Making Light :: Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) :: comments

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten)

"Having the power of high, middle, and low fantasy . . ." Hmm, not quite. "One will come after unto...

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #1 from Faren Miller

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:41:20 -0500

I guess this latest display of brilliance has struck us all speechless. But it's a great occasion to laugh, as well as cry for what we've lost.

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 10:41 AM by Faren Miller

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #2 from Andrew Plotkin

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:16:24 -0500

I wasn't speechless -- I followed a link to a ML thread from last year, and blew an hour of what should be office time reading discussion about RPGs and Cthulhu.

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 12:16 PM by Andrew Plotkin

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #3 from ethan

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:46:34 -0500

Andrew Plotkin #2: That's a severe problem with these posts, isn't it? I'm like, "Oh, I want a little more context for that" and then I spend an afternoon reading old threads. As if this place weren't time consuming enough already!

In other words, more please?

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 12:46 PM by ethan

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #4 from Sarah

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:06:21 -0500

These posts make me embarrassed that I spent so long being a silent member of this community. Mike seems like an extraordinary man, and I wish I'd known him.

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 4:06 PM by Sarah

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #5 from Fragano Ledgister

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:04:38 -0500

Shelley said it best:

He has outsoar'd the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceas'd to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes--'tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air,
Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown
O'er the abandon'd Earth, now leave it bare
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 6:04 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #6 from Gigi Rose

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:25:40 -0500

Mike was the reason I came to this community in the first place. Anyone he loved must be a good person.
Almost everything he loved was interesting to me.
The only nice thing about reading “Making Light” over talking to Mike in person was that I had more time to figure out what he was talking about. He was so quick that often his references sailed right over my head. Of course (unlike some other folks) he would always gladly explain his references, without one hint of exasperation.

It still seems unreal that he’s gone.

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 6:25 PM by Gigi Rose

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #7 from MD²

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:12:45 -0500

@Sarah: I hear you.
Even now, I type most of my post and never send them, or delete most of their content. I get the feeling most of what I have to say, or the way I might say it (at least in english) is uninteresting in this crowd.

Then I remember how some of Mike Ford's post could be born from even, until illuminated, what could seem the most unremarkable comment, and I remember that other truth: without noise, there is no music.

*post this before deciding to delete it again*

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 9:12 PM by MD²

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #8 from P J Evans

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:19:05 -0500

I was just looking at the assortment of Google ads in the right margin and wondering what he'd have done with them:
Rustic Tree Lighting
Tolkien Ringtones
Contemporary Furniture
some kind of make-yourself-rich outfit
Download Your Song Now

The ads on the other sections are just as assorted. One mixed insulin and PT Cruiser parts ....

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 9:19 PM by P J Evans

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #9 from MD²

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:40:46 -0500

@PJ Evans: I'm pretty sure there's something to be done from all this about Bregalad's bunch of "street" drug abusing (there's a reason he's always laughing) young ent friends and their 'hastiness', shiny bling-bling things, cellular phones, the trouble of downloading a complete ent song when one can't afford high-end broadband in the middle of the woods, and the way all this will lead them degenerates to masquerading as High Design furniture, but I lack the skill to write it.

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 9:40 PM by MD²

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #10 from Earl Cooley III

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 22:45:50 -0500

So, is there enough material collected in this "Occasional Works" series to publish in a book yet?

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 10:45 PM by Earl Cooley III

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #11 from Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:53:56 -0500

Oh my. For just one shining moment, a sentence of mine was in the Occasional Book of Mike! (The one about coming here for the knitting.) I don't know whether to be tickled, or depressed that this means we must be nearing the end.

*begins reading all over again*

]]>

Posted August 6, 2007 11:53 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #12 from Kevin Riggle

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:50:15 -0500

MD²: Well, that got a laugh from me, somewhere along about downloading Ent songs to cell phones... Keep it up!

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 2:50 AM by Kevin Riggle

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #13 from Faren Miller

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:01:04 -0500

That quote from Shelley makes me think of Mike bustling in to rouse some woozy Romantic poets from their long slumbers. Shelley would thank him for it, and maybe Keats as well. Byron might get jealous -- at least until he was laughing too hard to retain any grudge!

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 11:01 AM by Faren Miller

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #14 from Jo Walton

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:12:58 -0500

Talking of how to build a robot star,
Jeeves, nightingales, and Zanzibar,
With never one beat missed, so near, so far,
Mike Ford and Keats once walked into a bar...

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 1:12 PM by Jo Walton

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #15 from Fragano Ledgister

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:06:32 -0500

continuing Jo Walton...

...We might, had we the needed wit, surmise
that the whole world looked wondrous through their eyes;
laugh as we in their mirror recognise
the happy moment hidden in surprise.

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 2:06 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #16 from joann

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:19:04 -0500

One trusts that even though he did get woken up, Coleridge wouldn't call Ford a person from Porlock.

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 2:19 PM by joann

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #17 from MD²

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:12:51 -0500

@Kevin Riggle:

Thanks. A lot.

]]>

Posted August 7, 2007 4:12 PM by MD²

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #18 from Faren Miller

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:35:37 -0500

joann (#16): But Mike could *introduce* himself that way.

]]>

Posted August 8, 2007 10:35 AM by Faren Miller

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #19 from P J Evans

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:09:42 -0500

Faren @ 18

He'd have Coleridge laughing at it, too.

]]>

Posted August 8, 2007 11:09 AM by P J Evans

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #20 from Nancy Lebovitz sees more spam

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 19:09:15 -0500

Sometimes I think that the Fermi paradox is best explained by every intelligent species having enough sociopaths to keep them from getting into space.

]]>

Posted September 22, 2012 7:09 PM by Nancy Lebovitz sees more spam

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #21 from Cally Soukup

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:08:33 -0500

On the other hand, sometimes I'm grateful to the sociopaths in question; if it weren't for their misguided actions, I'd never see some wonderful old threads! Of course, I'm not the one who has to sweep up after them....

]]>

Posted September 23, 2012 1:08 AM by Cally Soukup

Mike Ford: Occasional Works (Pt. Ten) -- comment #22 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Wed, 05 Aug 2015 23:30:33 -0500

I'm going to close this thread. Spammers keep using it as a landing zone.

Thanks, all, for keeping an eye on it.

]]>

Posted August 5, 2015 11:30 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden