The King in the Hat

(for Henry)

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the Lethal Chamber
All that frigid, bleak, grey day.

I sat there with Sally.
We sat there, we two.
And I said, "How I wish
We had something to do!"

Too wet to go out
And too filled with anomie to play ball.
So we sat in the Lethal Chamber.
We did nothing at all.

So all we could do was to
Sit!
Sit!
Sit!
Sit!
And we did not like it.
Not one little bit.

And then
Someone cried "The King!"
How that cry made us spring!

We looked!
Then we saw him step in on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The King in the Hat!
And he said to us,
"Why do you sit there like that?"

"I know it is bleak
And the black suns are not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good Fun that is Funny!"

"I know some Carcosan games we could play,"
Said the King.
"I know some...tricks."
Said the King in the Hat.
"A lot of good tricks.
I will show them to you.
I will remove the Pallid Mask
And no questions will you ask.
Your mother
Will not mind at all if I do."

Then Sally and I
Did not know what to say
Our mother was at the reef, dwelling amidst wonder and glory
For the day.

But the Fisher of Men said, "No! No!
Make the King go away!
Tell that King in the Hat
You do NOT want to play.
He should not be here.
He should not be about.
He should not be here
When Mother Church is without!"

"Now! Now! Have no fear.
Have no fear!" said the King.
"My tricks are terrible in their simplicity,"
Said the Mad Yellow King.
"Why, we can have
Lots of good fun, dear Sally,
With a game that I call
Drowning the Fisher of Men in Lake Hali."

"Let me go!" said the Fisher.
"I’m being done brown!
Let me go!" said the Fisher
"I do NOT wish to drown!"

"You will know fear." said the King
"Long will you moan.
I will hold you below
As I sit on my throne.
With my scalloped tatters wrapped ‘round one hand!
And hiding Yhill behind string!
But that is not ALL I can do!"
Said the King...

"Gaze upon me!
Gaze upon me now!" said the King.
"Comprehend the black stars and the thoughts
Of men lengthening!
My empire spans from Carcosa to Hyades
To me men’s lives are as fleas’!
And look!
I can hop up and down on a ball!
But that is not all!
Oh, no.
That is not all...

"Look at me!
Look at me!
Look at me NOW!
I find it fun to have fun
But only I know how.
Read the play and learn of the depths of Demhe!
Trace the genealogy of the Carcosan Dynasty!
Look at Aldebaran
And the lands that are barren!
Look at Naotalba
And Jessica Alba!
And look! With my tail
I can hold a yellow fan!
I can fan with the fan
As I hop on a ball!
But that is not all.
Oh, no.
That is not all..."

That is what the King said...
Then the walls of reality fell down!
They fell down with a bump
From above the King’s crown.
And Sally and I,
We saw ALL the Things fall!

And the Fisher of Men came down, too.
He fell on to a bonbon
He said, "Enough!
Outcast and unclean spirit, begone!
Depart then, transgressor!"
Said the Fisher as he lit.
"Everlasting ruin awaits you and your abettor
Give place, abominable creature, to your better!"

"Now see what you did!"
Said the Fisher to the King.
"Now look at these children!
You lure them to sinning!
Your play ruined Paris and Rome
That unspeakable tome.
You shook up London
With words that cannot be undone.
You SHOULD NOT be here
When their mother and Church are beyond our ken.
Begone from this place!"
Said the Fisher of Men.

"But I like to be here.
It shall be my new den!"
Said the King in the Hat
To the Fisher of Men.
"I will NOT go away.
I do NOT wish to go!"
And so," said the King in the Hat,
"So
So
So...
I will show you
Another good 'game' that I know."

And then he flew out
And then, without a knock
The King in the Hat
Came back with a catafalque.

A basalt coffin catafalque
It was draped with a pall.
"Now look at this 'game',"
Said the King.
"Look and do not squall!"

Then he got up on top
With a tip of his wing
"I call this game 'Tekeli-li',"
Said the King.
"In this box are two Things
I will show to you now.
You will like these two Things."
Said the King with a bow.

"I will break the seal.
You will see something new.
Two Things. And I call them
Shoggoth One and Shoggoth Two.
These Things will not bite you
At first—they want to have fun."
Then, out of the coffin
Came Shoggoth Two and Shoggoth One!
And they oozed to us fast.
Their alien consciousnesses thought-beamed a piping "How do you do?
Would you like to exchange DNA strands
With Shoggoth One and Shoggoth Two?"

And Sally and I
Did not know what to do.
So we placed our hands in the viscous jelly, which looked like an agglutination of bubbles,
Which comprised Shoggoth One and Shoggoth Two.
But the Fisher of Men said, "No! No!
Those Things Should Not Be!
Not outside of the unknown aeons! Make them go!"

"They should not be here
When your mother is trapped in an Innsmouth fen!
Cast them out! Use whatever curious weapons of molecular and atomic disturbances you have!"
Said the Fisher of Men.

"Have no fear, little Fisher,"
Said the King in the Hat.
"These Things are good Things,"
And he gave them a pat.
"They are tamed. Oh, so tamed!
Their will is quite broken.
They will show no resistance.
No, not even a token."

"Now, here is a game that they like,"
Said the King.
"They like to consume,"
Said the King to me, Sterling.

"No! Think of the children!"
Said the Fisher of Men.
"They should not be allowed to consume!
They are beyond your ken.
Oh, the lives they will ruin.
Oh, the world they will sicken.
Oh, I am not sanguine!
Not one little smidgeon!"

Then Sally and I
Saw them slither down the street.
We saw those two Things
Consume every human they’d meet.
Chomp! Dissolve! Chomp! Dissolve!
Human meat in the street.

Shoggoth Two and Shoggoth One!
They oozed up! They oozed down!
At the end of their tendrils
We saw half of the town!
Their insides were out
Viscera pink, white, and red.
Then we saw one tendril flicker
And some orphans behead!

Then those Things ran about
Driving before them a spiral, rethickening cloud of pallid abyss vapors.
Nightmare, plastic columns of fetid black iridescence.
Up to all kinds of bad capers.
And I said,
"I do NOT like the way that they play!
If Mother could see this,
Oh, what would she say!"

Then the Fisher of Men said, "Look! Look!
And the Fisher shook with fear.
"The Inquisition is on its way here!
Do you hear? Do you hear?
Oh, what will they ask of us?
What will they say?
They burned witches for years
They will not like finding us this way!"

"So DO something! Fast!" said the Fisher of Men.
"Do you hear!
I saw them! The Inquisition!
The Inquisition is near!
So, as fast as you can,
Think of something to do!
You will have to get rid of
Shoggoth One and Shoggoth Two!"

So, as fast as I could
I went after my curious weapon of molecular and atomic disturbance.
And I said, "With my curious weapon
I can get them, I reckon.
I bet, with my atomic javelin
I can disrupt a Shoggoth’s organ!"

Then I threw my atomic javelin
It hit them with a BARRAMM SPA-DOW BLUKA BLUKA KAKA-SPLAK BLORT SPAP SPOP
And I had them! At last!
Those two Shoggoths had to stop.
Then I said to the King,
"Now you do as I say.
You inter those Things
And you take them away!"

"By the Phantom of Truth!" said the King.
"You did not like our game…
Oh dear.
What a shame!
What a shame!
What a shame!
And to think, the city, the State, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask."

Then he shut up the Shoggoths
In the basalt coffin catafalque.
And the King went away
With a baleful kind of look.

"That is good," said the Fisher
"He has gone away. Yes.
But your mother will come.
She will find this big mess!
And this mess is so big
Piles of corpses so tall
We cannot cremate them all
There is no way at all!"

And THEN!
Who was back in the Lethal Chamber?
Why, the King!
"Have no fear of this mess,"
Said the King in the Hat.
"I always pick up after all my minions and thralls
And so…
I will show you another
Good 'trick' that I know!"

Then we saw him resurrect
All the half-eaten corpses.
He resurrected the Mayor,
And Mr. and Mrs. Atorpsis,
And the Chief of Police and the Doctors
And the Nurses and Actors
And Orphans and Teachers
And Drunken Cubs Fans Who Live in the Bleachers
And they began to dance as he whistled a tune
Then he said, "I’ll be back again soon."
And then he was gone
With a tip of his Hat.

Then our mother came in
And she said to us two,
"Did you have any fun?
Tell me. What did you do?"

And Sally and I did not know
What to say.
Should we tell her
The things that went on there that day?
She’s not really listening. All she says is
"Ia-R’lyeh! Ia-R’lYAY!"

Rambo dreaming

Last night I dreamed an entire invented Rambo movie, start to finish (well, big chunks of it).

It was like Rambo meets Die Hard: ageless Stallone fighting off US Spec Ops soldiers taking over the zone where exurbia meets piney woods.

It also involved Dame Helen Mirren, as a master of disguise of indeterminate national origins and loyalties.

Later, I realized that the movie was in fact a movie within the movie of my dream.

The imagined Rambo movie played on ambient TVs in public transports in the dream city, while we worked on our own movie.

The movie we were making also involved Dame Helen Mirren, as the clandestine villain.

Later we were putting on a play, featuring many well-groomed young lawyers in nude parts.

Charlton Heston was there, directing the play, which was about life in the subterranean catacombs underneath an unknown American city.

Charlton Heston was also working on a civic project with the nude 20something lawyers, and making a cameo in the Rambo movie.

The imagined Rambo movie, as it happens, was also a product placement vehicle glamorizing the 1970s GI Joe Adventure Team.

Charlton Heston was fretting about the play, but LQ Jones told him what the f do you expect when you make a play about life in the sewers.

My brother was there, organizing his Borgesian library of vinyl records and making fun of my 1970s GI Joes.

I was with Rambo as he camouflaged himself and stole the truck and the helicopter and the RPG.

In the dream, Rambo taught me how to fire an RPG at the American soldiers.

Later, I told my thespian collaborators, who included Dolph Lundgren, that the Rambo movie essentially had no dialogue.

Dolph Lundgren laughed and said "That's fucking awesome—it will be playing in Egypt for the next 40 years."

Whether this all has anything to do with the fact that I am headed to a meeting at the Dept of Homeland Security today, I can't say.

And Dame Helen Mirren, disguised as an old lady, laughs sinister as her plans to kill off the other characters unfold.

And Charlton Heston is screaming at God.

Fraud with a Personal Touch

A friend of mine who works for the federal government discovered this:

From GCN (Government Computer News) 15-March-2010

Have you ever been frustrated trying to reach to a real human being to support an application on your PC? Live PC Care feels your pain and has added free online support to its antivirus tool.

The only downside is that, according to Symantec, Live PC Care is a rogue antivirus program that rips you off by reporting that you have all sorts of bad things on your computer and then offering to fix them for a fee. Although the antivirus program might be fake, the online support is real, the Symantec Security Response blog reports.

"After a number of questions, we determined that it was not an automated script but rather a live person at the other end," the blog states. "The main aim of the online support session is to reassure suspicious victims that Live PC Care is legitimate software and that without activating the software at a cost, your computer system is at risk."

The program apparently uses a live chat system called LiveZilia to enable the online interaction with support agents.

I'm not sure whether it's a good sign or a bad sign when scammers start competing on the basis of customer service. But remember: Just because there is a live human being on the other end of the connection does not mean that he or she is not trying to steal your money.

- William Jackson

Neal Barrett, Jr., named 2010 SFWA Author Emeritus

COCO BEACH, FLA. – Neal Barrett, Jr., author of The Hereafter Gang, named by the Washington Post as “one of the great American novels,” and Interstate Dreams, recognized as an award-winner by the Texas Institute of Letters, will be honored as Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America for the 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend in Coco Beach, Fla.

The moved was announced by SFWA President Russell Davis.

“I am very pleased and proud to be a part of the upcoming Nebula Awards ceremonies in Florida, and have the chance to talk to the people I respect the most---the writers who do the job every day that I've done since I could hold that blue crayon up straight,” Barrett said.

Barrett is known in the science fiction and fantasy world for works such as Through Darkest America, Dawn’s Uncertain Light and Prince of Christler-Coke, and a number of outstanding short story collections such as Perpetuity Blues, Slightly Off Center and A Different Vintage. Barrett has published more than 50 novels and 70-plus shorter works since his first sales in 1959.

“I sold a short story to both Galaxy and Amazing at the same time,” Barrett said. “I was certain this meant it would be smooth sailing in this profession from then on.”

Sales did continue, and Barrett later branched out into novels as well. “I had a good friend and neighbor down in San Miguel, Mexico---Mack Reynolds, a writer I’d admired for as long as I’d been reading science fiction.

“‘Never stop writing short stories,’ Mack told me. ‘But try a novel too.’ Hey, what an idea,” Barrett said. “I started off with Kelwin, the Aldair quartet, The Gates of Time, Highwood and others. I like to do novels, but short stories will always be my first love.

“I grew up on Burroughs’ Mars books, Startling Stories, IF, Galaxy, Astounding, Amazing, Planet Stories and the rest,” he said.

In modern times, Barrett sold to Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, OMNI and others.

“I have a great respect for many of the editors and publishers I’ve worked with,” Barrett said. “And I’d like to say how much I admire the contributions of the small press, houses such as Subterranean Press and Golden Gryphon. I’m proud to say that a lot of what I feel is my best work is due to the editors of these presses.

“Like many professional writers, I’ve written westerns, mystery-suspense, horror, noir, air war stories, the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, novelizations such as Judge Dredd, Barb Wire and Dungeons & Dragons,” he said. “One of my all-time favorite jobs is writing comic books--I think I’ve turned out over a thousand pages by now. That’s what writers do, you know--they often do what needs to be done. And I’ve found that a real pro puts everything he or she has into whatever project comes along. You name it. I can’t tell you how many names besides mine are out there over the work I’ve done for a series or special projects.

The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Coco Beach, Fla., May 13-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes will be honored with the SFWA Service Award, and Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.

About SFWA
Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

I'll appear at Comicpalooza this weekend - and so will a lot of comic book creators, entertainers, celebrities, war-gamers, and several other SF authors including Catherine Asaro, Gene Wolfe and John Moore. This is a very ambitious event. In previous years it was smaller and more specialized. This year it's at the George R. Brown Convention Center, no less. Its Twitter bio says, "Your comic, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, steampunk, gaming convention! Woot!" This should be interesting indeed.

Keith Stokes, Vonda N. McIntyre honored with SFWA Service Award

CHESTERTOWN, Md. – Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) will honor Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes with SFWA Service Awards for 2010 during the Nebula Awards® Weekend May 13-16 in Coco Beach, Fla.



McIntyre is being honored for her many years of maintaining SFWA member websites and other sections of the original SFWA website on a volunteer basis, as well as numerous other volunteer activities. Stokes is being honored for his service on multiple committees, as well as managing SFWA news alerts, ensuring organization membership is kept up to date with developments in SFWA and the publishing industry.

McIntyre sold her first short story in 1969 and published her first novel, The Exile Waiting, in 1975. Her 1978 novel Dreamsnake won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and her 1997 novel, The Moon and the Sun, won the Nebula Award. She organized the first incarnation of Clarion West Writers Workshop (1971-1973), has taught at numerous other workshops and served as the Evans Chair Scholar at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash., in 2000. McIntyre is a founding member of Book View Café, an authors’ co-op distributing its members’ work in electronic form. She is a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she volunteers.

Stokes, a freelance photographer and travel writer, operates his own travel web sites www.kansastravel.org and www.mightymac.org. His genre publishing credits includes the SFWA Bulletin, Locus and File 770. Stokes helped found the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (which was latter incorporated into the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle) and was chairman of the SFFHoF from 1996-2001. In addition to chairing and holding various staff and committee positions at regional and national science fiction conventions, he currently serves as secretary and treasurer of First Fandom and is president of the Dawn Patrol, a loose organization of more than 300 science fiction, space and aviation enthusiasts from throughout the United States and Canada.

This is the tenth time that the SFWA Service Award has been presented. Previous recipients were Victoria Strauss, Chuq Von Rospach, Sheila Finch, Robin Wayne Bailey, George Zebrowski and Pamela Sargent (joint), Michael Capobianco and Ann Crispin (joint), Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., Brook West and Julia West (joint) and Melisa Michaels and Graham P. Collins (joint).

Prior to 2000, the award was a surprise announcement at the Nebula Awards banquet, but in recent years the recipients have been announced in advance.

The 2010 Nebula Awards® Weekend will be held in Coco Beach, Fla., May 13-16. The date was chosen to coincide with the scheduled launching of the Shuttle Atlantis on Friday, May 14. The Nebula Awards will be presented at a banquet on Saturday evening, May 15. Joe Haldeman will be honored as the next Damon Knight Grand Master. For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com.

About SFWA

Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

-30-

PUBLICLY AVAILABLE DATA

Citizens' electronic data privacy (and lack thereof) is certainly a complicated issue. Lately several otherwise unrelated occurrences have given me pause.

Item: five catalog companies that I've done business with in the past mailed me Christmas catalogs at my new address - without me telling them I'd moved.

Item: I had to call United Health Care regarding my mother's Teacher Retirement health benefits. The nice customer service person took note of my address - and then compared it with the Post Office database. The Post Office database concurred that I live where I claimed to live and I continued with the business at hand. Good thing I moved a few months before I had to get on the phone to sort out my mother's health benefits.

Item - or more like 15 items and counting: every charity I've ever donated anything to, plus a few new ones, has now sent me donation requests that include a small bribe of mailing labels printed with my new address complete with my unit number and the ZIP + 4 code.

Counter-item: the bank that holds my mortgage, on the other hand, lost track of my unit number in my condo complex. Correcting the matter by phone failed. The Mail Carrier figured it out and delivered the letter from the bank that that said, ATTENTION! WE ARE UNABLE TO CONTACT YOU BY MAIL. I wasn't getting my payment coupons and had to go to the nearest branch of the bank to pay my mortgage three months in a row. Finally I switched to on-line payment. How come every catalog and charity in North America knows my unit number but the bank that has my mortgage doesn't?!

Item: when I called the bank's Tech Support division while trying to sign up for online access to my account, they verified my identity by asking questions for which the right answers were "in publicly available databases." Have I ever owned an Olds Intrigue, Toyota Celica, or Jeep Grand Cherokee? Ahh - Celica. It was a little unnerving how fast they pulled up the databases to pitch that question and a couple more. They decided that I was me, and proceeded to help me access my mortgage account online.

Offhand I'd say there's a lot of publicly available data that's damn easy to get into for people who have legitimate reasons. It's probably easy for people with illegitimate reasons too.

Where it comes to the other kind of data about me on the Internet, the kind that isn't publicly available because it's supposed to be private, I'm a relatively crafty password user. My passwords would not be easy to guess. Unlike a lot of other peoples'. The New York Times reports that an awful lot of people use passwords that are w-a-y too simple. Researchers were able to analyze a trove of 32 million stolen passwords. The analysis showed that the most popular password was: 123456. Also in the top 30: "qwerty", "tigger", "sunshine" and "soccer." Twenty percent of the passwords were drawn from the same pool of 5000 easily guessable ones; so hackers with fast computers could - and they probably do - break into such accounts just by firing off strings of computer-generated guesses. Talk about making your data publicly available. . . .