Saturday, July 06, 2019

It Feels So Good When You Stop

The stock market is also soaring, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average setting a new record high this week on optimism about an end to the U.S.-China trade war (News story)
I have a new explanation for Trump's trade war with China. It makes us poorer. Ending it will make us richer, raise the stock market, make Trump less unpopular with tech firms. Voters vote largely on current information. So if he ends it a few months before the election ...

Which reminds me of the story of the man in the insane asylum for hitting himself in the head with a hammer. When one of the doctors asked him why he did it, the answer was "Because it feels so good when I stop."

Andre Norton on C.J. Cherryh

I recently started rereading Gate if Ivrel, C.J. Cherryh’s first novel. The introduction is by Andre Norton, at the time a very successful author. 

Cherryh, in that novel, is doing the sort of thing Norton did, but doing it much better. And Norton, to her immense credit, realizes it and is willing to say so. The end of the introduction:
My personal question rises:
“Why can’t I write like this?”
I very much wish that I did.
How many successful writers would have the humility to say that, in print, about a new author?