Christopher Rowe

A short poem reads: A Reading from the Commonplace Book Remember, remember, On second November, To dutifully set back your clock. I see no reason, For changing by season, But nobody asked what I thought. —Christopher Rowe

I don’t know what your idea of fun is, but mine is NOT carrying a struggling 130 pund Wagyu calf 200 yards in the pouring rain.

attn: DC Comics. 120 page graphic novel. Kid Psycho in the 21st Century. It's obviously past time. Contact me via my agent.

If you don’t know why this is such a perfect thing to do (and I suspect many of you do know exactly why) look up “Gondal” and/or “the Glasstown Confederacy” and associate your search with the Brontës.

I’m picking points along the millennia-long timeline of that world for, and also signature “‘mechs” (big stompy robots that shoot missiles and lasers, which are piloted by humans) for, each of the four Brontë siblings.

I am taking my afternoon off indulging myself in a game of sorts, one of my own invention, which I am calling BrontëTech. Riffing off something I mentioned in an Amazon review of the special “Gothic” issue of Shrapnel, the magazine devoted to the vast BattleTech fiction and gaming shared universe...

When you pull your on hoodie backwards, don't fret. Just kind of shrug it around. But be careful of your glasses, which you forgot to take off first.

The bovine mind is a mysterious thing.

I’m introducing a new internet acronym. OAL;TY. Of appropriate length; thank you.

Some days your biggest accomplishment is going to be getting a chain wrapped too tautly around a gate unstuck. That’s not a metaphor.

Related: It is always easier to chain a gate than to unchain a gate. You can use that one as a metaphor, I guess.

Wow, thanks! "Minotaur the Robot" is a killer title and that is a killer cover.

A screen shot from the Weightless Books webpage that reads, in part: "New subscriptions to F&SF at Weightless have been placed on a temporary hold at the request of the publisher."

Make of this what you will. I hate to be pessimistic; perhaps it simply indicates that the new owners are going to handle their own electronic subscriptions. From Weightless Books:

Text on a yellowed page reading: Nude With a Dagger By John Flanders The old moneylender bumped into a weird problem that all his hardness could not penetrate

A title, byline, and editorial blurb for a story in the November 1934 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. Sure, time and Freud’s cigar must be taken into account but it makes me wonder about editor Farnsworth Wright’s sense of humor. And of self-awareness.

Way to go!

In that spirit, I say that LLMs are like player pianos. They only make the music a human hand has inscribed on the rolls they’re loaded with. And they never sound as good.

A friend once told me that the closest parallel to NFTs —a previous “inevitable” thing foisted on a world that deserves better—was those certificates you can order that give you “ownership” of a star.

Bow to your partner.
Bow to the lady across the hall.

The striking cover of the first publication (in book form) of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel, A Princess of Mars. The illustrator was Frank E. Schoonover.

The first page of the 1917 edition of A Princess of Mars. A highlighted sentence reads: "We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod."

Joe Jusko's exciting cover of A Princess of Mars as published in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorize Library line by ERB, Inc.

The first page of the 2024 estate-authorized edition of A Princess of Mars. A highlighted sentence reads: "We all loved him, and our servants fairly worshipped the ground he trod."

I must admit that the practice illustrated in the attached images both irritates and concerns me. The pictures are the cover and first page of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars as it first appeared in book form in 1917, and then the cover and first page of the same book as published in 2024.

A commonplace conversation once often heard around here that you don’t hear anymore:

“Are you not gonna lock the door?”

“Nah. Somebody might need to get in.”

A farmer leaning against a large black steer’s rump.

Lean on me!

Robert E. Howard fans be advised.

God bless Jane Goodall, Ambassador to Our Cousins. Her work helped us better understand ourselves.

No, but it does have to do with water.

Should have said it’s about a foot long.

A mysterious old tool.

Who knows what this is? Don’t be tacky and no fun by looking this up with a search engine or whatever.

I need just 12 more followers to hit 1300. I will recruit whoever those 12 are as disciples and send them out into the world to preach peace, love, and resistance to Empire. Warning: some of you will probably be martyred.

I am really digging the outfits, wizards! Especially the hats!

From "Death and 7 Wizards," written by Roy Thomas with pencils by John Buscema under Ernie Chua's inks in the Marvel comic, Conan the Barbarian #33, cover-dated December 1973.

New Conan the Barbarian Stories Set Release Dates, View Covers | Exclusive - Comic Book Movies and Superhero Movie News - SuperHeroHype Titan Books and Heroic Signatures have confirmed a new ebooks line starring Conan the Barbarian and other heroes created by Robert E. Howard.

Here’s the announcement of the next round of digital shorts based on the characters of Robert E. Howard. My story is about Bran Mak Morn, a Pict hero in the days of the Roman occupation. The title is “Wolf of the Heather.”

www.superherohype.com/comics/62877...

While people in the background flee tear gas, an older man strides purposefully forward through the flags, carrying a large American flag on a pole, with a smaller one in his back pocket. An abandoned protest sign on the ground, partially obscured by the gas, reads, "Every Ice Agent Will be Held to Account."

This photograph of Reagan-era Marine veteran Curtis Evans exercising his constitutional right to protest in Broadview, Illinois, yesterday was taken for the Chicago Tribune by Stacey Wescott. I know Curtis Evans is a hero, and I'm betting Stacey Wescott is a future Pulitzer winner.

A bit of doggerel I wrote when Adam West passed away.

"Holy Wholly Wholesome!"
Sang a Robin on a lark.
"Always keep in mind, Chum,
Not every knight is dark."