John M Ford (Mike) is Dead

I never managed to actually get my hands on any of his official writings, but got to know him through his posts and comments at Making Light, the sum of which could fill quite a few very funny, very serious books. As Neil Gaiman has said, “…all of [his] great bon mots really did just come tumbling straight out -- they were always replies to something, with never a hint of ‘here's one I prepared earlier’ about them…”

Here are three of my favourites, from the particular body of work that Neil’s talking about:



“Scotty! I need a sonnet in three minutes or we’re all dead!”
“Och, Cap’n, ye canna force the muse. Have ye got a rhyme for ‘silvery Tay’ somewhere on the bridge?”

- John M Ford



Against Entropy

The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days --
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

- John M Ford



NASA ANNOUNCES PLANS TO EXPLORE LANGDON SPACE
For Immediate Release As Soon As We Find Some Money

As part of its “Mission Earth” program to do things that might, you know, be comprehensible to the average American (see “Manned Mars Program to Incorporate ‘Survivor’ Elements” above), the agency today announced its “Mission to Langdon Space,” in which teams of EVA-suited scientists would be “inserted” into multiply-connected Occupational Use Terrains (MachOUT universes) with the intention of discovering who is, in physical-science terms, getting any, with whom, and in what combinations.

The first question that came to reporter’s minds should be obvious. The second question was, “What if everybody just, like, fibs?” Mission Specialist Victor von Kinsey (winner of this year’s Nash Trophy for Interesting Paramathematical Behavior) replied, “We naturally expect respondents to fall back on constructions such as ‘It depends on what you mean by “whoopee” and ‘Nudge nudge say no more.’ The purpose of this project is to collect interesting data from which results suitable for premium-cable distribution can be redacted. Everything else is error bars.”

Asked what the practical application of this effort might be, Dr. Kinsey said, “Global warming,” and ran off singing “Du, du, bist eine kleine Teekanne.”

- John M Ford


(These I took from Making Light, without asking - apologies: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/ )

RIP dear man, although I think you’ll be too busy entertaining the astrals for any resting. We have lots of your words to keep us company, and we’ll treasure them.