Blue Moons and New Moons and bad jokes

I have a useful fact of the day!

Purim falls on a Blue Moon this year. The month of Adar doesn't have a blue moon (blue moons are technically impossible in the Jewish calendar, unless you count Adar I and II as one month), but February does.

I was reminded of all this because I forgot one datething yesterday. It's only the beginning of a new month, but still, that beginning of a new month (today) is in a calendar I use. Also, I get to make a Twilight joke. I shan't though, since there's nothing funny about New Moon. Adar, the month brought to us by the new moon, Adar, is spiffingly hilarious. In leap years it does a Harvey Dent and we celebrate all the misery-guts festivals in one Adar and all the happy ones in another.

Of all the months in the Jewish calendar, Adar is the one most in need of psychiatric help.

ETA: I might be wrong about the Blue Moon in February. Different sites give me diferent information and my maths is unreliable today. The rest of the post though, stands.

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Where Queen meets Tat.

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The new Steam Engine Time* has just been released. I haven't time today to read it properly (this marshalling my energy is not only a lot of work, but it's a right royal pain) but I did have a quick skim through. It's an issue about women and I need to get past my paid work so that I can read it properly, soon.

What amused me today, however, were the several comments about me. They appeared because an earlier SET contained my guest of honour speech from Conflux, but also because I have a piece in this SET and it needed an introduction.

I was called a critic. I don't think I'm a critic. Critics think more and know more, perhaps. I just write essays when I feel like it. If Bruce feels like it, he publishes them.

My first pages in Steam Engine Time came about because Bruce and I were both on a Cordwainer Smith panel at Continuum a few years ago. I had some thoughts about Cordwainer Smith's backdrops (I have lots of thoughts about all sorts of things, and they tend to emerge when I'm on panels) and Bruce asked if I could write them down.

Several years later, I look round Canberra and think that Norstrilia really does reflect Canberra and Australian politics in the sixties. It's not a one on one correspondence, but the relationship is there. Visit Canberra when you're in Australia for Aussiecon, bring a car, and I'll show you what I mean.

I'm not so sure about the other part of that essay I wrote. I knew a bit about too many things and I pulled them all together, but I was an outsider for all of them and didn't know quite enough. I don't know enough about Paul Linebarger's religious education. I know a bunch about Medieval Christianity and a certain amount about Australian Christianity, but nineteenth and early twentieth century American Christianity is far more difficult to get a deep understanding of than I thought. I know more than most Australian Jews, but I don't know enough to make those particular interpretations of Cordwainer Smith's work.

In other words, don't waste time going to an earlier SET and reading my article on Cordwainer Smith. One day I'll look at his writing again and do far more solid research into it and sort out why I went wrong in that religious part. By 'far more solid' I mean real research. A couple of year's worth. There are nuances and thinking that I need to understand.

So much to learn – so little time. I should stop writing essays and just stick to solving those puzzles, perhaps, but I am addicted to writing and if someone wants me to explain a thought, then I do my best. That doesn't make me a critic, though, it just makes me someone who thinks in public on occasion.


ETA: SET 12 has just been released! It's here."


* warning – big file