| "I'd rather be a forest than a street..." |
[Jul. 19th, 2009|11:54 am] |
Well, I have to say I am in somewhat better sorts this ayem, which isn't hard, given how utterly out of sorts I was this time yesterday. My thanks for all the comments yesterday. In retrospect, I let a certain homophobic and misogynist twidiot (thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) niamh_sage for that fine neologism) get much farther under my skin than I ever should have. Yeah, sure, he's a jackass, but I've been through so much worse, and usually I just roll with the punches. In the end, if I defeat the trolls, it will be through poise and grace, not the gnashing of teeth and the brandishing of various incarnations of my anger. I know that. But I'd had a really bad Friday, after having a bad Thursday, and I slipped. And to anyone who disapproved of the way I dressed at Readercon, I say to them, in the words of Oscar Wilde, "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art." Both, I'd say. All the same, your words helped.
So did getting out of this broiling house. But first there was a brainstorming session, promotional stuff for The Red Tree, and now it's looking like there will be vinyl stickers and T-shirts. Also, weird developments with the book trailer. It's starting to seem more like an extremely short film (maybe five minutes) and less like a trailer, and, also, it may not be released until after the book's street date on August 4th. I am determined it will be a piece of art in its own right, even if it means this delay. To quote readingthedark, "Finally, having spent too much time in the book biz, I firmly believe that having the best possible trailer on August 20th is five times better than having one out before the book is in stores but that isn't memorable or worth linking to."
Finally, I've decided upon a pre-release contest. Send me snapshots (analog or digital cameras, phone shots, scans of old polaroids, whatever) to greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com, jpg (or jpeg), png, and gif formats preferred. From these I will choose, on August 5th (or thereabouts), the photo I like best. The winner will receive a signed copy of The Red Tree. Now, I do ask that you send me a photo that you took yourself, or one taken by a friend or family member or suchlike that doesn't mind you sending it to me, because they will all be used for a photo-collage on the website, and issues of copyright apply. The deadline is midnight on August 4th. Any and all sorts of trees, living and dead, are welcome.
I think Spooky left the caffeine out of my iced coffee.
So, finally, when I was too sweaty to talk about the book any longer, too hot for planning and scheming, we left the house around 2 p.m., and drove south. Just south. No particular destination in mind. It was so much cooler Outside. We wound up traveling roads with names like Indian Corner Road, Slocum Road, Exeter Road. We stopped to get photos of two especially fine trees, one of which could almost be a dead ringer for that wicked tree off Barbs Hill Road. We also stopped in on Spooky's parents, who've just returned from her brother's wedding in Bozeman, Montana. But her dad wasn't feeling well, and we didn't stay long. They brought us each a Tyrannosaurus T-shirt from the Museum of the Rockies. After we left the farm, we headed on towards Peace Dale. We stopped and walked a while in the little wilderness within Tri-Pond Park, a marvelous stretch of woodland between Asa Pond (to the north), California Jim's Pond (to the southwest), and Rocky Brook Reservoir (to the south). Beneath the trees, it was cool and green and primeval. We also walked along the eastern edge of the resevoir. It's a marvelous pool that must figure in some future story, and, retroactively (who needs linear timestreams?), I think it is one of my models for Ram's Wool Pond in The Red Tree. Lily pads and cattails everywhere, a hundred species of water plant. Canadian geese (Branta canadensis), and Spooky saw a young (first year) Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedorum). I found a turtle nest that some mammal or another had raided, a shallow hole with leathery egg shells all around it.
We continued on south to Wakefield, and spent some time on the little footbridge over the Saugatucket River. There we saw a beautiful Great Egret (Adrea alba), and a snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) coming up for air. We wanted to continue on to the sea, but knew the tourists would be thick as flies on roadkill, so, instead, we reluctantly headed back to Providence.
Last night, after a cold dinner, we watched a very good film, Koldo Serra's Bosque de sombras (2006), or The Backwoods, with Gary Oldman. Set in 1978, it was surprisingly tense, with the unflinching ending it needed. The faintest hints of Angela Carter, and grand use of Leonard Cohen. It can be streamed from Netflix, so you ought to give it a try.
Okay, the day's slipping past, and I have to finish "Vicaria Draconis" today. Please do have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thanks. Oh, and here are some photos from yesterday. I almost forgot them:
( 18 July 2009 ) |
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| This Week in Advertising: Get Your Ripoff On |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|08:10 pm] |
Operation Grand Theft Pomo is in the motherfucking house!
I've enjoyed many a Jamba Juice so I was disappointed to learn that their current marketing campaign features a blatant ripoff of David Rees's detournement classic Get Your War On. Rees, of course, is appropriating free stock images but the Jamba Juice campaign is not doing the same thing. They are appropriating what Rees does with those images, right down to the way he renders his word balloons. I have no idea how the case would hold up in intellectual property court and Rees says on his website he's not interested in legal action (only a boycott). But it's plain as day: Jamba Juice ripped him off.
Through the miracle of modern googling I learned that the marketing agency behind the Jamba Juice "Summer Bliss is Back" campaign is an LA shop called Neighbor. Their unintentionally hilarious website positions themselves as paragons of crunchy, earthy, green, do-gooder, one-world decency. According to their manifesto: "You get conscious, inspired, ethical, engaged, genuine, positive and purpose-driven work that grows your business and your people all the while making the world a better place." Ad man, heal thyself.
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| "Come on walk with me, into the rising tide." |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|11:43 am] |
Yesterday, I killed a loaf of bread. Such was my anger, and such was the nature of the day. A shitty, shitty day, but the loaf of bread had done nothing. It was a little stale, sure, but aren't we all? Spooky's buried all evidence in the trash.
Turns out, on July 10th, some cisgendered, homophobic snot at Readercon was twatting rude little missives about my person (that's only one thing that led to yesterday being a shitty day). Hashtag #readercon. You can probably find him, if you try. He consistently misspelled my name as "Kaitlin." I'm still debating whether or not to unleash the flying monkeys upon his sorry ass. Whether or not to call him out. A loaf of bread has already died for his sins. Oh, and he also complained about Chip Delany reading "raunchy gay PORN." Ignorance and hatred and fear are the roots of all evil, if there actually is evil in the world. Blessed are the narrow-minded shit weasels.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,086 words on a new vignette. An erotic vignette that begins with a discourse on 4th-dimensional geometry, tesseracts, orthogonality, three-dimensional shadows, and so forth. Truly, I write smut for nerds. Right now, the piece is called "Vicaria Draconis" (thank you, sovay). And I could finish it today, I suspect, only it's so bloody hot in the house, and I'm still a bit too angry to make the doughnuts.
We hit a fairly serious last-minute snag yesterday, as regards the book trailer, and right now, we're scrambling to sort it all out.
Also, I'm pulling out whatever stops I can pull for promotion. We're going to have Red Tree fliers up on the website soon (they were out at Readercon), that can be printed from your computer and distributed wherever seems appropriate. We're talking posse, street team, etc. I've also begun a contest. Send me tree photos, any tree, anywhere, and my favorite gets a free, signed copy of the novel. Email photos to greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com, naturally. Now, I would much prefer you take these photos yourself, and not snurch them off the interwebs, please. They may be posted on the website, and I'd prefer not to violate someone else's copyright. We're also talking stickers, because any good posse needs to be able to deface public property and restroom stalls and so forth.
And there's the ongoing auctions.
I don't think I can sit here, baking in the heat all day. It's ten degrees (F) cooler outside than inside.
I want to say, "Read the Tree," but Danielewski beat me to that one. This posse needs it own slogan. "Feed the Tree"? Yeah, I know it's from a Belly song, but so was Low Red Moon |
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| "I tear the sun in three to light up your eyes." |
[Jul. 17th, 2009|11:20 am] |
So, first off, I am announcing that the re-relaunch of the website occurred last night. This is, of course, a preface to the re-re-relaunch that comes along later. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My great thanks to Christopher Simmons (scarletboi), who was on the phone with us after 1 a.m. last night, getting everything just right. So, yes, it's very much focused on The Red Tree (and if you've not already pre-ordered the novel, today's your chance).
I think summer has finally arrived in Providence. It's actually hot in the house. I think I'm actually sweating.
And for some reason I have been tweeting and whatever it is one does over at Facebook (booking?) about my very small tail this morning, which is evidence, at the very least, that I am not exactly awake.
Today, I begin work on a new vignette for Sirenia Digest #44. When it's done, I stop and, belatedly, get the book trailer done, and then I have to write the second vignette for Sirenia Digest #44. I have only 14 days to get all these things (and various others) done. Then, for my next trick, I shall pull something intelligent from Sarah Palin's mouth.
And speaking of magic, yesterday we saw David Yates' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This was one of my favorite books of the series, my last favorite book of the series, and I think Yates more than does it justice. He has corrected many of the odd twitches and unfortunate shortcomings of J.K. Rowling's novel. Yes, there are important things that get skipped over, but gods, this is a 2.5 hour film made from a 652-page novel (that could have been at least 200 pages shorter, by the way). Myself, I find the idea of adapting a novel of that size into a screenplay an utterly terrifying proposition. If I ever adapt a novel for the screen, it will be a short novel. Anyway, the film manages a wonderful sort of majesty, and gives to the characters a dignity that I'm not sure is present in the book. The cinematography and art direction are exquisite, and I was especially impressed with the film's pacing. Despite having such a vast tale to tell, the director takes the time not to rush from plot point to plot point. Some very fine performances, especially from Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman (swoon), Helena Bonham Carter, and Tom Felton. Yes, this film actually manged to make me care about Draco Malfoy. Indeed, one of the most delightful aspects of this film is the way it has managed to imbue the characters with a sort of humanity and depth they have often lacked, both in the novels and in earlier films. It's just splendid, and I strongly recommend it. Seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I now have some hope that Yates, in the last two films, may discover a fitting ending to this story, which I don't think Rowling managed to do. Sadly, poor Daniel Radcliffe remains as dull as dishwater, but it's a problem inherent in his role. Surely, Harry is one of the least interesting protagonists in the history of fantasy, surrounded by infinitely more interesting and charismatic characters.
Not much else to yesterday, really. Except that I seem to have discovered that the only two novels I want to read (or be read from) these days are House of Leaves and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
Oh, and the car's acting up, and has to go into the garage today, so we will not be joining readingthedark for the VNV Nation show in Boston tonight. But I think I do get to join sovay and ericmvan for Birdsongs of the Mesozoic on Thursday.
If you've not already, please do have a look at the current eBay auctions, the proceeds of which are going towards production costs for The Red Tree trailer. Thanks.
And I think that's all for now. Hope you find the new website intriguing. I've become obsessed with the analytics thing that Chris set up for me, allowing me to track who is looking at the page and from where and how often and so on and so forth.
Time to make the doughnuts..... |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|11:51 pm] |
Today I had an interesting experience. I've been having a little trouble lately with hearing things...this is hard to describe but I'll take some time and words to delineate it:
It's not hearing. Hearing sparks a cascade of synapse firings that then process that sound into a mental artifact, which can be recalled at a later date. As far as I can tell, I'm experiencing some sort of random creation of these sounds. I'll hear women screaming, or a child saying "baby!", or an explosion, or chanting, or someone talking earnestly about something I don't understand. And they're all more intense than normal hearing, and they can take place at a faster rate than the time of the audio sample. For example, I could "hear" what sounds like part of a 20 second news report in a couple seconds. And there's emotional content that comes with them, like extreme sadness or excitement, or anger. And they just flicker, like a magic lantern--a cacophony of input.
Also today I had a little trouble with blood pressure, I think, because I got a visual artifact in my left field of vision that was REALLY cool. It started off as a scintillating, incredibly complicated circuit board / labyrinth thing, and then it grew and crawled across until half my vision was taken up in its pulsing colors. It made me a little blind, but it was worth it. It went away in fifteen minutes or so. I felt a little light-headed.
I felt a little mad today. I think I shall see a doctor.
~Jacob |
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| Comic-Con Advice Sought! |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
Believe it or not, next week will be my first time ever at San Diego Comic-Con. Have you been there? Do you have advice or thoughts about navigating the event, eateries, local transit or anything else? I welcome your input!
Venture Brothers panel Saturday the 25th at 6 pm, Room 6DE.
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| "This fortress in our hearts..." |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|10:26 am] |
Wanted to get off a quick entry, because I likely won't have the chance later today. We're up abominably early to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I do this for you, Bellatrix Lestrange.
A wicked long day yesterday. I was still working sometime after 8:30 p.m., when I finally said enough's enough. Well, for one day. Enough is never enough. Nor is too much. Another interview done. More promo talk with my editor and publicist. A lot more work for the re-relaunch of the website.
By the way, "Seventeen," the first video clip, is down, and has been replaced by "Frogs." Have a look.
Also, again, please have a look at the new eBay auctions, proceeds from which will go towards production costs on the book trailer for The Red Tree Thanks.
Okay. I think that's all I'm capable of typing coherently at this time. Ravenclaw forever! |
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| "Bathsheba of my choosing" |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|11:49 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | cons, doh, email, interviews, promotion, reviews, silk, sleep, the red tree, website | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Biblis Patera | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  swanning around my office | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Placebo, "Come Undone" | ] |
Gagh, I can't wake up today. I think there was just too much work yesterday, too many different sorts of work. We had actually talked about getting out of bed and making the 11:45 a.m. matinée of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but, well, that didn't happen. We're aiming for tomorrow, instead. And this needs to be short, because the day ahead of me is long and baffling and has many twists and turns, and doesn't even involve actual, you know, writing. The writing will likely resume tomorrow. It pretty much has to, or I'm going to find myself disastrously behind.
Quick recap of yesterday. Well, there was a piece I had to write for my editor, about the writing of The Red Tree, something for the Penguin website. That actually turned out rather well. She was pleased with it. And after that, I had an interview, which also went well, I think. The older I get, the odder interviews seem to me. The questions all begin to bleed together, and I find myself wanting to talk about quasars or stag beetles or plate tectonics or just about anything at all except my books and writing. No, I have no idea why, really. And there was a lot of email yesterday, more than usual, and it looks as though today will be much the same. Actually, I must have written at least 3,000 words yesterday, just none of it fiction. Did I say "Gagh"? Spooky and I both put in a good bit of time getting things ready for the re-relaunch of the website.
Speaking of which, here is a small but, I think, valuable piece of advice to the readers of this blog. If you don't approve of how I've done something —— the website, for example —— there is a couth and appropriate recourse which will allow you to express your opinion. Email me. It's not at all hard to find my email address, but, just in case I'm somehow mistaken on that count, I'll post it here again: greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com. Email me and tell me your thoughts, if you feel the need to do so. I'll read the email. I might even write back. Hell, I might even agree. However, if, instead, you blurt out something in the comments here on the LJ, you will discover that I am far less receptive to your advice. In fact, odds are, I will delete the comment, and if you've been rude enough, I will ban you from commenting in the future. This very scenario actually occurred on Friday morning, as I was trying to get out the door for Readercon, which is why I closed down comments to one particular entry. If the most tactful way you are capable of expressing yourself is to tell me something "sucks," and to tell me publicly, yes, you will be banned.
Now, this sort of thing has only happened a very few times. My ban list on LJ is extremely short. Maybe six or seven people, at most, over five years. I like comments. I like comments a lot, but I don't like rude and unsolicited criticism. Thank you.
A brief aside, for whatever it's worth, a shout out to ericmvan. You've done a marvelous job with Readercon, and I, for one, completely understand and sympathize with what you're saying about not being able to keep up this pace, needing to scale back for a year while a team is trained to do the job.
Also, I'm reposting the following, as it only made it into yesterday's entry as a postcript: Thanks to Franklin Harris (grandmofhelsing) for bringing this Readercon write up to my attention ("Some important things/people that I saw/met/learned/heard about at Readercon" at Time.com). I quote: "I didn't talk to Caitlín Kiernan, but I watched her swanning around in a tentacled mask and grey lipstick, and I felt awe. It is so important that cons have freakish people at them." I'm going to take this as a compliment. Did I "swan" around? There is an Old English meaning of the word, "to wander about without purpose, but with an air of superiority." So maybe I did swan around. Bjork and I, we swan. Also, the lipstick was green. Regardless, good to be mentioned, and yes, I am a freak, and I'm pleased the author included the fada in my name.
Which reminds me of something funny that came up at Readercon. Years and years ago, someone actually referred to me as "the Oscar Wilde of fantasy." Yep, they really did. As readingthedark said this past weekend, now I only have to be considered "the William Gibson of science fiction, or the Stephen King of horror."
And how come I never saw the page devoted to my writing that's up at fantasyliterature.net? It includes one of the best reviews I've ever read of Daughter of Hounds. I haven't yet had time to read their review of Silk. Actually, Spooky read me the review of Daughter of Hounds late last night, after she stumbled upon the page.
And, finally, we're trying to raise just a little cash to help out with the book trailer by beginning another round of eBay auctions. Have a look, and bid if you are able and so disposed. And yes, I'm covering all the expenses of the video production myself. I can't recall if I've said that already or not.
Anyway...off to milk the platypus. |
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| "My weakness laid bare, as people stop and stare." |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:35 am] |
The thing about entries like this one, wherein I need to describe the day before, when nothing much happened, is that it tempts me to write about all the stuff I need to do during the day that lies before me. Which only serves to subvert the next day's entry.
There are a few things about Readercon 20 that I forgot to mention. For example, during the "Meet the Pros(e)" thingy on Friday night, when all the authors in attendance have sheets with peel-off stickers, and each sticker contains a single sentence the author has written. Con guests roam through the crowd, asking authors for sentences. Some authors exchange sentences with other authors. I gave lots away, but only received three stickers this year (I wasn't asking for them in return for my own). One reads, "Obsessives, doubters, workaholics: When the world ends, we will die, too." The second reads, "'We wage our deadliest battles,' Gundack said, 'against ourselves.'" Finally, the last reads, "Our words are the death masks of dreams." A theme is immediately apparent, and that I received these completely at random makes it all the more curious. I do not know who wrote these sentences.
Also, my thanks to readingthedark, who gave me a copy of Placebo's Battle for the Sun the last day of the con. And there were other people I met for the first time, and that was cool. Catherynne Valente, for example, and Jeffrey Ford, and, gods, I forget. My mind is a sieve. Only, it's a selective sieve, which is the way of most sieves, now that I think on it. I expect there are other things I wanted to mention, but now I can't recall what they are. Oh, I did, once again, arrive at the conclusion that I will never be considered a "great" sf author, because I'll never concede that ideas are more important than characters, and I'll never be a technofetishist, and I'll never confuse the purposes and nature of literature with the role and nature of science.
I got the news yesterday morning that Charles N. Brown, co-founder and editor of Locus magazine (begun in 1968), died in his sleep on the way home from Readercon. I didn't know him well. We were once part of the same little dinner gathering in Chicago (2002), but that was about it. Nonetheless, his passing leaves a peculiar void in the world of sf & f publishing, and I was stunned at the news.
As I said, not much to yesterday. We had to make the drive back down to Spooky's parents' place in South County to check on things. Things were fine, except for a catbird trapped inside the netting that covers the blueberry bushes. The netting is there to keep the catbirds out. We call this irony. Spider cat was getting grumpy from all his time alone. More and more, I wish we'd rented a place in Kingston or Peace Dale, instead of Providence. Anyway, Spooky's parents return from Montana on Thursday.
What I was supposed to do yesterday was rest and recover from the weekend, and that's what didn't happen.
So...I have about a billion things to do today. Okay, maybe only about thirty, but still. Too much. July is swamped. Turns out, there will be a re-relaunch of the website later this week. It'll retain the same look and minimalist feel, but there will be a bit more content, especially relating to The Red Tree. So, please keep a weather eye on the website. And there's an interview I have to do, and a mountain of email to answer, and some promo stuff I need to get to for my editor, and preparing to shoot the book trailer, and I have to get started on Sirenia Digest #44. It really is a bit of a train wreck, is July. I didn't think it would be so bad. I was wrong.
Oh, and I should say, it has been decided that my next novel will be only 140-characters long.
Postscript (2:28 p.m.): Thanks to Franklin Harris for bringing this Readercon write-up ("Some important things/people that I saw/met/learned/heard about at Readercon" at Time.com) to my attention. I quote: "I didn't talk to Caitlín Kiernan, but I watched her swanning around in a tentacled mask and grey lipstick, and I felt awe. It is so important that cons have freakish people at them." I'm going to take this as a compliment. Did I "swan" around? There is an Old English meaning of the word, "to wander about without purpose, but with an air of superiority." So maybe I did swan around. Bjork and I, we swan. Also, the lipstick was green. Regardless, good to be mentioned, and yes, I am a freak, and I'm pleased the author included the fada in my name. |
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| Summer Game: Week 6 |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|02:51 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | game | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
( scores )
This week's topic: Alcoholic Beverage. The song title must have a kind of alcohol (not a drink name... as in, a song called "Irish Carbomb" wouldn't work unless it were called "Whiskey Carbomb" or something.). Remember -- must be more than one word! Remember to follow the rules! |
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| "I need a change of skin." |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|12:04 pm] |
So, I suppose this will be my quick and dirty "con report" on ReaderCon 20. There are three photographs afterwards, but only three. I avoided cameras like the plague this year. Last year, I only avoided them like a bad cold. But Spooky took two, anyway. The third, I took on the way home yesterday.
Like last year, I generally enjoyed ReaderCon a great deal. It's that rarest of beasts (in my opinion): a convention that's actually good for writers. I was very heavily booked, but didn't really mind. I prefer not to have a lot of "downtime" at something like this. Anyway, I suppose I should mention what were, for me, the highlights, and do the overview, recap sort of thing. I should say, my great thanks to Geoffrey Goodwin (readingthedark), who very kindly helped Spooky keep track of me, and was generally good company.
Friday: We got to the con hotel, a Marriott in Burlington (Mass.), sometime between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. And despite what their website promised, there were no PS3s in the rooms, rather like how last year they promised free internet that turned out not to be free. Sooner or later, someone has to call them on this shit. They speak lies that sucker in geeks, and create unrealistic expectations. Anyway, my first panel, at 4 p.m., was the reading for Ellen Datlow's forthcoming Lovecraft Unbound (Oct. '09). I read from "Houses Under the Sea," as was very pleased to meet, and hear, Michael Cisco. It's going to be a fine book, but then Ellen's always are. Next up, I had the solo presentation for A is for Alien, which was very well attended, and that's about the best you can ever ask for. Then I had a panel, "Reality and Dream in Fiction," which wasn't so bad, though I suspect the subject was rather too broad for an hour-long discussion. I spoke about my "dreamsickness" and my pathological inability to know that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming. After the panel, I had another solo presentation, "You Never Can Tell What Goes on Down Below: Reading Dr. Seuss as Weird Fiction." It came off better than I'd expected, at least the first half hour. Thereafter, though I'd been asked to read the entirety of The Lorax, and had agreed to do so, the whole thing was hijacked by a number of annoying people in the audience who wanted to argue the political correctness and sociological implications of children's books that were neither "weird" nor authored by Dr. Seuss. Before that, though, it went rather well, and I also read from Lewis Carroll and James Reeves. No dinner on Friday night, because there wasn't time. I did have a short break, and then managed to see Greer Gilman's (nineweaving) wonderful reading from Cloud and Ashes (Small Beer Press), which opened with a genuinely amazing performance by Sonya (sovay), who exquisitely set the mood for Greer's prose with a ballad. And after the reading, there was the ReaderCon 20 Grand Ceremony, and the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, and then the annual "Meet the Pros(e)" thingy. I hid in a corner with Peter Straub, whom I'd not seen in ages. Getting to spend time with Peter (and his wife, Susie) was definitely one of the very best aspects of the con. And later still, because I lacked the good sense to go to bed, several of us retired to a vacant meeting room and talked until 2 a.m. or so (me, Spooky, Geoffrey, Michael Cisco, Sonya, Eric Van, and a few others whose names have been lost to me). I got to bed about 2:30 a.m., I think.
Saturday: The day started off with my signing, at noon in the dealers' room. Many books were scarred by my hand, some of which I'd not looked at in years. Then I had an hour free before the first of two rather unfortunate panels, starting with "Is Fiction Inherently Evil." The whole affair was predicated on a highly dubious pronouncement made by French ne'er-do-well Simone Weil, that (deep breath) fiction is inherently evil because it portrays good as dull, glamorizes the wicked, and fails to point out the supposed banality of evil. I sort of disqualified myself from the whole discussion right off, by noting that I don't actually recognize the division between good and evil in any traditional sense, and by asking if we were really supposed to see Grima Wormtongue as being more glamorous than Aragorn or Galadriel. I think Peter had the most cogent comments on the panel, though Michael Bishop and James Morrow added good bits, as well. And after that, I didn't even have to leave my chair, because the equally questionable "Is Darwinism Too Good for SF?" took place in the same salon. The premise was, simply, that it has been suggested that Darwinism has proven such a successful theory that it has left sf writers with very little room to wax fantastic. I started off by pointing out that all of biology is based on a single data point (Earth), and, therefore, no matter how well we might presently understand life on Earth, we may understand very little about life as a cosmic phenomenon. The panelists all had scientific credentials, and we quickly concluded that there was plenty of "wiggle room" in SF for nonDarwinian (not antiDarwinian) stories of evolution. My favorite moment was when Anil Menon was asked (by Stephen Popkes) if India has seen the sort of resistance to Darwinism we see in America, and he said no, there'd been no friction to speak of, no creationism in the school systems, and so forth. After the panel, we were corralled for a truly grand and delicious dinner at a nearby Szechuan restaurant. Too many dishes and tastes and flavours to even try to recount here. But we made it back in time for the "Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition Tournament of Champions," which has forever etched the phrase "she cupped him where he was soft" into my brainmeats. Later, those of us who'd gathered late the night before reconvened and talked until sometime after two. Oh, we were interrupted by some very rude harpy of a woman wearing two cameras, who noted that we were, collectively, wearing a lot of black, and so felt compelled to ask, "Isn't goth getting old?" I almost smacked her with my cane. Geoffrey almost asked, "Like you?" But we were all somewhat too stunned and polite to do much of anything. That was Saturday.
Sunday: I had only a single bit of programming, so it was an easy day. After we checked out of the room, Spooky and I prowled about the dealers' room, where I was very good and bought only a single book. At 2 p.m., after saying my goodbyes to Peter and Susie, I had my reading. All of Chapter Four of The Red Tree was read, and my thanks to everyone who stuck around and missed part (or all?) of the closing ceremonies while I went so far over the one-hour time slot to get it all read. We left the hotel sometime about 4 p.m., and made it back to Providence just before five, I think. Before dinner.
Also, it was good to meet Chris and Meg, as I'd only met them previously in Second Life.
And yes, I will likely be back next year, and no, I will not be at Necon (I never said I would). And yes, I did wear masks almost the entire convention, and will likely do so next year. In fact, I may do so at all future public appearances. Friday's Cthulhu mask (and the Kambriel dress) was the most popular. Alas, there are no photos from Friday of that outfit (to my knowledge); some might turn up online somewhere. Oh, by the way, my masks were crafted by E. L. Downey; they were gifts to Spooky and me in May 2005. Also, my grateful thanks to everyone who took part in the recent eBay auctions that made it possible for me to attend the con.
And now, the photographs (behind the cut):
( ReaderCon 20 )
Okay. Yeah. That wasn't quick. Or even particularly dirty. |
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| Update |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|09:33 pm] |
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I'm alive, that is all. |
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| one million times... |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|08:28 pm] |
You played tennis today in incheon with alex, jamin, and harry. Of course, harry’s name is not really harry, but he felt left out that the other korean’s have english names and he didn’t, so one night we decided to try to anglicize his name, which had an H and an I sound, and the end result was “harry.” speaking of an H and an I, it sort of blew the kids’ minds that the article “an” is used with letters other than vowels. Of course, we all know this instinctively from years of hearing “I’ll take an M, Pat!” from our grandmother’s TVs as vanna walked over to turn/push (depending on when one grew up) the block to reveal the letter.
Anyway... you rediscovered during this pre-work mid-morning outing that you really do enjoy tennis, and realised that you actually very much enjoy all games that involve hitting things with sticks: tennis, baseball, croquet, pool, golf, piñatas, and, potentially, cricket or hockey. Though you have you doubts about you and hockey, which is the only one on this list that semi-legitimately involves the sticks also being used to hit you.
---
You went out on july 4th and of course celebrated the right to have crappy beer and make a fool of yourself. Actually it started well-enough... your boisterous singing of the “star spangled banner” brought a half-dozen other bar patrons to your side in a-capella accompaniment. It was truly a moving, emotional, patriotic moment, which culminated in two of you over-enthusiastically cheersing your glasses together and shattering them, which left your hand painfully bloodied. But of course you know that’s not actually the case. It makes for a better story, but really, when your glass broke, you stupidly grabbed the big broken chunk of it and firmly seized it to put in your pocket as a souvenir, and it was in fact this grasping of a sharp-edged chunk of glass that not-surprisingly left painfully sharp incisions in two of your fingers. You also may have then committed treason by singing “god save the queen” with the kiwi who felt left out and wanted a sing-along too.
---
But before all of this, you had a little birthday gathering at your apartment for alex, in the style of the ever-sociable nikki/brian. It was a fun time, though you printed out a massive 4x6-pages photo of him for the wall that looked disturbing like a funereal photo, prompting most of the guests to comment that your “happy birthday alex!” sign should perhaps have been changed to “goodbye alex.” by the end, when further drinks would no longer induce the warm glow, you all settled into a late-night viewing of what is here called “젠장 뉴스" which apparently (and you never knew this until watching it that evening with other koreans) translates as “oh shit! news” but which you more familiarly know as “world’s wildest police videos”... except this being a country not subject to american censorship, the videos are little more, well, wild … (people being shot, people dying, people nude, etc). Watching this in a candlelit room was a little surreal.
---
And now this leads to the part you really didn’t want to discuss, but felt that it would be good to get off your chest and present to your dear readers, your confessors. For it was this night that you outrageously decided it would be a wise idea to text one of “them” and confess your undying love. Background:
you’ve fancied “the one” for months now, and as noted in the prior entry, recent events had given this prospect vastly more strength that you’d ever imagined. And that’s exactly what led you to begin questioning it. You knew you found her attractive and delightful and intelligent, but suddenly, the idea that there might be something there terrified you. So you started questioning the feasibility of the relationship before it was even a proper relationship. You convinced yourself (or perhaps, in another light, finally admitted to yourself) that though you idealise her, in a realistic way you’re quite opposite, and this would only lead to heartache down the line. And it was furthermore this time when you interpreted the increased sociability of “no. two” as flirtatious interest. This led you to discover (or invent and then exaggerate) the surely better future you could have with her; being of a much more similar disposition to yourself. So while you began backtracking from The One (which had finally begun seeming within reach), you simultaneously began pursuing The New, The Two, The More-Like-You. And what better way to do this than to shower her with attention and creepy “i love you, please marry me” drunken texts at 3am?
Certainly it all sounds flawless and brilliant up to this point. But you apparently didn't count on the fact that, ruthlessly and selfishly, they valued their own 5-years of friendship and co-working over your flaky and essentially temporary proposals. And they talked, about you, and saw in your brilliant plan not the hesitant and insecure teenager terrified of having bit off more than he could chew, but the stereotype-fitting foreigner who looks for love where-ever he can get it and is perpetually and actively engaged in courting as many girls as he can simultaneously. And now, what was once an incredibly fun-and-flirty (did I just say that?) working relationship amongst all of you, has taken-on a loss-of-innocence feeling that is unmistakably not as fun and certainly not flirty.
You disparage them too much, though. The reality is that they are still your friends, know you are just a silly foreign boy excited by playing with the fire of young(ish) professional women rather than college girls, and deep down have stopped (if they ever started) taking any of your tomfoolery seriously. This, after having spent nine months trying to persuade (and almost... so painfully almost succeeding in persuading) The One that you were serious, and would take it seriously and could be taken seriously. If anything, she’s probably a little hurt by you, or feeling very silly that she might have allowed herself to consider you. But how easily our hard-laid plans can be blown away like so much sand...
---
and finally tonight, you decided that, now that you’ve come into a bit of money, your reliable but 8-year-old ibook could use a little replacement. Little indeed: so you bought one of those cute little 8-inch netbooks, super cheap. This also means then that after an entire lifetime of being devoted to one OS and one OS only -apple/mac-, you’ve left to explore other inhabitants of the mysterious OS universe. After promptly removing the installed windows xp, you are now (and you do mean now, as you type) a so-far satisfied user of ubuntu linux. there’s both less/more to learn than you expected. you assumed you already had the know-how to handle it without problem, but now you’re often catching yourself finding out the hard way that it’s much more complicated than you anticipated.
My how true this has been proven this month...
---
so, it seems that, until you can manage to get your flighty act together, this quote from last night’s simpsons rerun will remain particularly relevant:
Homer’s geeky college roommate: I invented a program that downloads porn off the internet one million times faster.
Marge: Does anyone need that much porno?
Homer (drooling): One million times... |
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| The Red Tree, Live |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|09:30 pm] |
This will likely be my last chance to make a blog entry before ReaderCon. I have a 4 p.m. panel, which means we need to leave the house around 1 p.m. I feel like I haven't stopped moving all day, and I think Spooky's done twice as much as me. Anyway...
Thanks in large part to scarletboi, the CRK website has been revamped for The Red Tree. Please do note that the video clip that's up now is not one of the two planned book trailers. Those will come later. Meanwhile, these short clips will be changing every few days.
Please, please feel free to post about the website redesign in your own LJs, Facebook accounts, Twitter, or wherever. Every little bit helps. Every single copy of the book that sells helps (and pre-orders are especially important). Spread the word. I will be very grateful.
There's actually a lot I wish I had time to blog about, such as the discovery of a wonderful new armored, terrestrial crocodylomorph that has been dubbed Armadillosuchus arrudai, from the Cretaceous of Brazil. Awesome beast. And lots of other stuff. But there's still packing to be done.
Hope to see you at ReaderCon, and please do have a look at the new website. Okay, I gotta go. The platypus is wailing, "No sleep 'til Burlington!" at the top of hisherits voice, and, soon, the neighbors will begin to complain. |
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| Waking the Witch |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|11:47 am] |
So...thank fuck I slept last night. Otherwise, I am quite certain I would now number among the vast legion of future zombies. Truly, yesterday was one of the most inutterably awful days in recent memory, between the sleep deprivation and being so loaded up on hypnotics and rushing to get ready for ReaderCon and running errands and all the rain. Awful, awful day. But last night I slept, goddamn it. About 2:15 a.m., I lay down and shut off the lights, put Pitch Black in the iBook, and slept more than eight hours. Sure, I dreamt of earthquakes and tsunamis, but who cares. I slept.
I'd write about yesterday, but what I can recall mostly doesn't bear repeating, or I'm simply too ashamed to repeat it. Either way, a crappy day. But now it's done, and we move on. Except, I will say that Spooky is a saint for not murdering me yesterday.
Probably the most eventful thing was having to drive down to South County (in a torrential fucking rainstorm,) to check on the farm for Spooky's parents. On the way, we stopped for energy drinks, as we were both only just barely awake. Only, surprise, no Red Bull. So, we made the mistake of trying (it's hard to type this without gagging) Sobe Monster. I didn't think it would be bad. I used to love Sobe Adrenaline, and various other Sobe drinks. But it was unspeakable. Like...I don't know. The juice of rancid bananas and pineapples that had been impregnated with high-fructose corn syrup and then carbonated. Plus, there was 16 ounces of the shit, which seemed completely unnecessary. Really, I've tasted a lot of nasty in my day, but I think that can of Monster set a new standard. I did get it all down, and it did keep me moving. But never, ever, ever again. Red Bull, please. There is photographic evidence of my idiocy behind the cut:
( Kids, don't try this at home )
Oh, and I read "An Enigmatic New Lambeosaurine Hadrosaur (Reptilia: Dinosauria) from the Upper Shale Member of the Campanian Aguja Formation of Trans-Pecos Texas," a weird beast named Angulomastacator daviesi, known thus far only from its boomerang-shaped maxilla bone.
Just heard that Los Angeles spent $1.4 million on Michael Jackson's Memorial thingy. This is the sort of crap that sparks revolt. Well, in sane places, this is the sort of crap that sparks revolt. I will say, it makes Providence having spent $14k on barges from which to launch 4th of July fireworks (when the public libraries can't afford to order new books) seem somewhat less abominable. But only by comparison.
My thanks to Chris (scarletboi), who's getting a new front page for my website up and running, to promote The Red Tree. I think it will be going live within the next day or so. I think. I'll post something here as soon as it does. The new website will gradually become a very dynamic sort of thing, and hopefully it actually will help to promote the new novel (and everything else). By autumn, I hope to be the proud owner of a website that looks like it was created this century.
I will not have any sort of connectivity while at ReaderCon, which is mostly a good thing. So, after tonight, I'll be silent until Sunday night or Monday morning, and that includes my Facebook and my Twitter accounts. My cellphone was new in 2004, and screams at the mention of Facebook and Twitter. Also, I'm going halt the micro-excerpts from The Red Tree until Monday. For those of you attending ReaderCon (many of whom are probably already on their way or have already arrived), I do ask that you please respect my desire not to be photographed. This does not apply to crowd shots, or when I'm doing panels with other guests, obviously. Just the solo presentation stuff, the signing on Saturday, and the reading on Sunday. Thanks.
Okay. Herr Platypus says I'm burning daylight, which seems both obvious and redundant to me... |
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| Political Podcast! |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|09:42 pm] |
Crazed conservative Ben Domenech and loony liberal James Urbaniak verbally tussle over Sarah Palin in a partisan fight to the death! (Actually, we have an amiable and amusing conversation with many points of agreement.) Fun Fact: Mr. Domenech is a major Venture Brothers fan.
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| Oh my fucking gods. |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|02:02 pm] |
Somehow, about 7:30 a.m., I wandered into the bedroom and managed to fall asleep, listening to Spooky sleep, listening the Rachel's Selenography. I'm not entirely sure what happened in the two and a half hours preceding that. I know that I seriously considered getting dressed, taking the camera, and wandering Federal Hill taking dawn photos. Of course, when the drugs finally did kick in (as they evidently did), I'd have fallen asleep beneath a tree or in a storm drain, and right now Spooky would have the Providence PD out looking for me.
Things I can do at dawn thirty, fucked up on meds, unable to sleep: print fliers, go into WoW and put stuff up in the auction house on the Exodar. I can also take photos, post them to the internet, and make two blog entries, and talk to the cats, and urinate, and twat about ceramic cephalopods. Wait. Maybe that last part was before I began trying to sleep.
I love you, Nathan Fillion.
Tip: While good intentions are noted, it's a bad idea to tell the insane, sleep-deprived lady whose been an insomniac since grade school all the various home remedies you know for getting to sleep. Trust me. If you've thought of it, so have I. If you've read it somewhere, so have I. I've tried it. A thousand times, along with a thousand other clever and ineffective things I thought up on my own. Yes, even that one. And that one, too. Thank you.
I think my present mental state might best be described as manic quasi-consciousness. Good thing I only have one thousand things I need to do today.
Correction to yesterday's ReaderCon schedule: My Sunday reading is not thirty minutes long; it's one hour long. Two to three p.m., Sunday afternoon.
Yesterday...we went to Warwick and saw Michael Mann's Public Enemies (fictionalized from a non-fiction book by Bryan Burrough) which was actually quite good. Depp and Bale were both excellent. Lovely cinematography. Great soundtrack and score. But, we meant to attend the 3:15 show. We even bought tickets for the 3:15 show. But when we went into that "auditorium," we discovered it was actually a closet with a tiny little screen, and none of the seats actually centered with the screen. Worse yet, it smelled like cat piss. Or an abandoned baby diaper. So, we went back to the ticket booth and told them we could not possibly enjoy Johnny Depp and Christian Bale shooting at each other with machine guns on that tiny screen in a room that stunk of cat piss. The nice woman seemed very understanding and exchanged our old tickets for new tickets to the 3:45 showing, in a huge auditorium with a huge screen and centered seats and no cat-piss smell. Yay. It only smelled like old popcorn. So, yeah, good movie.
Since I have been awake (almost an hour now), only one thing has not brought me acute pain. Simon & Garfunkel. Go figure.
I should do something responsible now, like post a link to The Red Tree, and remind you that unless the sales those first few weeks are really good, I'm moving to Kamchatka to live in a hollow stump. No kidding. These things happen all the goddamn time. You think writers just get tired of writing and go into some more fulfilling and profitable line of work, like the food-services industry. No. They go to Kamchatka. There's a Russian word for them, but I've forgotten it. Oh, and if I were responsible, I'd say please subscribe to Sirenia Digest, 'cause these days, it keeps a roof above mine and Spooky's head.
Which reminds me, I think Readercon 20 has totally missed the boat on programming. Don't get me wrong, these are all marvelous panels, the one's they've scehduled. At least, they would be, in an ideal world. Which this isn't. So, where's the important stuff that writers need to know? Like, "Why are we letting Google Books ass rape us and not even putting up a fight?" and "Friends don't help friends become freelancers," and "A writers guide to home dentistry"? Especially the Google Books thing, because, you know, fine, information might want to be fucking free, but until groceries want to be free, and electricity wants to be free, and water, and rent wants to be free, and health care wants to be free, and we all live in a happy green cyber-hippy utopia ruled by our benevolent King Moby, I need to get paid. It might not sound very artistic of me, but it's the goddamned truth.
Platypus: Caitlín?
Me: Yeah? What?
Platypus: You need to stop now.
Me: Oh. But....
Platypus: No buts. Go sit over there and suck your thumb. I'll erase the death threats against Google execs, and all that stuff about having sex with vacuum cleaners. Go. Now.
Platypus: Sorry guys. She gets like this. Move along. Nothing here to see. |
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| Dawn |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|06:11 am] |
I think there should be some sort of automated lockout, so that people who've not slept for seventeen hours (after hardly sleeping the previous night) would be unable to post to the internet.
I lay in bed for hours. All the Ambien alone, without the Valium, and without the anti-seizure meds, should be putting me out. But my mind keeps grinding at a thousand interlocking, ever-shifting problems.
No sleep.
The sun has risen. So much less night here than in Atlanta. In the summer, it seems Providence gets hardly any night at all.
I took two photos, a few moments ago. Is this proof of something? Am I trying to communicate something? I have no idea.
My office. This one really gives a pretty good idea of what the inside of my head feels like.
Sunrises over a wet and cloudy Providence, from the front parlor windows.
A plane passing overhead.
I have so much to do in the next five days. How I will do it in this state is beyond me. I am well and truly delirious. |
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