Bruce Arthurs

Me: "Why do so many of my early teen stories have cannibals?"

Besides a good discussion of FOUNDATION'S EDGE, Tom mentions what is was like growing up an SF-reading weirdo with mundane parents.

"They wanted me to grow up as a responsible, practical man. Which, by their definition of such things, I never did."

Wow, does that ever strike a chord with me....

Ah, you're right! Remembering more correctly now that she wrote about boiling bones for the gelatin. Makes her work even more impressive. (Living in the boondocks of Argentina makes one resourceful, I guess.)

Need to dig out and go thru the boxes of old fanzines one of these days.

Remembering how Mae Strelkov would scrape the remaining pigment from used ditto masters, thin with a bit of solvent, then use it to paint art she could print copies of.

When your phone is a dragon....

(This is why we never see them anymore. They go in disguise.)

Day 2 without Hilde.

Today: Catch up on some normal tasks. (Water yard & planters, load dishwasher.)

Then sort thru clothing. (Most dresses, etc., to women's shelters. Her SCA garb to the local kingdom.) Try to find a "take-back" program for medications; otherwise dispose.

M.R. “Hilde” Hildebrand (1946-2026)
file770.com/m-r-hilde-hi...

A woman with a mohawk poses in a stylized black garment that looks like a bunch of smoke trying to be a dress. Behind her are two silver women who are both copying her pose. The outline of a tall rocketship is in the background.

This original artwork by Frank Kelly Freas only appeared in print in black and white, as an interior illustration for A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Far Traveller” in the August 1976 issue of 'Analog' magazine. www.blackgate.com/2016/02/04/f...

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from the first 100 years of the “modern” book cover, since the rise of publishers' bindings circa 1820: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914

Catch-22, adapted and directed by Ethan & Joel Coen.

First day without Hilde, first day of the rest of my life.

Dealing with after-death details will keep me busy for several weeks/months. Today: Cremation arrangement, prepping hospital bed & other medical equipment for return to the hospice folk, sorting pills & medications for disposal.

Unexpected sight. That issue of FANTASTIC contains my very first professional short story sale.

(Don't read it. The story has aged badly since 1975. Very, very badly. VERY, very badly....)

There's a new LLM in town: aiTrump; all hallucinations, all the time.

The house is so quiet.

Hilde passed away a short while ago.

She's been in a slow decline, with home hospice care, since coming home from a lengthy hospitalization at the end of 2024. She took a serious downturn early this morning, and passed away shortly before 3pm.

Masculine Market Paperbacks.

(No lie, most of my pants are cargo pants or shorts, *because* I want at least one pocket a paperback can fit into easily.)

I'm generally not in favor of Thorazine, but this guy needs, at a minimum, a double-dose.

JoCo is the only cruise idea that's ever tempted me.

Otherwise, it's "You want me on a *boat*? On *water*? Out of sight of *land*? You're joking, right?"

"Wait, what if I roll over and go to sleep *first*?"

Black and white photograph shows Adelia M. Hoyt, librarian in the Reading Room for the Blind, typing on a typewriter. She wears a dark dress with full length sleeves, and dark glasses. Her hair is in a braid arranged on top of her head. Bookshelves can be seen in the background. Between 1913 and 1920. Underwood & Underwood.

Black and white photograph of John Russell Young, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly left. His short hair is parted in the center and he has a handlebar mustache. He wears a collared jacket and shirt. 1897.

#OTD in 1931, Congress voted to create a national library service for the blind.

This came decades after 7th Librarian of Congress John Russell Young established the very concept of a national library for the blind, overseeing the creation a reading room for the blind at the Library in 1897. 🧵

The One Great Virtue of monogamy is that it's less complicated.

For a few years in the 70s, I lived down the street from The Erotica Motel. Never did more than drive by, but it supposedly had one room with floors, walls, and ceiling covered in ceramic tile so it could be hosed down easily.

How I arrived on Bluesky.

"My name is Mojtaba Khamenei. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Nah, I'm sure he'll forgive and forget.

3rd pic reminds me a lot of Russ Manning's MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGHTER. Not just the clunky-looking robots and the guy smashing them apart with his fists (!), but the sleek musculature of the human.

Old enough to remember when people tried to at least avoid the *appearance* of impropriety.

Now it's just a goddamn hog wallow of impropriety, appearances be damned.

A tiny felted sculpture of a blue and yellow nudibranch

A hand holds a number of tiny felted sculptures in the shape of colorful nudibranchs.

A hand holds a tiny felted sculpture in the shape of a blue-and-white nudibranch

Arino Borevich has an ambitious dream to sculpt every one of the thousands of known nudibranchs in colorful felted wool.

www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/03/wool...

Ground meat + a carb = Hamburger Helper.

I just blocked him, so he'll never have to worry I'll make an injoke he might see. Say thanks, Mister Already Forgotten Your Name.

"Jason Mendoza with a Molotov Cocktail" as foreign policy.