Hallelujah, Hallelujah ...& Jewish Space Lasers

Too much news, not enough framing device. With footnotes.

I finally got my Introduction for the French centennial edition of THE WORM OUROBOROS done! I thought it was going to be a couple of pages, but it turned into 3,900 words, which is longer than some papers I wrote in college. And possibly better-researched. God bless the internet! Here’s a particularly scrumptious nugget I dug up, about the dinner C. S. Lewis threw for Eddison in his rooms, to which he invited J.R.R. Tolkien.

And here is my desk about 2 hours before I finished the essay and sent it off to Editions Callidor in Paris.

I know you (or maybe someone else) wanted to read the whole Introduction (written by me in English, to be translated by the Worm’s French translator, Patrick Marcel). But I’d like to publish it somewhere, so I’ll let you know when that happens. I am not made of stone, however, so here’s the most requested bit:

It took my friend Caroline Stevermer to show me the way in to E.R.Eddison’s world. We had met our first day at University, quickly discovered our love of the same books (which always makes a friendship!), and gradually admitted to each other that we both wanted to be writers of fantasy.¹

Caroline is much better-read than I. And happens to be one of the world’s great readers-aloud. She picked up my copy of The Worm, leafed through it a little, and then began to read to me, her voice pitched low with amusement:

Then fared Juss to the guest-chamber, where Lord Brandoch Daha lay a-sleeping, and waked him and told him all. Brandoch Daha snuggled him under the bedclothes and said, "Let me be and let me sleep yet two hours. Then will I rise and bathe and array myself and eat my morning meal, and thereafter will I take rede with thee and tell thee somewhat for thine advantage. I have not slept in a goose-feather bed and sheets of lawn these many weeks. If thou plague me now, by God, I will incontinently take horse over the Stile to Krothering, and let thee and thine affairs go to the devil."

And there it was at last! A hero I could recognize: the sharp-tongued, witty one who also just happened to be the best swordsman in the world…. In his company, I was willing to venture along with his companions. Each of whom had their own style of speech, expressing character as clearly as the elegant swordsman’s, though not necessarily as amusing. No less a critic than C.S. Lewis wrote, “The secret here is largely the style, and especially the style of the dialogue.  These proud, reckless, amorous people create themselves and the whole atmosphere of their world chiefly by talking."

Mind you, this delightful speech of Brandoch Daha’s does not come until Chapter Eight, on page 131 to be exact. But observing my interest, my friend flipped through the book, stopping at other of her favorite bits: humor, yes, and clever dialogue; but also heart-breakingly beautiful moments, and death-defying adventure. And so I was privileged to encounter the gallant Lady Mevrian, the lustful Corinius, the steadfast Lord Juss, and the tormented, clever Lord Gro.

Like Shakespeare’s Juliet reaching out to Friar Lawrence for the potion that will send her into a death-like trance, I reached out my hands to her for the book: Give me! Give me! Tell me not of fear!

World SF Con, Dec. 15 - 19, 2021

I’m writing this in a rush, as Delia & I are leaving for DisCon3, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, in a few days, so please forgive any infelicities. This year it’s being held in Washington, D.C., an easy train trip from NYC. Vaccination & mask rules will be strictly enforced. And so many of our reader and writer friends will be there! That’s really why we’re going. But we’ll also be on lots of programming. I’m on the following panels & events:
Wed 5:30 PM    What makes a Classic a Classic?                   
Thu 2:30 PM  The Fallout of Being the Chosen One               
Fri 10:00 AM   So Happy Together // Fri 8:30 PM  Imaginary Book Club // Fri 7:00 PM Kaffeeklatsch with Ellen Kushner                  
Sat 1:00 PM   Reading - Ellen Kushner & Tenaya Anue             

Many of DisCon3’s panels and programming will be available Online. Here’s the complete Schedule. You can buy a membership to attend Virtually, yourself. If you’re there in person, please say Hi! SFWA is running an autographing table, and I must remember to sign up for it. Ack.

Space Laser Contest

MWA HAHA HAHA HAAAAAH Did you really think you had seen the last of THE GOLDEN DREIDEL???

What? You didn’t know that Jews are using Secret Space Lasers to control the world? Well, just ask Evil Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.² In January, someone unearthed an old Facebook post of hers in which “Greene suggested that wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project. (The Rothschild [Jewish banking] family has featured heavily in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories since at least the 19th century.) Greene’s version has [given] the Rothschilds possession of a secret, powerful space laser.” — MSN Intelligencer

Twitter went nuts. Jews bragged about our Space Laser, our mothers said we’d better be careful or we’d put somebody’s eye out, and all our non-Jewish friends begged to be allowed to play with our space lasers, but what’s the point of not eating bacon if just anyone can have that kind of power?

But more compassionate souls than I have set up a GOYIM³ SQUAD who are I guess, allowed access to the Secret Space Lasers. They even have their own Button. And I have acquired one (see photo above)!

But you must QUALIFY to get into my branch of the Squad. How? By buying someone a copy of THE GOLDEN DREIDEL for an upcoming holiday that involves trees and presents and is not Chanukah. I think you know what I’m saying.

Edie, you’re already entered! So are you, Lunar Hine. And so is the School Library Journal reviewer who wrote this!

We’re on the honor system here, folks. Just get a copy of the book between now and December 25th, and COMMENT that you have done so here:

Merely commenting here gets you one SQUAD point. You get two squad points if your comment includes a link to your social media post about The Golden Dreidel.

And an extra Squad point if you:

with someone - though I have no idea how to prove that. So, Honor System again? Or just general benevolence?

On December 26th, I will employ an ancient Kabbalistic formula, passed down to us through the sages of the Maxwell House Haggadah, to pick a winner.

Insanely cute pic by Edith Hope Bishop of her 10-yr-old caught reading Golden Dreidel in the wild.“He took it with him at bedtime,” Edie added.

AltHallelujah

I started a meme! It happened at about this time, back in 2019. Horrified by these holiday lyrics re-purposing of Leonard Cohen’s song (about two Jews having sex, as someone has pointed out, referring to King David & his lust for Bathsheba, another man’s wife at the time) —

I’m so sorry you had to see this

I tweeted:
I call upon the power of all my genius rhyming friends (and any of theirs) to now crank out a series of increasingly rambunctious songs beginning always with: "I heard there was a...." a/a/b/b/etc. rhymes only, please

Immediately, some of the greatest rhymesters answered the call:

AMAL EL-MOHTAR: I heard there was a vorpal sword / ate snicker-snacks when it got bored / but you don't really care for Carroll, do ya / well it goes like this, drawn forth in myth / a shouted call, a gleaming gift, / a frabjous boy Calloo-ing, Callalujah Callay-loo-jah, Callay-loo-jay

SEANAN MCGUIRE: I heard there was a hidden beach, / Where I could walk, and eat a peach, / But you don't wear your trousers rolled up, do ya? / They're riding through the chambered sea, / I hear them sing, but not to me, / The sea-maids ever calling hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

URSULA VERNON: [Ack! Can’t find hers right now! And it’s brilliant! This is very annoying.]
Where they led, others followed. I started hash-tagging them #altHallelujah so people could find them. And guess who else joined in? LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA!

The talent out there is astonishing!!! There are scores of these up, now, covering everything from Ozymandias to Robert Frost. To find them, go to Twitter and follow "#altHallelujah around - or go here to my original Tweet, read what followed, and click on the responses to them, each of which starts its own glorious thread. . . . This year, there was a request to start it up again, leading to a whole new crop. Someone even posted a collection of them on Facebook. Folklorist Adam Zolkover did a Double Leonard Cohen!

I have dozens of favorites, far too many to copy here. But as both a choral singer and a folksinger, for me this one hits the bullseye:

@Lizamezzo Dec 15, 2019 I heard there was a choral thing / That Handel wrote to please the King / So let’s all get our scores and sing it through, yeah / A fanfare then a fugue quick-set, / Then “Lord of Lords”— but don’t forget / The rest before the final Hallelujah / Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah.. Hallelujah

And that’s a good place to stop.

Your pal,

Ellen

1. A wish that came true! Caroline is the author of novels including A College of Magics and A Scholar of Magics, both of which have been translated into French. And guess who translated them? Patrick Marcel, the translator of Swordspoint and of The Worm Ouroboros! Talk about a worm biting its tail. I’m also very proud to spill the beans about the fact that three of my favorite of her books are coming out in March 2022 from OpenRoadMedia - including The Serpent’s Egg, in which I feature as not one but two characters.

2. Greene also espouses QANON-friendly views including: 9/11 was an inside job, Shootings at Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas were staged, and “Zionist supremacists” are secretly masterminding Muslim immigration to Europe in a scheme to outbreed white people. She’s pretty evil.

3. Goyim is not meant as a perjorative. It’s just Hebrew for “Nations [of other people who are not Us].” Of course, people can be nasty with it if they choose. You can do the same thing with science fiction readers, too, if you’re nasty.