"Hugs parallel to all my prosy robots. Remember me, forget death."

[jazzfish]

Words are inadequate (the poor craftsman curses his tools) to describe the beauty of our coasts, but words are what I have available.

--John M. Ford, "Chromatic Aberration"

Twenty-six years ago, give or take, I kept seeing "How Much For Just the Planet?" on the spinner-rack at the Fayetteville library. I never checked it out, though. I do wonder what that might have done for my reading habits.

Ten years and a couple months ago I read Heat of Fusion and Other Stories for the second time. This time I got it. "Chromatic Aberration" and the Hemingway pastiche "The Hemstitch Notebooks" remain two of my absolute favourite short stories, for wildly different reasons.

Ten years less a few days ago I cracked up at a Star Wars joke hidden in a period discussion of Renaissance theatre in "The Dragon Waiting."

Five years and nine months (ish) ago I got married under the Declaration of Unity.

Five years less a few weeks ago, TNH asked me "Who do you want to write like?" and my eyes filled up with tears and I mumbled "Mike Ford."

Ten years and a day ago I sat down at a computer to start a class on using MicroStrategy and pulled up my Livejournal friends page, and the first thing I saw was a post from Jo Walton headlined "John M. Ford, 1957-2006".

Hush, now, at the glass clouding, hush at the silicon crumbling, hush be still at the metal flowing atom by atom, spare no protest for evaporation and cold welding and decay, for Time shall take its own.

--John M. Ford, "All Our Propagation"

Footnote: If you've not read "Against Entropy" in its original setting, do. It's the first comment. Note the timestamp on the post, and on the comment.

Comments

[okrablossom]

Thank you.

[jazzfish]

You're most welcome.

[novel_machinist]

<3

[jazzfish]

<9

[wild_irises]

It is amazing (or perhaps not) how frequently I actively miss him after all these years.

[jazzfish]

I could understand that. There aren't many people that I genuinely regret not getting to meet; JMF and David Bowie are the only ones that come to mind.

[wild_irises]

An interesting pair. I'd go for Prince, myself, though I'm not sure he would have been interested in meeting me.

I consider myself very lucky to have counted JMF as a close friend.

[reedrover]

Wow. Thanks for the link to the "Against Entropy" poem. I'm a fan.

[jazzfish]

You're most welcome! It is amazing.

(Also, if you've not seen it, his 110 Stories is a 9/11 tribute worth reading.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I so wish he were still with us.

[jazzfish]

Me too. Intensely, selfishly so.