Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 238

Nyckelharpa

I've been off at Globalquerque, Albuquerque's weekend festival of global music. One way of describing this kind of festival is to describe the music I was listening to. (I'll probably get around to that later.)Another is to just make a list of the weird and/or unusual instruments encountered for the first time.The first was the hurdy gurdy, as played by Viva la Pepa!, a group that recreates

Bonnie Brings the Winter

The other night we checked out the BonTaj Roulet tour, featuring Bonnie Raitt and Taj Majal, in the relatively intimate settings of the Sandia Casino Amphitheater--- 2000 people in an open-air venue, with glorious views of the mountains. Whatever else you may say about Indian casinos, they have sure built a lot of concert venues, and I see a lot more spectacular live concerts than I used to. (

Origin of Stupidity

Brainless religious zealot-zombies, led by Former Somebody Kirk Cameron, are going to be distributing copies of Darwin's Origin of Species FREE just before this year's Darwin Day, November 22. The book will be altered to include a 50-page denunciation of the theory of evolution by some Darwin-denying whackjob.Cameron explains that this "very special" edition of the "Origin of Species" will

Turn the Apple Green

Murderous baby-killing Holocaust-denying whackjob Iranian President Ahmedinejad is in the Big Apple today, to give what will doubtless prove to be an inept, rambling, psychotic, Holocaust-denying speech to the UN General Assembly. (To avoid being Chavezed again, our own President Obama will be hiding in the men's room till Ahmedinejad is safely away.) Yesterday's chat by Muammar Gaddafi

Some Days I Just Don't Feel Like Sharing

Obligated though I am by the Rules of Modern Publishing to maintain a blog in which I post something intelligent, thoughtful, and wise every single day (or failing that, at least try to be amusing), there are some days when I'm just not, as Richard III said, in the giving vein. In fact there are some days when I'm just Richard III. Or worse.Right now the thought of putting together a blog post

Hitler Bunnies and Terror Potatoes

At least one of these Hitler Bunnies is clearly plotting evil. And the potato in the lower photo is either the result of black magic or perhaps an injection of thalydomide. Yes, this means we've been to the State Fair. Kathy's New Mexico Tech had a booth open at the fair, and Kathy got some freebie tickets that weren't all being used by Tech hustlers, so Pat and I joined Kathy for a wander

I Knew It!

Melting polar icecaps are exposing hundreds of secret lairs!ZACKENBERG RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND—Claiming it to be one of the most dramatic and visible signs of climate change to date, researchers said Monday that receding polar ice caps have revealed nearly 200 clandestine lairs once buried deep beneath hundreds of feet of Arctic ice."We always assumed there would be some secret lairs here and

Deep Cover Monopoly

During the Second World War, maps and tools were smuggled to Allied POW's inside copies of the Monopoly game.The British secret service conspired with the U.K. manufacturer to stuff a compass, small metal tools, such as files, and, most importantly, a map, into cut-out compartments in the Monopoly board itself. "It was ingenious," said Philip Orbanes, author of several books on Monopoly,

Market Garden

John Appel reminded me that today is the one day when I count count on my dad having a hangover.My father was a two-vodka-martini-before-dinner kind of drinker, at least until later in life when he realized he could save money by skipping the vermouth entirely. He rarely got hammered, but he always got hammered on September 17th.The 17th was the anniversary of the beginning of Operation

Saturn's Towers

The Cassini spacecraft has discovered giant structures towering in Saturn's rings. (The spike on the picture is the structure's shadow, not the structure itself.)In recent weeks, Cassini's cameras have spotted not only the predictable shadows of some of Saturn's moons, but also the shadows of newly revealed vertical structures in the rings themselves. And these observations have lent dramatic