That's where the Skelethon title came from, and imagery associated with shit dying is prevalent. That said, I don't think there are many "sad" songs. It's more just like "ahhh I'm exploding"-- I want it to sound urgent, because my personal experience is more about writing songs that just need to be out of my brain.

aesop rock о новом альбоме

Here, We Cross is orderable, and now I can tell you about it!

In rose_lemberg's words: ""Here, We Cross" collects twenty-two queer and genderfluid poems from the digital pages of Stone Telling magazine. This chapbook is a celebration of speculative poetry that is diverse and varied; here you will find poems with speakers or protagonists who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, genderqueer, trans*, asexual, and neutrois; speakers who struggle with the body and the society’s imposed readings of that body. It is a painful book, a triumphant book, full of works that soar and breathe and live. Just like us."

"The Changeling's Lament" is reprinted here, with 21 other poems by such luminaries as tithenai, sovay, cafenowhere, samhenderson, alankria, alexa_seidel, domparisien, ajodasso, and many more, and you should go forth and acquire it.

In other news, I'll be reading, signing, and Q&Aing at Annie's Book Stop in Worcester the evening of Thursday, August 16. This is the day before my Guest of Awesome stint at nearby PiCon. You should totally come to both! (Many thanks to p_m_cryan and novelfriend for having me!)

Okay! More coffee.

A few cool news: first, I’ve put together an ebook sampler for my fiction. The idea isn’t to do a short story collection (or even to make money!), but simply to allow people to discover my stuff by browsing through their Kindles and other reading devices. The thing is called Scattered Among Strange Worlds, and regroups my Clarkesworld Chinese/Vietnamese diaspora in space story “Scattered Across the River of Heaven” and my IGMS apocalyptic mermaid tale “Exodus Tides”. Due to exclusivities, etc., it will be available end of July (or possibly a bit later if I have to fight to upload a book on amazon…). Price should be the lowest I’m allowed to set, so 99 cents?

The cover and ebook design is by the ultra amazing Patrick Samphire, who recently launched his own ebook cover and ebook design business over at 50secondsnorth. He blogs about the design and the choices he had to make here, on his blog.

Isn’t it fabulous? Many thanks to Patrick, who’s got a very sharp eye for what works for books covers, and does absolutely freaking gorgeous stuff (and his rates are pretty darn affordable, too). You know you want an ebook this summer

Also, my Chinese-y story “Under Heaven” will be available in Electric Velocipede issue 24, in which I share a TOC with Ken Liu (then again, who doesn’t share a TOC with the ever-prolific Ken? ) and Ann Leckie. You can find the full list of stories here, and their publication date should be available soon.

Finally, I’ve sold my short story “Ship’s Brother”, set in the Xuya continuity, to Interzone for their next or after-next issue. Featuring a ship named after a fairytale character (Mị Nương, aka The Fisherman’s Song. If you’re read the fairytale, you’ll know why). Many thanks to Chris Kastensmidt and the ever-awesome Rochita Loenen-Ruiz for reading it and offering very cogent suggestions!

Snippet:

You never liked your sister.

I know you tried your best; that you would stay awake at night thinking on filial piety and family duty; praying to your ancestors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart.

I know, of course, where it started. I took you to the ship–because I had no choice, because Khi Phach was away on some merchant trip to the Twenty-Third Planet–because you were a quiet and well-behaved son, and the birth-master would have attendants to take care of you. You had just turned eight–had stayed up all night for Tet, and shaken your head at your uncles’ red envelopes, telling me you were no longer a child and didn’t need money for toys and sweets.

In other news, packing for Romania in a bit of a panic. More later, but a small reminder you can find me in Bucharest Friday 17:00, at the Calderon Cultural Center, 39, Jean-Louis Calderon Street, sector 2, for the Society of Romanian Science Fiction’s ProspectArt meeting. I’ll be interviewed by the tireless Cristian Tamas, and will read from “Immersion”, a full two weeks before it’s published in Clarkesworld!

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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Originally posted by rose_lemberg at The Moment of Change is here!!

Originally posted by rose_lemberg at Here, We Cross is Here, Indeed

John Scalzi has a good post comparing life to a video game, in which being a straight white male (SWM) is akin to playing a video game on the "Easy" setting. Being of color, queer, a woman, etc. is like playing on a harder setting. There are many many other variables of course, including class, which he touches on by writing "If you start with 25 points, and your dump stat is wealth, well, then you may be kind of screwed." I think this is both a factual and rhetorical error, and that class should be fully integrated into Difficulty as opposed to stats, to make the analogy more apt.

(For those who don't know, a "dump stat" is the stat where you only put the minimum of points. It's not like you're "dumping" extra points into that stat, but that you dump your lowest score into it.)

The error, I think, can be seen in the comments to the post—and all the usual disclaimers about reading the comments on any Internet posting apply here, double. Two of the recurring themes are as follows:

1. SWMs complaining that their low class/socio-economic status/wealth means that their lives aren't so privileged after all.

2. SWMs who appear to be better off wanting to know both a) why they should act against their own interests by critiquing their advantages regardless of the origins of those advantages, and b) expressing their ownership of and stake in the system built by previous generations of SWMs, and distaste for all those awful black African Jewish lesbians in wheelchairs who want to take over.

So, we have a group that feels it doesn't have a stake in the system, and is feeling the harshness of competition, and a group pleased with the rules of the system as they stand scoffing at the activities of their social inferiors. Clearly, there's a significant break in SWMdom, and it's along class lines.

This plays out in the real world in several ways that demonstrate to me that class is fundamental and thus part of "difficulty setting" in Real Life: Dragons of the Murderdome, or whatever you want to call it. Back in the 1970s, Albert Szymanski studied income and race and found that, of course, black workers made less than white workers. However, he also found an interesting regional difference—white workers in the American south made less than black workers in the American north. While the white workers in the south made more than their black co-workers in the south, but they were underpaid compared to both blacks and whites in the north.

So, while whites were better off in a region of greater racism and thus greater race privilege for being white, most of them would benefit along with black workers in a region with greater equality. White privilege was paying white workers an extra dollar to keep from having to pay both white workers an extra five dollars and black workers an extra three dollars. (Clearly, we've not yet gotten any numbers from a truly equal society with no race privilege.)

What explained the difference? The north had integrated labor unions; the south, thanks to segregation, had many fewer labor unions (and those that existed were less powerful). Basically, white workers did not benefit substantially from racial discrimination, not even relative to blacks in another area with less explicit racist laws and social policies. Greater benefits would have accrued had they fought against their privilege, and in solidarity with black workers. Victor Perlo has found similar dynamics existing even today, a generation after the end of Jim Crow laws.

Sure, plenty of SWMs did benefit—managers, the highest tier of (almost invariably white) workers, factory and mine owners, people who play the stock market, etc. And sure, there is an important "psychological wage" white workers are paid—at least we're not black!, but psychology is even easier to print and inflate than fiat money. And yes, poor whites are less likely to have to deal with police harassment and the like. But they both get it worse in an environment where police are allowed to run rampant as a tool of keeping neighborhoods segregated and the property of landowners and businesses safe. Basically, the greater the race discrimination, the higher the inequality among whites.

There are similar analyses that have been done as regards gender discrimination, discrimination against gays, etc. It's not a cookie-cutter sort of thing—queer issues often have to do with the "nature" of the family itself and the need to protect certain kinds of families and eliminate other forms of families, for example—but in general there are lots and lots of SWMs that don't benefit materially from racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or national chauvinism, etc.

Of course, many white people, regardless of their own class "stat", accept racist ideas. Their perceived interests and their actual interests are two different things. Some confusion emerges when SWMs for whom racism (or sexism, or anti-queer sentiment, etc.) is beneficial declare themselves spokespeople for all the poor put-upon SWMs are who are the outrageous victims of Affirmative Action, or too many black ladies with dreadlocks being cast as wisecracking judges on TV, or women who won't have sex with the "beta males." And when discussions of intersectionality and oppression take class as a secondary issue*, the rhetorical floor is ceded to people with a material and ideological interest in racism, etc. to recruit the rest of SWMdom. Low-SES/working class/poor SWMs end up siding with billionaires who make the correct-seeming noises about "liberal elites" and competition from blacks and women and gays.

But when class is fully integrated into an understanding of the difficulty setting of the Game of Life, I think the arguments get much clearer.

The question: "I'm a poor white guy; should I fight against systems of privilege?"

The answer: "Because you'll benefit from it. The more equal things are, the better off you are."

For rich white guys who ask the same question, well, they're clearly on the other side, so they don't need an answer.




*Class actually is complicated when it comes to intersectionality. Very few people believe that the best solution to sexism is the elimination of men, or that the best solution to racism is the elimination of whites. And yet, many people do believe that the best solution to class division is the elimination of the bourgeois class. And yet, when so many theorists of intersectionality are themselves bourgeois aspirants with privileges of their own to protect...

Last week we were approved to adopt a female orange and white kitten in early June from a fostering program working with a local humane society. We're really excited about this and have been kitten-proofing our home.

Technically, our place is already kitten-proof, particularly since adopting 1 year old Newton in early April. Not much work was necessary. We've had pets of all ages all our lives and are well versed in the routine.

There's this saying. You know it: When it rains, it pours.

( Warning: Kitten tale ahead. Make with the Clicky if you dare. )

I'm not saying she gets to call the shots here. I'm working on steering the conversations toward a faster acceptance that we're not going to give the kitten back. I'm prepared to fight to keep it. And if all goes well, in three weeks another kitten joins the family. Two kittens at once, to grow up together. How sweet is that going to be?