The February man still shakes the snow from off his hair and blows his hands

The snow has glassed over: when I walked downhill to catch a train this afternoon, I had to put my feet in the pockmarks of previous tracks so as not to skid to a rapid and embarrassing demise in the street. I had to chip off the front steps before it was safe to retrieve the mail. The wind has the same sheer-ice solidity; when it rises, it feels only like a heavier chill scalded to the skin. There's a cartoon in the most recent New Yorker: "Long term, I'm worried about global warming—short term, about freezing my ass off." But I love this weather. At least it feels like real winter, not some barren, sunny counterfeit.

It would be nice to blame Patrick Leigh Fermor for "Notes Toward the Classification of the Lesser Moly," which is now available along with the rest of Zahir #12, but I think it's more likely that Mary Stewart is at fault. This is one of the few pieces of historical fiction I've ever completed, and I'm still slightly stunned at the amount of research required to make me feel comfortable about 1200 words. (If I ever decide to write a historical novel, I'll have to live in a library for a year.) It's also one of the few stories for which I've ever written notes by hand—on the back of a twice-folded printout about vineyard tours in Nova Scotia, apparently—and for the hell of it, I reproduce them below. All strikeouts are mine and the relative position of the lines. The fact that a couple are scribbled diagonal to one another, you will have to imagine for yourself.

Eldon Sorley                                                Rethymno?                           Andonis
1915—1987                                                 Therissos                              Leftaris
         1989                                                       at the foot of the Lefka Ori
                                                                                                (what post in the British army?)
        27 in 1942
winter 1942

The Atom Bomb                                              moved from Greece to Crete in October 1940
and the Telegraph Key                                     joins resistance after Battle of Crete
                                                                   latest possible date?
                                                                                                                ELAS—1943?

It is not that the old gods no longer walk on Parnassus and Ida

I hope this encourages at least someone to buy a copy.

In a similar vein, lesser_celery reports that Midrash is now available from Shocklines and Not One of Us #35 and #36 from The Genre Mall. Since here I have no notes to offer as proof, you will have to take my word that the stories published therein are worth reading.