish one of my projects.
For instance, here’s an early draft of the High City battle fromConventions of War.

(Via the Bayeux Tapestry Generator.)

Time For St. Urho!

Since I seem to be concentrating on posts about Finnish matters these days, it’s worth reminding you that Sunday is St. Urho’s Day.I trust you will all be clad in green and purple, and prepared to drink up all the liquor before the Irish hit the bars on Monday.
And feel free, as you imbibe, to chant with St. Urho:
“Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen“
It’s never too late to save those wine grapes!

Reserve Your June For Reading

I’m pleased to report that the publication date forRogues, the new blockbuster collection from George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois, has been advanced to June 17.
Pleased because, after all, I’m in it. I’ve contributed a story featuring Sean Makin, the protagonist of The Fourth Wall. It’s a complex, knotty little near-future novellawith a solid science fiction heart.


And as if my illustrious name isn’t enough to get you to buy it, consider that Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, and G...

Taos Toolbox: the IRS Edition

I haven’t been posting much, because for the last week or so I’ve been wrangling all my tax information, all the cheeks and the stubs and the little receipts, into a form coherent enough for my accountant to make sense of. It’s the kind of repetitious detail work that I’m not at all good at, and it leaves me with a backache from bending over the table sorting out little bits of paper, and I get short-tempered and I curse a lot when I can’t find the receipt I know I had just a minute ago, and...

Struttin’ With Some Barbecue

Hey, it’s Fat Tuesday, y’all! Why are you looking at the dumb ol’ Internet instead of dancing?

These scenes of Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Django Reinhart are from the French filmLa Route du Bonheur.

Epic

Clearly you were all so completely entranced by the Finnish music video I posted a couple days ago that, by now, you’re totally slavering for the Finnish national epic, theKalevala.
Which, thanks to Australian performance artist Scott Sandwich, you can now experience in eight minutes.
Eight minutes for a national epic! How can you resist?
(And by the way, while I enjoyed the performance, it has to be admitted that Sandwich can’t pronounce Finnish words for shit.)

I’m Back!

Some of you may have noticed all the headlines saying “Walter Williams Back From the Dead,” in which I am discovered in a funeral home fighting my way out of a body bag.
Yeah. I am totally that tough.

Squeezebox

I’m in one of those dark Nordic moods, and so I need to listen to soul music, which— given my heritage— would be Maria Kalaniemi, virtuoso accordion player, and her composition “Skimningspolskan.“
Listen closely, close your eyes, and you can just about see the dancing dwarfs lurching to the music on the shores of the mist-shrouded lake.

Reviews in the Nick of Time: Monuments Men

Monuments Men is, as they say, “based on a true story,” in this case the story of theMonuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program of the allied armies during World War II, an organization composed of hundreds of (mostly) artists and art historians, from many countries, who attempted to preserve art and historic buildings during the Allied advance through Europe, and who also set out to locate thousands upon thousands of looted artworks, and restore them to their original owners.
This is damned g...

Sir David Attends

My favorite documentarian, Sir David Attenborough, turns his lens and his lush delivery upon my favorite winter sport, Olympic curling.
Awesome.