Not that unexpectedly needing to install software on a new laptop helps any.

Designing meaningless livejournal polls that probably won't really determine the outcome of my story doesn't help any either, but I'm going to do it anyway. :-)

Poll #1190038
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Should my protagonist choose ...

Should my protagonist choose ...

Should my protagonist choose ...

Should my protagonist ...

Should my protagonist choose?

I have now read several of her books, the first being My sister Keeper which had me in shock and crying myself to sleep for days,

Then a few years later i took in Nineteen minutes, great book,

I've now plowed through: The Pact and Plain truth this week only to find them predictable and barely raising a tear (me.. who cries at telstra ads or anything else as laim)

I really enjoyed Plain Truth, great book and all but the 'twists' are so formulaic i'd have to have been dead to not get them, picked this one in the first few pages...

Is this the thing... is the first Picoult book you read always the best... then ruins it for the rest of the books?

Is she formulaic?

I'm hating the Cymbalta this time. Am experiencing narcolepsy -- yes, actual narcolepsy, where I unexpectedly fall asleep for a few minutes or more at a time. Can't wake up in the mornings because too much coffee makes me nauseated. Actually, I feel vaguely nauseated most of the time, but that might be because I'm not eating enough. I wasn't even able to do very well at the crawfish boil yesterday, and they were some of the biggest and best ones Mike has boiled in a long time. (I had a good time, though, and not as much trouble as I expected being around people and making conversation like an actual human, though one out-of-town friend who may or may not have been a little squiffy kept trying to put me on the phone with various unknown friends and relatives back home -- "Poppy! Talk to my sister!" I just ran away whenever I saw her coming at me with a cell phone.)

Fortunately, we don't go to Grand Isle for the food. I just want to walk for hours on the beach and collect flotsam and empty myself out.

I have the trip this week and a nice birthday dinner at Commander's Palace with Chris next week, but nothing to do on my actual birthday, which is May 25, a week from today. If possible, I would like my friend HST (no, a different one) to take me to the firing range so I can fire my first shots on my birthday. However, I'm too knotted up inside to call or even e-mail and ask him. I know he is reading this, so, in the typical, annoying passive-aggressive fashion of a pheasant under glass, I am asking him here. HST, please drop me a line if you want to, though I probably won't get it until Thursday or Friday. I'll have my cell phone with me in Grand Isle too, though service is occasionally unreliable on the island. I know you are probably knotted up too and I figure blasting away at things can only help us.

My back hurts a lot, probably because I've been spending most of my time in bed rereading the Dark Tower books. I have some sort of fake-ass Darvocet from India, but am trying to save it for the trip, especially the aftermath of the car ride.

Re: shooting, I'm strong enough in my shoulders and arms from weightlifting that I don't think the weight of a .38 will bother me, but I'm worried about my hand strength, so I bought a squeezy thing. Now I can't stop playing with it.

That is my one-week-before-turning-41 report. I know it reads pretty bleakly, but hey, next year I'll be 42 and I'll have the answer.

[Addendum: I won't be posting until I get home, either. I hear there's high-speed Internet access on the island now, but you couldn't pay me enough to sully one moment of my time there with it.]

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/literally-last-minute-doodle-reminder.html

Just a reminder.... the National Doodle Day auction has an hour to go. Quick! Bid for a good cause!

(Last year, Barack Obama's doodle went for $2075... I hope we can get some of the high scoring doodles up to those kind of figures. Please don't make me run for president. Of anything.)

The National Doodle Day auction has begun. Proceeds will benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. (nfinc.org).

To immediately access the eBay auction --
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnfinccharity

Direct Links to Neil Gaiman's doodles plus his fave doodles on the auction block:

Ebay link to doodle #1

Ebay link to number 2

Kendra Stout: Ebay link here

Cat Mihos: Ebay link here

Fred Hembeck: Ebay link here

Sergio Aragones: Ebay link here

Gahan Wilson: ebay link here

I wanted to put in a plug for my brand new anthology from Lethe Press -
Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories, edited by Catherine Lundoff (Lethe Press, ISBN 1-59021-162-6, ISBN 13-978-1-59021-162-5). 17 amazing ghost stories featuring the work of award-winning authors such as Melissa Scott, Lyn McConchie, Marilyn Jaye Lewis and Sacchi Green. Eerie, romantic, unforgettable and disturbing - there's nothing else quite like it.
If you'll be at WisCon, please come to the Sunday afternoon reading and to the book release party on Sunday night. Hope to see you there!
Please check it out and spread the word. Thanks!

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We didn't really do much to celebrate the old 55th.  Is okay...yesterday I was moving slowly due to a bad night's sleep the night before.  Today we'll probably head out for a little shopping trip.  A new cat box and some more clumping litter.  (I bought the extra-large one of these and am amazed how easy it is to clean.  I'm also amazed that the cats will use it.  Maybe this will eliminate the need to pee on other things.  ARGH!!)  I also want to see if I can get a new goldfish to keep poor lonely Leroyella company.  Maybe even a new fish tank, who knows?

I received all my gifts last Sunday (we tend to do a combo mother's day/birthday due to their calendar closeness...)  I did get an AeroGarden which is pretty cool (although the lights are distractingly bright,) some chocolates, and two books (Jim Butcher's new one and Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic.  And so the day went.

I already have tiny seedlings coming up in the herb pods of the new aerogarden.  Cool.  Will take some pictures when I can, so we can compare to what I hope it will look like when filled with thriving plants...

It's unseasonably hot here in LA after a fairly long run of gloomy and relatively cool days.  The apartment has AC, though, so no biggie.

Other than that, I'm still debating what the next writing project will be.  I should probably just open all the files and see what hits me the most. 

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!!!!!!!

I've just finished reading the novella ILLYRIA, by Elizabeth Hand. I loved her GENERATION LOSS, and this one intrigued me since it's a finalist in the new Shirley Jackson Awards.

Now, without addressing the quality of the actual writing, mind you, I have a serious question for anyone who has read this (especially if you're connected with the Jacksons): How is this possibly horror? Or dark fiction, or dark fantasy, or whatever euphemism is applied so we don't have to use the H-word?

This is a story about cousins from a once-great family who fall in love. They're teenagers, so of course we know they'll be discovered sooner or later, but even that tension is not the story's main point. It's a love story. It's a coming-of-age story. The overall tone is sweet and poignant. It has one light fantasy element which is really more metaphor than true fantasy anyway.

It has no horror elements. There's not a single scene or element which is designed to frighten or disturb (unless you count family drama, in which case we're opening up one pretty gigantic can of worms).

If this is horror, then so are THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, A SEPARATE PEACE and WEST SIDE STORY. Either LESS THAN ZERO or LORD OF THE FLIES would be considerably closer to horror fiction than this.

Hey, I'm all for broadening the horizons of the genre, but not to the point where it stops being the genre. If these awards are going to recognize excellence in "psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic" (that's from their website), I'm all for it. But when they nominate something that very simply does NOT qualify for any of those descriptions, then I'm left wondering just what their criteria really are.

The semester is over, and I'm brain dead, and I want more time to loaf and relax, but I have to hurry off to Iowa Wednesday for nephew who is graduating and to very belatedly plant my father's summer flowers, then rush back to see astounding play based on the dark, twisted, hilarious work of Martin Mundt. The play is "Worst Mime in the World," the story for which will cause you to bust a gut laughing, followed by a trip to the emergency room, but I can't imagine how they can possibly stage it - nor can the author. And then summer school may start the next day. But I only have 1 student signed up for the class so far, and there has to be at least 8, so I doubt I'll be teaching this summer, which is good. The summer course is intense: meets for 4 hours twice a week for 8 weeks. Yowza.

< breath >

The above was written that way because it's how my brain is functioning: long paragraphs that meander vaguely north or up or somewhere above and then crest a hill and zoom to the bottom and then twirl around and say, "How'd I get HERE?"

I have train tickets and graduation presents to buy. Oh yes, and a new laptop/notebook computer. Tis a welcome bribe to me as a tangible (and useful) commemorative of Barry and my 20th anniversary, instead of a grand trip to somewhere like the Greek Islands. He's getting off easy and cheap (comparatively), because the 25 anniversary isn't too far down the road. < eg > There are some fine and noble and sensible reasons to not spend grand trip money right now, and he has no great desire to be a world traveler as I do, and he can't quite fathom how I could physically make a trip to Europe and not spend the entire trip in massive pain, and while I have more faith that I could find a way, the question is a bit worrying to me, too.

Considering how emotionally attached I am to the leather jacket he bought for me on our 5th anniversary -

He said some months ago, "You know you could really use a new leather jacket. That one's pretty worn out. Why don't you start looking at one?"

The emotional outburst I had in response, "No! I love this jacket! This is my anniversary jacket! I don't plan to give it up ever!" took both of us by surprise.

--considering that, buying me a tangible thing that I shall use every day is a fine, fine choice for an anniversary present. I plan to buy an upscale, forward thinking, will last a long long time, computer, rather than a "I only need it for word-processing so why don't I get a turtle-slow, refurbished one for very few (comparatively) dollars and keep it for 5-10 years," as I have done with my last (and only) two laptops.

I do not yet know what I shall get him. Must think on that as I think on what to buy nephew for his graduation. Of course, I have only a few days to buy nephew's gift, while I have about a month to buy Barry's. Of course, if students suddenly rush to sign up for my summer course, that month could be gone, WHOOOSH!

Things that have made my weekend yummy:

1. Shiro Restaurant. I took The Frenchman here for his birthday and it was amazing. Easily the best fish in Los Angeles. While The Frenchman enjoyed a grilled snapper with a light tomato basil sauce, my dish was by far the tastier: black cod on pureed Japanese eggplant soaked in a sake sauce and dusted with parsley. Our appetizers were mini masterpieces, as well: quail salad for me with sesame and a buttery lemon sauce, while The Frenchman had a plate of smoked scallops each crowned with caviar or salmon roe. And the service? I've always thought Maison Akira had the best, but for some reason I simply liked everyone better here. Maybe it was because it seemed to be run by elegant, hip matriarchs. I can't say exactly what it was but I loved the friendly, convivial people.

2. Iron Man. This film was mega fun if otherwise stuffed with stereotypes, product placements and a weirdly young-looking Gwyneth Paltrow (I swear she looks 22 years old in this thing). I also hated the "I'm a rich genius and the perfect woman for me is my 24/7 secretary/mother/butler." Somehow I don't think this would fly if it were a female superhero. Yet I let it slide in the name of comic book fun, of which there was scads and scads.

3. Rosemary's Baby. Your jaws are going to drop on this one, but I'd never seen this film until yesterday. Swear! It's yet another movie I somehow missed because of my many uber-Christian years. I howled with laughter at parts (particularly the black crib with the upside-down cross), shook my fist at Polanski for complicating the lives of Wiccans for the foreseeable future, and got caught up in Rosemary's paranoia. The movie sucked me in big time. His portrayal of Rosemary's personal life was highly problematic, though. She had a huge Catholic family and scads of female friends who would have been all in her shit FAR before all the mayhem began. He should have made her more isolated with a scattered family. I also had a problem with the sudden flip her husband makes from doting husband to evil, ambitious jackass. Maybe it was something in the cigarettes he was smoking with the old evil dude. Still, I loved it. Hail Satan!

Okay, what's making my weekend NOT yummy are these weird foot cramps like what I used to get when I was dancing the cancan at Middlebury. I'm getting these sudden, unexpected spasms on the toppish outer edge part of my foot (not near the toes but rather somewhere on the flat part just under and north of the knobby part of my ankle). This is making me quite cranky as I hadn't even been walking much before they started. Damn this mortal coil!

• 13:20 DaFont.com Finally Updated: I have to go make sweet, sweet font love now - www.dafont.com a2a_l.. tinyurl.com/6cmj58 #
• 15:05 Got to call 911 for my wife thanks to Mister Crazy Pants With A Snow Shovel Attacking Cars. I just called to request blank DVDs. Eesh. #
• 16:20 The Art of Pain at the Music Box Theatre:
  THE ART OF PAIN Sneak Preview (Look upon it ye mortals and .. tinyurl.com/6a8wsk #
• 18:20 Are You On LiveJournal.com?: Just a reminder to those on LiveJournal - you can get my blog feed super-.. tinyurl.com/54qf6g #
• 21:54 It gives me a warm fuzzy when my webhost (a) doesn't really read my support request and (b) sends a dismissive, poorly-worded response. YAY! #
• 01:15 Say what you will about the movie Silent Hill; the creature design & choreography extras on the DVD are artistically/creatively spellbinding #
• 01:32 Stained, faded receipt from 2007 says "PLACE FACE ON DASH" and 'til I realize it's a parking receipt, I'm thinking "Do WHAT??" #

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Some mornings, like this one, I find myself with far too much about which I wish to "blog." To write, I mean. I dread the day that "blog," as a verb, enters the dictionaries. Of course, that may have already happened, and I just didn't notice, in which case the dread is retroactive. Anyway, yeah, too many things. Yesterday, I wrote 1,049 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. The last section of Chapter One has become problematic. It does not seem to want to end, and I need to find its conclusion today. I still have Sirenia Digest #30 to get out next week, and I'd hoped to have three or four days to do a vignette for #31 before I abandon work on the 22nd (resuming work once my office is reassembled in Providence).

After the writing, there was packing, packing, packing. The last of the books in my office went into boxes. I am now working in a mostly book-free room, which is about as unnatural as it gets. Ah, but before the packing, after Spooky got home from the vet with Hubero (whose fine, of course), we needed more packing supplies, and so I made the sojourn with her into Big-Box Hell off Ponce. Actually, we went to PetSmart first, to get Mr. H. a good, solid plastic-and-metal carrier for the long trip to Rhode Island. We saw an utterly delightful Black-headed caique (Pionites melanocephalus). We have these spells where we want a smart, smart bird, but, fortunately, these spells pass. Anyway, after PetSmart, it was Staples, where we had to get packing tape, bubblewrap, biodegradable packing peanuts, air in a can, and wipes with which to clean Mac screens. Those stores, all those people, they drive me nuts. Anyway, Spooky went back out to get Dusty's BBQ for dinner. And then we watched two episodes of Millennium, "Luminary" and "The Mikado." And speaking of that second episode...

I did not actually see Gregory Hoblit's recent release, Untraceable, but, near as I can tell from having had to sit through the trailer a few dozen times, it's a pretty blatant rip-off of Micheal R. Perry's teleplay for "The Mikado." I just checked IMDb to be absolutely certain that Perry was not given story credit. He was not. Untraceable is credited to Robert Fyvolent, Mark Brinker (screenplay and story), and Allison Burnett (screenplay). I would be willing to bet there's a lawsuit here, and a cut-and-dried case of plagiarism, if the matter were brought to the attention the the WGA. But, anyway, there was a bit I wanted to quote (from "Luminary"):

We are meant to be here. We step from one piece of holy ground to the next under stars that ask, "Imagine, for one second, you could drop in on a past life. What would you like to find yourself doing there? What would charm you? Make you proud?" Ask yourself that. And the question what to do in this life becomes so simple it's terrifying. Just to do that thing that would charm you. It would make you say: "Yes, it's the real me." Do that, and you're alive.

After Millennium, I slipped into Second Life for the first genuine rp I've done in days. Thank you Pontifex and Omega. Oh, and since most of my now-very-limited SL time is being spent in New Babbage, behind the cut is a screencap of Artemesia Paine and the Professor in the vacant room above Miss Paine's pie shop (and I really need to ask blu_muse to show me how to take good SL screencaps).

( The Professor's Return )

What else? After Second Life, Spooky read me a bit more of House of Leaves, and then I read myself a bit more of the Osborn biography, and finally got to sleep around 2:30 ayem. And that, kiddos, was yesterday.

Looking back over the comments to yesterday's entry about the silly Yahoo list, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures," I have resolved to make a list of my own. But it will have a well-defined set of criteria for inclusion, which I will state at the outset. It may take me several days to compile the list. I may not get it up until early June, after the move. It will include fifty creatures, not twenty. Oh, and a few people were confused by the term "Pull of the Recent." It was coined in 1979 by University of Chicago paleontologist David Raup*, and it states, simply, that "the level of biodiversity is inflated in younger fossil deposits because sampling of the modern world is so much more complete than in the geologic past." That is, the farther one goes back in the fossil record, the rarer fossils become, since they have had a greater period of time to be destroyed by various geological processes (erosion, metamorphism, orogenic events, volcanism, plate tectonics, etc.). Also, Raup posits a collecting bias favouring more recent strata. This generally creates an overall fossil record that, in terms of biodiversity, looks a bit like an inverted pyramid**. Which is also what the list on Yahoo looked like, with 50% of its sample coming from films made since 2002 (though it also included creatures from as far back as 1933 and 1939). And before anyone asks, today's icon shows much of Europe, north and central Africa, the Middle East, and western India during the Eocene Epoch, some 55.8 ± 0.2 — 33.9 ± 0.1 million years ago.

*Raup, D. M. 1979. "Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications." Science Vol. 206.

** It should be noted that a number of more recent studies indicate that the "pull of the recent" may be less an artefact of the fossil record than an actual increasing rate of biodiversity over geologic time. See, for example, David Jablonski et al., "The Impact of the Pull of the Recent on the History of Marine Diversity" Science (Vol. 300. no. 5,622; 16 May 2003). For now, though, I stand by Raup.

Necro Publications is known for hardcore horror, stuff that makes my own Disposal look like Harold and the Purple Crayon. But in an effort to cater to the mellower "Maybe three decapitations in a book is sufficient" audience, they recently started the Bedlam Press imprint, which is where you'll find Gypsies Stole My Tequila by Adrienne Jones.

This novella is the story of Joe Blood, a former punk rocker who is about to turn forty. This itself is inconvenient enough, but unfortunately, in his young, successful, "chemicals are good" days, he and his two bandmates sort of made a pact that they'd kill themselves when they hit the big 4-0. And there's a demon in Joe's wall calendar that's going to hold him to his vow. This is, I believe, the first work of fiction I've read that includes a demonic talking wall calendar, although I think I'm going to start including them in my own stories from now on.

What I liked most about Gypsies Stole My Tequila is that I never quite knew where the story was headed (in a good way--I've read plenty of books where I wondered "Jeez, is this stupid thing going anywhere?"). There's a lot of humor, and plenty of great characters, especially Joe Blood himself. "Visual" humor isn't easy to pull off in fiction, but the book contains one fight scene in particular and a memorable gross-out that do this extremely well, in addition to all of the colorful and witty dialogue.

This one is well worth reading, even though about 12 years ago the publisher rejected a short story of mine, and I'm only now easing my way out of the slimy-walled pit of resentment.

Check it out at The Horror Mall right here:

http://www.horror-mall.com/GYPSIES-STOLE-MY-TEQUILA-by-Adrienne-Jones-p-16215.html

"God speaks through odd prophets in this schizophrenic tale...[whose]...underlying themes of faith, martyrdom, madness and loss are richly, sometimes achingly portrayed." - Publishers Weekly

From Publishers Weekly:

Scarecrow Gods
Weston Ochse. Delirium Books, $16.95 paper (298p) ISBN 978-1-929653-95-9
God speaks through odd prophets in this schizophrenic tale, which won Ochse a 2005 first novel Stoker Award. Hideously disfigured Maxom Phinxs, known as the "Maggot Man" for his disgusting job at a chicken processing plant, learned a trick as a POW in Vietnam: he can astrally project, abandoning his ravaged body to soar and spy. He shares this ability with troubled young Danny, whose family was shattered when his sister ran away from home. The two join brilliant homeless man Billy Bones and a defrocked monk calling himself John the New Baptist to confront insanity and evil on an alternate plane called the "Land of Inside-Out." Stereotype-heavy and prone to strange time shifts, endless dream sequences and awkwardly placed flashbacks, the tale is narratively untidy, but the underlying themes of faith, martyrdom, madness and loss are richly, sometimes achingly portrayed.

Not bad for a first novel. I'm pleased and thing that any PW review is cool! There are some first novel problems in Scarecrow Gods, like most first novels, but it was still loved enough to win an award.  And the use of the word "achingly" is a nice finish. Lucky for me, my books after SG are narratively more tidy.

My Storytellers Unplugged essay Let Me Be Brief, a short (of course) discussion of flash fiction, went up yesterday. If you'd prefer, you can listen to the equally brief podcast or subscribe in iTunes

I'm having a very lazy weekend. Very lazy. On Friday, I caught up on CSI, Grey's Anatomy and Without a Trace. Grey's was pretty much more of the same, though I think some of the characters are starting to rediscover and reinvent themselves and perhaps the two-hour finale will lead to more of that. Here are my thoughts on CSI, behind the cut.

( Read more... )

I've been binging on Banacek, the 1972-73 mystery series starring George Peppard and featuring every sexy TV actress from the era as the weekly objects of his, um, affections. The "impossible" mysteries still hold up reasonably well after all this time, though the one about the stolen computer wouldn't quite work, since the computer in question was the size of a room. The chauvinism is very much of its era, and yet the show is self-aware of its sexism and makes fun of itself. There are also more deep character insights than I had remembered. They're few and far between, injected among the more formulaic elements, like Jay's episodely attempts to crack the cases and the obligatory hysterics from the insurance investigators who object to Banacek being brought in, so when they pop up from time to time, they're surprisingly poignant. Given the lack of household recording abilities back in the day, there are a few episodes I've never seen before. The first three are the ones I've remembered the most clearly over the years, but all it takes is seeing the first few minutes of some of them to trigger memories. The one about the stolen wedding carriage, for example. I had completely forgotten it, but as soon as I saw the fight break out on the pier, I remembered everything that would happen next—up to a point. Though I often remember the "how-dunnit," I generally don't recall who or why. Peppard is a delight. He looks like he's having a ton of fun at times.

I'm reading and enjoying John Connolly's new book, The Reaper, though I'm not sure the story has actually started yet two chapters in.

Buffyfans, Ever Pair Glory and Wesley?

A short reflective piece about why I'd have liked to see this couple on the show.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/not-really-about-anything.html

Let's see -- spoke at Maddy's school yesterday, to about a hundred 13 and 14 year olds. Survived. The pear tree and the cherry trees are coming into blossom too. Tomorrow, without the glorious leadership of Bee Boss Sharon Stiteler, I get to inspect the Kitty hive and go and see how the queen is doing...

I'm currently spending most of the time in the gazebo at the bottom of the garden, alternately writing a sort of outline for something and proofreading The Graveyard Book. This is the US edition of The Graveyard Book, and now I'm taking all the corrections and fixes I did to the UK manuscript when I was in Australia and transferring 90% of them over to the US version (only 90% because I'm letting a few Americanisms that my UK editor had problems with stand -- particularly the ones my otherwise wonderful UK copy editor and I butted heads over. )(There's me at two in the morning on Skype muttering, "Look freak out can't just be a newfangled Americanism -- it's in Fanny Hill, for heaven's sake...") [For the curious, http://fiction.eserver.org/novels/fanny_hill/09.html five lines from the bottom.]

....

If you're on the upper East Coast and sad that you won't get to see me at MIT as all the tickets have sold out, you could -- and should -- down your sorrows in Cory Doctorow reading from Big Brother. If you click on http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000357.shtml you can learn all about it....

What: Cory Doctorow Benefit Reading For CBLDF

When: Sunday, May 25 at 5 PM; VIP After Party at 7 PM

Where: Comix, 353 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10014

How Much:
General Admission: $20/advance $25/day of show;
VIP Admission: $100/advance only, includes preferred seating, copy of the book, & After Party with open beer/wine/soda bar

Tickets:
General Admission tickets available at
http://comixny.com/event.aspx?eid=416&sid=1302;

VIP Admission available at
http://store.fastcommerce.com/prod_cbldf-ff80818119f1676e0119f2fbcdc91642.html


You should go.

...

I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"

There. Thanks. Sorry about that.

...

This came in from Laurel Krahn -- I've already mentioned Fourth Street Fantasy on this blog, one of my very very first American conventions, the one at which I first discovered the joy of talking to Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (amongst others) and failing to argue with Steve Brust:

Any chance you could mention the return of Fourth Street Fantasy Convention in your journal/blog thing? We've extended the pre-registration date from May 15th to May 31st to give us all more time to plug the convention, it also gives those who haven’t registered yet a bit more time to gather the funds together to do so.

June 20 - 22, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota with Guest of Honor Elizabeth Bear.

More details at http://www.4thstreetfantasy.com/

My friend Lillian Edwards pointed me at the TechnoLlama blog, where over This, this and finally this post the entire matter of Dr Who knitting patterns is discussed to within an inch of its life.

I crochet, and I'm a Doctor Who fan, so I've been following the thing with the knitted pattern a little. I've always had a set of Lil' Endless on my mental list of things to eventually crochet, but now that you've mentioned that DC is a bit strict about things I think I might just keep them to myself instead of writing up a (free, not to be sold) pattern. What would your feelings be about crochet/knitting patterns of your characters? It's not just The Endless I have in mind, I've done a seven legged spider before, and there are several other characters or concepts that I think would make neat projects.

As long as things aren't being sold in quantity, DC Comics is incredibly unlikely to grumble about it.

I don't mind at all, as long as it's not commercial. I don't mind anything that's creative, and I especially don't mind if people ask nicely first.

(I mind, very much, things like people selling on ebay CDs with PDFs of the complete Sandman books on them.)

(Nobody is going to complain if a fan turns a Barbie into a Death -- although I heard that DC said no to one of those appearing in a book of photos of interesting Barbie dolls. Nobody is going to grumble if a fan puts up a "how to make Barbie into Death" guide online. If someone put up a how to guide, and then one day hundreds of Death Barbies turned up on eBay, I can see Warners lawyers trying to close it down...)

...

Had a conversation with Paul Levitz the other day about Gaiman's Law of Superhero Movies, which is: the closer the film is to the look and feel of what people like about the comic, the more successful it is (which is something that Warners tends singularly to miss, and Marvel tends singularly to get right) and the conversation went over to Watchmen, which had Paul explaining to me that the film is obsessive about how close it is to the comic, and me going "But they've changed the costumes. What about Nite Owl?" It'll be interesting to see whether it works or not...

I guess this makes sense...sorta.

Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(macbee)

Cleaning my office, packing, I came across an invitation to the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Lynn-Henley Building of the Birmingham Public Library (which, at the time, was the Birmingham Public Library). This is the same building I visited on Tuesday and spoke of in my first entry on Thursday, the reading room with the Ezra Winter murals. Anyway, so I found an invitation to the 70th anniversary, April 7th, 2002. The building was opened to the public in 1932. My Grandmother Ramey was 17 years old. The US President was Herbert Hoover. Amelia Earhart flew from the US to Ireland in 14 hours and 54 minutes. Anyway, here's a contemporary illustration of the library, the one from the invitation:



Also, there was a somewhat odd list on Yahoo today, "The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy: 20 Great Movie Creatures." Some of these truly are iconic movie creatures — Kong, Giger's Alien, Jabba the Hutt, Godzilla, Oz's flying monkeys, Harryhausen's skeletons, Gollum, and heck, maybe even the magnificently erotic Davey Jones. A couple may, in time, prove to be iconic — the "Pale Man" from Pan's Labyrinth and the creature from The Host. But the list, as a whole, shows too much of what paleontologists call "the pull of the recent." That is, it's top-loaded with creatures from very recent films. In a list of 20 films spanning 1933-2008, 75 years, fully 50% of the list is derived from films released in the last six years! Even admitting that advances in CGI and SFX make-up are giving us many marvelous new monsters these days, this is baloney. Where's Lugosi's Dracula, Karloff's incarnation of Frankenstein's creature, Gort, or the "gill man" from the Black Lagoon? All of these are clearly more iconic, and far more deserving than some of those who made the list. The "ultra-cute baby Loch Ness monster" from The Water Horse? Not. Kraecher from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Wrong. The gelflings from The Dark Crystal. Nope (though you might make a case for the Skeksis). Saphria from the godsawful Eragon? That's a joke, right? You want a dragon, then choose Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer or Maleficent's draconic incarnation from Disney's classic Sleeping Beauty. Sheesh, people. Someone needs to look up the word "icon" in a dictionary and try again.