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Three Dates
My various calendars tell me that the moon is in its first quarter. Ho hum. But it's also the time of the Tanabata festival in Japan. The Japan Atlas says: "The festival traces its origins to a legend that the Cowherd Star (Altair) and Weaver Star (Vega), lovers separated by the Milky Way, are allowed to meet just once a year--on the seventh day of the seventh month." Other sources extend the legend to two ordinary people, a weaver and a cowherd, who fell in love and neglected their work. The gods got angry over this and condemned them to life on opposite sides of a river. I like the latter, it seems a more Japanese story in that it's romantic but contains a serious punishment element for dereliction of duty towards some source of abstract, unknowable Authority. I remember telling this story to Doom Cookie when we went out on that day and she seemed to understand.
It's also the 66th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, when the Japanese finally gave up the pretence and invaded China properly. It's a pity that this part of World War Two is not better known. I mean, it got the proper propaganda treatment during the war because of the Luce press empire but first after the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 and even more so after the Communist victory in 1949, China dropped off the American radar screen except as this monolithic threat. Still being treated that way.
It's also Robert Heinlein's birthday! Rah rah for RAH, at least up until the point he published I Will Fear no Evil in 1970. (Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) wasn't very good either, but I treat it as a blip since he never wrote anything else like it.) A search for Robert Heinlein on Google comes up with 89,000 hits. Michael Moorcock a shade over 29,000; J.G. Ballard about 26,000; Joanna Russ 5,700; Frederick Pohl 3,000. However, William Gibson nets 127,000, so that must make him Alpha Prime Literary SF-Weenie of the Net.
It's also the 66th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, when the Japanese finally gave up the pretence and invaded China properly. It's a pity that this part of World War Two is not better known. I mean, it got the proper propaganda treatment during the war because of the Luce press empire but first after the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 and even more so after the Communist victory in 1949, China dropped off the American radar screen except as this monolithic threat. Still being treated that way.
It's also Robert Heinlein's birthday! Rah rah for RAH, at least up until the point he published I Will Fear no Evil in 1970. (Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) wasn't very good either, but I treat it as a blip since he never wrote anything else like it.) A search for Robert Heinlein on Google comes up with 89,000 hits. Michael Moorcock a shade over 29,000; J.G. Ballard about 26,000; Joanna Russ 5,700; Frederick Pohl 3,000. However, William Gibson nets 127,000, so that must make him Alpha Prime Literary SF-Weenie of the Net.
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I just liked the punishment element in the story. Were the Taoist gods normally so jealous?
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My eyes like your new icon!
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I thought that's what you meant when you said you recignised my dress at Prophecy.
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