And she says she likes my sneaker, so you know she is a keeper

I seem to have somewhat burned out today. Have some links.

1. I am a fan of numbers stations, but somehow I had never heard of the Buzzer. One-time pads always make me think of Leo Marks.

2. The problem with Perry Mason (2020) is that right now I really do not feel up for anything that begins with a variation on the murder of Marion Parker and then people post gifs like this.

3. This COVID risk chart courtesy of xkcd makes some good points and has also earwormed me with "Dumb Ways to Die."

4. I had heard about the time Aaron Sapiro sued Henry Ford, but I had never heard "Since Henry Ford Apologized to Me." It is, in fact, still funny. "Well, I told the superintendent / That the Dearborn Independent / Doesn't have to hang up where it used to be."

5. FreezeRay is a journal of poetry inspired by pop culture and I feel most of my friendlist should know about it.

What I think I have burned out on is the needlessness of the danger in which everyone I know now lives, because of greed, because of incompetence, because of cruelty, and the difficulty is that it should not be accepted as unavoidably normal and it's not going away any time soon.

For the salt tears of lovers and the whispers of friends

Today's mail brought my contributor's copy of Shimmer: The Best Of: Speculative Fiction for a Miscreant World (Shimmer Publications, 2020), edited by E. Catherine Tobler and introduced by Mary Robinette Kowal. It is a brick-thick paperback representing thirteen years of strange and shining fiction by Angela Slatter, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Amal El-Mohtar, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Karin Tidbeck, K.M. Szpara, Carmen Maria Machado, Vajra Chandrasekera, Sunny Moraine, Arkady Martine, Naru Dames Sundar, Anya Johanna DeNiro, A. C. Wise, and many more, including my own non-binary, bog-body-loving "The Creeping Influences." The world is ever more virtual, but at the present moment I am especially glad to join this company in a form I can hold. Don't let that stop you from picking up an e-book, though.

In a pleasing access of literature, the mail also brought me copies of Jayaprakash Satyamurthy's Broken Cup (Clash Books, 2020) and Michael Cisco's Do You Mind If We Dance with Your Legs? (Nightscape Press, 2020). I am greatly looking forward to both.