On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Passing this along, as I have confirmation from multiple sources that it is for real. Peter's work sits in my comics storage boxes and on my bookshelves, and I've enjoyed much of it over the decades. If you can help and haven't already done so, please do.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-peter-david

Some day, I want to do something like this for Ottawa:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/first-person-ode-to-montreal-mile-end-1.7092013

I've lived here since the summer of 1985, so...

...and it feels like we should have had Gord Downie still with us to put lyrics to the occasion.

Yes, we still have Buffy Saint-Marie, Leslie Feist, K-Os, Bruce Cockburn, and so many others of like talent to do so...for the moment at least.

Congratulations to Wab Kinew and the Manitoba NDP.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/2023-manitoba-election-results-1.6985468

If anyone's wondering if I've seen him in person...there was one time in 2015:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dwight_ew/albums/72157658107849654

Catching up with this tonight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWk3giAugzA

1. I've known James and Charlie as distant and friendly acquaintances going back a couple of decades. This worries me. Especially given the context as explained in the article.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/james-lucas-jones-and-charlie-chu-out-at-oni-press/

2. What Seanan McGuire describes here also worries me. The Pandemic, as many of you reading this blog understand too well already, is not over.

https://twitter.com/seananmcguire/status/1542227819140263938

I am listening to All In a Day on CBC Radio One, and Alan Neal is fielding questions from kids about Christmas. One about what do reindeer enjoy games-wise got pivoted to SF writer Julie Czerneda - turns out she's also a biologist! - and Julie just improvised an answer about how antlers can be repurposed as hockey sticks!

(Yes, Julie and I chat on occasion at bookstores, at Can-Con events, and so on.)

Long Twitter thread. Go read it, starting here:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1421215457206431744

Alternative, non-tracking venue for the same content:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/30/space-marines/#fairy-use-tale

I note that I own or co-own a few pieces of IP myself, including this weblog, and have created others under work-for-hire rules for other companies. There are still things that I - or any IP (co-)owner shouldn't expect to get away with.

Some of the heralds of the new fascist international apocalypse (whom, I suspect, would rather feel safe to cover other topics in their writings...but they don't, so...):

Sarah Kendzior
Jay Rosen
Timothy D. Snyder
Seth Abramson
Greg Olear
"Lincoln's Bible"
Rachel Maddow

So far.

I did a potentially foolish thing this afternoon.

I went to Perfect Books to pick up my copy of Rob Sawyer's Oppenheimer Alternative. Rob had a lot of fun and some eye-opening research moments in putting that book together, and I know he was looking forward to the promotional trail to support it once it hit the bookstores. Alas, Pandemic didn't and still doesn't give a damn about any of our plans. Including Rob's.

So, it's been months since the release, and I finally found financial room for this book a couple of weeks ago. But I put off picking it up until today. The delay was due mainly to the lockdowns' influence. Perfect Books is in the middle of Centretown, and I live out in Orléans. Which meant an Expedition. Bus and O-Train ride, both ways. In "normal" times, I wouldn't give this a second thought.

Anyway, I took that risk today. Perfect Books, then checking in on Randy Pippus and his games shop, Fandom II on Laurier West near the OPL Main Branch. Stop at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to unburden my sense of guilt, as I sometimes do during the winter months when there's no honor guard on duty to overhear me. Then walking up to Chapters Rideau to window-shop, and over to Globe Mags and Cigars for today's newspapers, and dropping in on some friends running another shop in the Market before catching the O-Train and bus back home.

I got some decent walking exercise today. I probably risked more than ten lives of people whose names are definitely known to me in the process. A lot more whose names I don't know, surely.

These trips haven't backfired yet that I know of...and I'm paranoically certain that one of them will.