Today I decided I IZ NOT SIK and went out to my cats in Warwick Avenue, who were particularly needy. Each one of them got twenty minutes of determined cuddling, after which I sat down with my computer and tried to write my autobiography, since the cats had settled down happily and where grooming themselves contentedly.

All, that is, apart from F, who came to sit beside me and, noticing how my attention wasn't on him 100%, put a white-socked paw on my chest and told me, "Meow." I tried scritching him, but even petting him with one hand while looking at the screen wasn't enough for him, eliciting more polite paws and determined "Meows."

He's so lovely. If I hadn't had to meet Alex, I would have stayed far more than my contractual hour.

Anyway, then I met Alex at Notting Hill, we had a good lunch at Pain Quotidien, walked through Portobello where I took a lot of lousy photos with the wrong setting, then caught a bus home.

I am still suffering with a damn cold and my throat still hurts, but a lot less than it used to. Last night I managed to sleep fairly well by falling asleep in front of the Tv on the sofa, let's see how it goes tonight.

For as long as I can remember, I have been aware of the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by the Reverend Ian Paisley in 1971 and now the largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland.

Now I discover that there is another Democratic Unionist Party (referred to by its members as الحزب الإتحادي الديموقراطي‎) in Sudan, founded in 1967. I doubt very much that Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal were aware of it when they rebranded and slightly expanded the Protestant Unionist Party four years later, but I shall be on the lookout for parallels as I do my weekend reading of African history.

Literally.

For the last two parades, I stood down by Piccadilly Circus. Today, I stood on Oxford Street, across from John Lewis. Next year, I'm going back to Piccadilly Circus. The curve of Regent Street is a nicer backdrop for the photos and the Piccadilly crowd seems to be more extroverted. I found the spectators on Oxford Street practically sedate.

Gay Pride is for yelling, laughing, singing, blowing your whistle, and waving at everyone, not for the golf clap.

OK, it wasn't quite that sedate. But I'm used to being in the midst of a group of people cheering and not being the loudest one.

Still, it was a lovely parade and I got a lot of photos, which will go up on Flickr as soon as.

Two frames I pulled out of one of my storm videos. They're taken one frame apart.

Note the purple lightning slash at the right side of the picture in the first one. There's also a bit of a tongue of it reaching down to the house's roof, in the center top. No lights on in the house.




Next frame, nothing moves, but the lightning is gone. The question is, though...what was going on there? Did it move through that house? The whole street is lit up by lightning...splash, I guess.

A decent enough Rose/Ten novel, based a little bit on Planet of Evil with human invaders disrupting a world that should have been left to itself. A couple of references to the Doctor's friendship with Shakespeare (this is pre-The Shakespeare Code).

The BBC have broadcast three Torchwood plays over the last three days, available only with difficulty for those of us outside the UK. But my determination overcame the difficulty, and I managed to listen to all three.

Individual discussions of each below the cut, but one common slightly disappointing factor is that John Barrowman seems to be under sedation for all three plays. I guess he is just one of those actors for whom the visuals are essential - certainly, having seen him on stage, he seems to love the thrill of interaction with his fellow-performers, which perhaps is rather different in a sound booth (and I'll note again that I wasn't impressed with his reading of The Ancestor Cell). In the first and third plays it doesn't matter so much since Jack is less prominent, but it rather takes the shine off The Golden Age. (I will add that the female guest stars in all three plays were excellent.)

( Asylum: the girl from the future )
( The Golden Age: Torchwood Delhi and the Duchess )
( The Dead Line: killer phones and 70s flashbacks )

So, three worthy additions to the Torchwood canon. There is no internal order to the plays, so if you can only listen to one make it The Dead Line.

For years I have been fascinated by the Gliding Dance of the Maidens chorus from the Polovtsian dances of Borodin's opera, Prince Igor. That earwormy tune has been subject to various interpretations over the decades since it was first produced. ( Here are several of them. )

This entry is long enough, and if you have listened to even one of these clips you are probably thoroughly earwormed for the rest of the day, but I just want to give one last shout out to Natasha Morozova, here performing in Sydney. I'm off to enjoy the good weather now.

On Chinese New Year, everyone is Chinese and on St. Patrick's Day, everyone is Irish.

Today, I am gay. Today, I am trans. Today I am every variety of queer and bi. Today I am every mother of, father of, sister of, brother of, daughter of, son of, friend and/or lover of. Today I am everyone who has ever finally worked up the courage to take that big step and come out; today I am all the people who wish they could. Today, I am standing in for the friends I lost to a big disease with a little name (as Prince so eloquently put it in Sign of the Times).

Today, it's me.

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That's how I put it last year and, try as I might, I can't think of a better way to put it this year.

What I love about Gay Pride London is its utter inclusiveness. Every time I've been to the parade, I've enjoyed a celebration not just of gay pride but of human pride, of life itself. And it makes me think that someday, humanity as a whole will actually achieve the higher level of enlightenment where we understand that what matters is not who we love but that we can love.

I think if anybody could make me reconsider my "Why, no, I can't reconsider my ban on hateful artists" it'd be Michael Jackson. Unlike Roman Polanski--who claimed the Holocaust made him rape under aged girls----Jackson appears to have been the rare pedophile who actually was damaged instead of just opportunistic. I don't buy that past abuse makes you abuse others; I think it'd make you even less likely to abuse. Similarly, how does the Holocaust make you seek out at least one underaged girl, isolate her at your sleazeball friend Jack Nicholson's house, ply her with booze and pills, and then insert your penis inside her?

Interesting comment---in the thread---that gives this off-the-cuff post a bit of needed perspective. God, what if Jackson were just a big kid who was seeking playmates? What if we're talking not about Roman Polanski but one of his victims?

Jackson's actions in picking kids who were ill or had difficult families certainly argues against neutrality: it's classic pedo behavior, especially for a rich pedo, who gets to claim that he was victimized by the victim! He paid off at least victim, and he had to know that his fans--and lots of victim blamers---were eager to dismiss those charges and believe, as always, the abuser. Maureen Orth documented the lies and evasions for years.

Yet the bits that have emerged about his childhood are horrifying: the abuse by his father Joseph, that left him hating his skin and face so much that he gradually erased himself; the allegations that his father may have literally pimped him out to promoters; the physical abuse. Mere days after the younger Jackson's death, the elder said he was feeling 'great' and pimped his new record company. Always the promoter, that Joe.

What the truth was, I don't know. I do know it's complicated, and I do think that Michael Jackson was so damaged that he lost the ability to recover, to function, year ago. His own genius probably doomed him; he had the money to indulge his demons but not, it seems, the ability to find a trustworthy exorcist. There's so much money in damage, after all. There's no pit you can't deepen profitably. Now it's his grave, and I wonder at all the people who are eulogizing and, well, whitewashing him. Let's give him his due, let's give him the complexity the "Wacko Jacko" headlines missed.

He was a beautiful young African American man. He was a genius. He was horribly, horribly abused. He had inappropriate relationships---probably abusive--with young boys, and he might very well have been stuck at that mental and emotional age himself. He did horrible things to himself. He was those things, and many more, and if you want to remember him, maybe the best way to do him some justice is to remember it all. I do think there's sometihng to be said for not speaking ill of the dead, but at the same time, how can you appreciate someone properly, unless you honestly look at their life, weigh the good and the bad, appreciate their struggles and their failures, and hope for the same yourself?

I'm not going to treat Michael Jackson differently than I would treat someone else with his record. I can't overlook just how damaged he was; how profitable that damage was to so many people. I don't think I have to pick or choose here, because choosing is impossible. I choose everything. I wish Michael Joseph Jackson had been born to a loving family and father who loved him and protected him, who might have had some music business success, who at this point might be a respected older artist, living perhaps with a man or a woman or--who knows? Both?---with a nice string of hits under his belt, and maybe some wrinkles on his face. We profited from his spectacular career, those people in his audience, those people his age, in a way that we might not have from a more ordinary career. Maybe we're a bit to blame, too, for some of the weirdness that came afterward.

I hope I'm right. I hope I'm wrong. It would be so much easier to believe he was evil, to believe he was wholly a victim, to believe one thing or another. Hope's too late in this case. He's gone. I don't even know what to say, at the end, except this: rest in peace.

From us. From yourself. From whatever drove you, at last.

I know, I know. I know it's been a long time. I know there's a long way to go.

But today, James Young, a black man, was elected the first black mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. He got multiracial support in a town that's 55% white. I still get a little choked up about something like that.

Yesterday I lovingly trimmed Zip's claws, and today I noticed her enthusiastically trying to sharpen them on the arm of a sofa. I tried to dissuade her, as I usually do (not that it does any good, of course). Then I realized that the noise coming from her paws was not SKRATCTH but ffffrushhhh frushhhh. Basically she was caressing the velvet.

I gave her an affectionate pat and tried no to laugh.

Still feeling like crap, only now I feel like crap at random intervals. Annoyingly, the intervals tend to be when I would rather be asleep thank you very much, for example tonight. Total sleeping time, I think two hours. I wonder what is it about sleep, but specifically sleeping in my bed at night, that makes my throat hurt?

Anyway, this morning sneezing and some coughing and the start of nose drooling have joined the party. Ho-hey.

I have to apply to my next-year school, like, NOW. To do it I have to write a 1000-1500 autobiographical essay. This is not, you understand, difficult. I'm good at writing. I can whip up an essay in a day.

Only... I can't. I have been sick all week, true. But now, even when I am well enough, the mere thought of writing the essay makes me go queasy.

It will probably get down before next morning, sometime. But in the meanwhile, I am stuck in bed with a bad case of the procastinationitis.

Don't you love poems that rhyme? I know I do.

(One very bad word at the end, so don't turn your speakers up at work. Or do turn them up, if you're in the mood to piss people off. But it's cooler here today so I'm feeling mellow myself.)

Doctor Who Files 1: The Doctor, by Jacqueline Rayner with a story by Stephen Cole
Doctor Who Files 2: Rose, by Jacqueline Rayner
Doctor Who Files 3: The Slitheen, by Jacqueline Rayner
Doctor Who Files 4: The Sycorax, by Jacqueline Rayner with a story by Stephen Cole

These four 50-page hardbacks, published very early in the Tennant era, originally retailed for £5.99 each. I got the lot for 99p plus postage from eBay, which is just about what they are really worth. They would be an interesting element (though a small one) in a study of the rhetorical practices of Who merchandising as exercised under the RTD regime (perhaps with a comparative element considering the precedents set by JNT and others). The first 30 pages of each book consists of reheated Who lore (almost entirely of the first year and a half of New Who) of greater or lesser relevance to the topic, based on the TV series (and for the Slitheen also incorporating elements from Stephen Cole's novel The Monsters Inside). The final section of each book has a short story, the two by Rayner being decidedly ordinary (the one in the Rose book is tediously educational on philately), but the two by Cole much better - his story at the end of the Sycorax book retells The Christmas Invasion from the monster's point of view, which is a welcome shift of perspective and carried off smoothly. But really, I'd hesitate even to recommend these to completists, unless you can pick them up as cheaply as I did.

  I don't know how many US readers and writers are aware of it, but there is a vital and growing SF/F community in the Philippines these days.  Good evidence exists for it in this latest volume of the anthology, Philippine Speculative Fiction IV.  This volume is edited by Dean Francis Alfar and Nikki Alfar, two of this scene's best writers.  I've been lucky enough to have acquired the previous three volumes in this series and have been impressed with the quality of the fiction and the scope of it -- quiet, personal stories of the fantastic,  real science fiction, tales based on traditional Philippine folklore and mythology, structurally experimental pieces, and humorous commentaries on life in the 21st century.  One of the benefits of this literary culture for world wide readers of English has been the online presence of Charles Tan, whose Bibliophile Stalker site http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/ is among the best at presenting current news, interviews and reviews of English language speculative fiction.  One need not delve too deeply into this Philippine literary phenomenon to quickly realize that there is a treasure trove of talent there.  Volume 4 of the series is, in my humble opinion, the best yet in the series.  It contains 24 stories by both new and more established writers. I'll just mention some of my favorites, although there were few pieces in the anthology that did not excite me, move me, or make me think. 

The Secret Origin of Spin-Man by Andrew Drilon -- Drilon is not only a fiction writer but a well known comics creator.  I've read his fiction before and was struck by the inherent energy and willingness to take chances.  This particular story, though, surprised me in that it was a more traditionally written and structured piece with a much more personal story about comics and brothers and where we find ourselves after the years have passed.  Beautifuuly written with real emotional impact. 

Revenge of the Tiktaks by Noel Tio -- From what I read in the notes to the story, I discovered that this is Tio's first published story.  He's off to a great start.  It starts with boys in seminary sleeping quarters hearing a strange sound in the middle of the night and escalates into a full blown poltergeist visitation.  There is something about the authenticity of the setting and characters here that make the haunting effective.

Breathing Space by Maryanne Moll -- This one's a real gem.  I loved the precision in the writing here and the minimalist approach.  No excess baggage and yet the story comes across as very powerful.  A story about a woman betrayed by her man and a decision to be made.  

A Retrospective on Diseases For Sale by Charles Tan -- A darkly humorous accounting of the history of an internet company Diseases For Sale, which supplied its customers with ilnesses they could exploit in their day to day lives.  Kids send for common colds to get out of going to school, workaholics buy some insomnia in order to gain more time in their overwhelming schedules.  I love the fact that the comapny's first rule is Safety First.  The diseases get more serious as the company evolves and the story makes a neat transition from one of dark humor to one of wicked social commentary. 

Sky Blue by Celestine Trinidad -- A near future story about surrogate mothers for hire.  Although there are subtle and effective sfnal elements in this story, what made it for me was the plight of the main character, Sara, the real world problems she faced , the decisions, the search for self.  Her thoughts and reactions to the grim situation she finds herself in seemed authentic and offered a feminist perspective born  from reality rather than philosophy.  

The Dance of the Storm by Isabel Yap -- This is a beautifully written tale in the style of (I would guess) traditional Philippine folk lore.  It's about a woman who appears in a fishing village around the time of a predicted typhoon and the fisherman she appears to. 

First of the Gang to Die by Paolo Jose Cruz -- This story is marked by engaging character descriptions, a neat metafictional twist, and some good surprises.  A group of boys discover a floating symbol that contains a different reality called the Storyscape.  The interactions of the boys, their dialogue, is very believable and helps make the fantastic in this story seem almost possible.

The Maiden's Song by Kate Aton-Osias -- A fantasy of unrequited love written in a wonderfully poetic style.  Pedro uses a magical song to try to capture the attention of a woman he is desperately in love with, but she has a mind of her own.  Again, like The Dance of the Storm, this story has the feel of a traditional folk tale.  

From Abecediarya by Adam David -- A wildly inventive piece that tells a story through pieces of story in a kind of sprung-rhythm but also, at times, with the constraint of beginning each word with the same letter, as in the first section, the letter A.  This is one you'll just have to see for yourself.  I found it very thought provoking and appreciated the boldness of it.

I've only touched on a representative handful of stories here. There were other pieces in the anthology that I liked as well as these.  The book is well worth your time.  Here's the full table of contents:  

* A League of Champions by Ronald Cruz
* A Retrospective on Diseases for Sale by Charles Tan
* All We Need is Five Meals a Day by Jose Elvin Bueno
* Beats by Kenneth Yu
* Breaking the Spell by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
* Breathing Space by Maryanne Moll
* Dino's Awesome Adventure by Carljoe Javier
* Dreams of the Iron Giant by Joseph Nacino
* First of the Gang to Die by Paolo Jose Cruz
* From Abecediarya by Adam David
* Haya Makes A HUG by Erica Gonzales
* Hopscotch by Anne Lagamayo
* Mang Marcing and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vincent Simbulan
* Parallel by Eliza Victoria
* Press Release by Leo Magno
* Revenge of the Tiktaks by Noel Tio
* Sky Blue by Celestine Trinidad
* The Dance of the Storm by Isabel Yap
* The Day That Frances, The Copywriter, Became God by Monique Francisco
* The Maiden's Song by Kathleen Aton-Osias
* The Paranoid Style by Sharmaine Galve
* The Rooftops of Manila by Crystal Gail Shangkuan Koo
* The Secret Origin of Spin-Man by Andrew Drilon
* The Sewing Project by Apol Lejano-Massebieau
    

--about the wondrous day of astrophysics that was Physics For Fiction at Imperial College. However, the sudden heatwave has robbed me of all ambition outside of making progress on this damned novel.

major_clanger has a write-up and pictures because I am too much of a wuss. I've lost the tolerance to sunny-side-of-planet-Mercury temperatures that I built up after almost a quarter of a century in Kansas. Or maybe that should be Venus, as the humidity in Kansas can drown the unwary.

Back when I first moved to Kansas--in the incredible heat of early-mid August, I got what I thought was the world's most severe head-cold, which I was sure would be terminal. I dragged myself around the KU campus under the the relentless sun, sniffing, sneezing, feverish, almost delirious.

Finally, I went to the campus hospital and asked them to euthanize me. They told me I had hayfever and that did not call for the death penalty. I had never had hayfever before. I'd grown up in an urban environment, where car and truck exhaust took care of pollen and prepared your lungs for cigarettes. Even on the UMass campus in western Massachusetts, I had not suffered.

It took me something like ten years before I finally developed enough of a resistance to remain functional from August to October, and sometimes the pollen count could overwhelm me anyway.

So here I am in London, where it's supposed to rain a lot. OK, it rained a lot a little while ago--we had a genuine frog-strangler last week. But that was last week. I want my rain, dammit. Rain! Rain, I say!

And now you know I'm a true Brit. This post has been all about the weather. Blimey.

Now, in another region of the world, gay people can breathe a little freer. If only it were here.

I, um, seem to have something in my eye.