Today, I don't actually have time to be making this entry, but, fuck it, I'm making it anyway.

1) For those who missed yesterday's second entry: I've accepted an invitation to be Author Guest of Honor at the 2013 World Horror Convention in New Orleans, June 13-16. This will be my first time in New Orleans since 1999, and my first WHC since 1999. So, first we take Burlington, then we take New Orleans.

2) When not working my sorry, bestial brains out, I've been getting wonderful RP in City of Heroes and Villains. Thing is, I don't actually like the game, but I'm pretty sure the best RPers on the web congregate there. Truly bow-tie stuff, kittens. That said, I am trying to learn to play the game – which is harder than my first organic chem class in college, no fooling. There is no reason on earth why any MMORPG needs to be this unfathomably counterintuitive. Like, if human cognition is based in the use X Logic, this game uses Y Logic. Or, put it this way: Some games are Macs, a tiny number of games are Windows boxes. Having played them all, I'd say that WoW, LotRO, Rift, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, these games are Macs. They are, simply put, intuitive. There's no steep learning curve. For the most part, they just make sense. No convoluted reasoning, no incredibly complex skill sets and builds and whatnot. You can fly by the seat of your pants, learn as you go, and have fun playing the game. Not so with City of Heroes and Villains. Which is, I maintain, a PC (so is EVE Online, but that's another entry). Just trying to master the arcane knowledge required to wend your way through the "enhancement" system is enough to make your head go all Scanners. Pop. Splurt. Head explodey. Point is, I don't want dumb games. But I also don't want organic chem. I want games that are fun to play. And, too, here's ample evidence I'll endure almost anything for good RP.

2) Over the years, I have come to realize that there is a not insignificant number of people who read the online journals of others for the express purpose of waiting for something that will piss them off. I call it Professional Outrage. They pretty much never comment, until you say that one thing that sets them off, and then, POW. Suddenly, they swoop in from the shadows, the questing white knight, and you're all evil and shit. They're St. George on his steed, and you're the poor dragon with a lance through its kisser. Here it's you're LJ (or whatever), but you're the one has to lay down and beg forgiveness and convert and shut up. You could call these folks trolls, but I think it's something weirder than that. Most recently, I've seen the phenomenon in my blog from someone who never said peep – never, ever (though I knew she read the LJ) – until, first, I slammed the whole bullshit Culture of "Trigger" Avoidance. She exploded. I let it pass. A couple of months later, I mentioned, rather offhand, just as an aside, how grotesque and psychologically dubious is "attachment parenting," and it felt like a firecracker had gone off in my ear. So, the person in question was banned from commenting, and I stopped following her LJ. Takes a lot to make me do that. Point is, I just don't get this shit. Hell, I disagree with almost everyone about almost everything almost all the time, but it's extremely rare I ever say anything to that effect in someone else's blog. In short, if you've chosen online outrage as your profession, get a life. Or fuck off. Or whatever. You are, essentially, lurkers.

It's not that I want you never to disagree. It's that when you do, do so with civility and make Reason your guide. I'm wrong quite frequently. Sometimes, I need to be told I'm wrong. Just be polite about it, and do your best to demonstrate why I'm wrong.

3) I'm still trying to make sense of the Washington Times reviewer who dissed Valteri for sounding too much like a Sigur Rós album.

4) Tuesday, the post brought my contributor's copy of Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's wonderful new The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, which reprints "A Redress for Andromeda," substantially revised for this anthology. It's a huge volume. In fact, I think I'll begin referring to it as "the telephone book of weird fiction" (please hold all the "Telephone Call of Cthulhu" jokes). No shit, it weighs ~2 lbs. I recommend you get the hardback, as it seems a rather unstable (and certainly unwieldy) trade paperback.

Just Another Goat Girl,
Aunt Beast

While it's still new news, here's the scoop: I've accepted an invitation to be Author Guest of Honor at the 2013 World Horror Convention in New Orleans, June 13-16. This will be my first time in New Orleans since 1999, and my first WHC since 1999. I very much look forward to the opportunity to see docbrite, as we've not had face-to-face time since 2004(!). And dear Ramsey, whom I've not seen since the same '99 WHC (in Atlanta), where I interviewed him (somewhere online, I'm sure there are photos).

So, there you go.

So, I feel like shit. Early this afternoon, I have to go in to my doctor for blood tests. And I had to fast first. Most largish mammals are meant to eat fairly frequently, so it's obviously not going well. You know, once in – I think – 1997, I went three days without eating, and only drinking water, by choice. Don't ask me why.

Outside, it's cloudy, hot, humid. A dog's barking, and some idiot's shooting off firecrackers. The birds are making those sounds that birds make.

Since I finished the rewrite on Alabaster: Wolves #5, and then tried to begin "Love is Forbidden, We Croak and Howl," and that was – what? – that was the 24th. Since the 24th, I've pretty much not been writing. There was a spate of work-related drama, there was the birthday, and...other stuff. Also, I believe a sorts of unconscious revolt took hold. A sort of dead man's switch or safety valve, I suppose. The latter sounds less grim. Oh, I've had to attend to all sort of the busyness of writing, but there's been no actual writing (id est, the Creation of New Text). Tomorrow, that has to end, whether my weary unconscious likes it or not. I have to get Sirenia Digest #78 written and out to subscribers. I have to begin editing Blood Oranges. I still have the editorial notes on Alabaster: Wolves #5 to attend to, and...I'm sure, in my calorie-deficient state, I'm forgetting stuff.

Yesterday, we saw Men In Black III. It was a lot of fun. It was much, much better than Men in Black II, though probably not as good as the first film. But, yeah. Fun. You should see it. Also, I finally saw the trailer for Prometheus on a big screen.

And we got the new Sigur Rós CD, Valtari, which is beautiful.

I feel woozy, and I'm going to either brush my teeth or lie down. No yet sure which.

All I have to offer the world is inside those books. That's it, the absolute and dubious sum total of my ability to offer aid to anyone. If what you're looking for isn't in there, you need to look elsewhere. I can't save you. I can't even help you. All I can offer is my stories. And anyone who asks more of me is overstepping boundaries they have no right to cross.

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I've had much worse birthdays than yesterday. readingthedark came down in the late afternoon. We had dinner at Tortilla Flats. We played an absolutely abominable game of "World of Warcraft" Monopoly (and why the hell are the Draenei represented nowhere in the game?!), and, in theory, Geoffrey won. We had some frozen caramel and cashew ice-cream pie thing. I got stoned. We talked too much. I got to sleep just as the sun was rising.

My thanks to all the "happy birthday" wishes yesterday. There were something like four hundred via Facebook, and, honestly, that just freaks me right the fuck out. Thank you for being there.

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Spooky is still having a Caitlín Was (Most Years) Actually Born on the 27th of May Sale in her Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy Shop. Cool and bow-tie stuff, with FREE SHIPPING, which will run through Monday. In order to take advantage of the sale, you need to use this code during checkout: CRKBIRTHDAY. Buy something bow tie, kittens!!! No, really!

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Looking back from -08, here is what I will say: I want such very simple things. That's actually true. Instead, my life has presented me with a baffling array of complexities. I didn't say that quite right. "Baffling complexities" isn't actually what I mean. If the cosmos had some collective consciousness, if all our gods and goddesses and demons were anything more than fairy tales, they might understand what I meant to say. Those things I wish I had, though – those things I still hope for to the point I feel ashamed and ungrateful for not being gladder for what I have instead – they are so simple they might take your breath away.

Breathe In,
Aunt Beast

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.

---

Indeed, it is my birthday. And here I am, some -08 years after my unlikely birth in the year 1964 (of the Gregorian calendar). And, oh my motherfucking god, I just fucking realized something amazing! 1964 was a leap year, so, on years that are not leap years (unlike this one), my birthday is actually May 27th. Motherfucker. Weird. Anyway, my thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes and gifts. There are truly too many of you. It makes my head swim a bit. Life may be a steaming shitstorm, but at least there's you lot, kittens.

I'm hoping that I will soon be able to make an announcement about the future of the Alabaster comic. Hang tight.

Spooky is having a Caitlín Was (Most Years) Actually Born on the 27th of May Sale in her Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy Shop. Cool and bow-tie stuff, with FREE SHIPPING, which will run through Monday. In order to take advantage of the sale, you need to use this code during checkout: CRKBIRTHDAY.

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Last night was Kindernacht, of course. After the ritual of an atomic fireball (complimentary from Acme Video), we began our double feature with Olivier Megaton's Colombiana (2011; a film made with the involvement of such film heroes of mine as Luc Besson, Ridley Scott, and Tony Scott). A very enjoyable crime thriller, and, hey, a big dose of Zoe Saldana! Also, Cliff Curtis, and I never get enough of him. The film is smarter and darker than I expected. The ending didn't flinch from the logical consequences following from it's events, a thing always and forever to be admired.

But, Colombiana paled into insignificance by the unexpected jolt of our second feature, Joe Carnahan's The Grey (2011), which I'd not heard of and picked up based on the synopsis on the box and the fact I find Liam Neeson sexy. Anyway, now, here's the director who made Smokin Aces (2002) (a good film, but...) and (**cough cough**) The A-Team (2010). The very last person on earth – okay, that's a lie. Still. Not the man I'd have expected to make the best film I've seen since Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011). I am not heaping hyperbole. This film instills one with a nigh unto indescribable sense of cosmic wonder and dread, and it is beautiful. The cinematography (Masanobu Takayanagi) and the score (Marc Streitenfeld) went a long way to setting this film on the road to brilliance, and every performance is marvelous. Okay, I'm saying too much. You simply have to see it. Please. Trust me.

And Now I'm Even Older,
Aunt Beast

On this, the morning before my -08 birthday, I find myself quoting one of Spooky's high-school history teachers: "If you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me." Can I exchange this day for the apocalypse, please? Big space rock, please?

Happy birthday to Billy (docbrite), whom I miss dearly, and for whom I wish a kinder year to come.

Depending who you ask, today is either Geek or Nerd Pride Day. I prefer geek, but whichever. In honor of this, I leave you with the Guild's "I'm The One That's Cool":



Reaching for the Slide Rule and Polyhedral Dice,
Aunt Beast, La Cabrita

The sun just came out, and the weather is finally warming in Providence.

Wait...the sun went behind the clouds again. Oh, well...

---

99% of the people who have supported the two Kickstarter projects I've been involved with have been utterly fucking marvelous (and thank you all again, by the way). But there's this remaining 1% who seem to believe they're buying stuff off eBay. Anyway, the very last three rewards for the latest project will go into the mail ($150 tier), rewards for the project that allowed kylecassidy to create his series of still photos based on The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, and that also allowed us to shoot the book trailer. My thanks to Spooky, who's had to manage the maddening task of putting most of this stuff together.

She'll also be schlepping the great heavy box of signature sheets for S. T. Joshi's Black Wings II anthology to the p.o., which reprints "John Four." And they will wend their way back to Yorkshire, England and PS Publishing.

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Yesterday, I sat here for hours trying to find the story that accompanies the title "Forbidden Love, We Croak and Howl," which will appear in Sirenia Digest #78. I think it's sort of "Romeo and Juliet" with ghouls and deep ones. My editor at Dark Horse sent me inked pages for Alabaster: Wolves #4, and they're gorgeous. I have to get her notes on those today. My editor at Penguin sent three cover designs for Blood Oranges, two of which were actually very good. But I'm not sure any caught onto the gritty, bawdy humor of the novel. So, I'll be talking to her today, as well. And...oh, yeah. Trying to work out the whacky – yet erotic – ghoul/deep one LOVE STORY. I hope the sound I just heard wasn't HPL rolling in his grave over at Swan Point. Oh, nope. It was Hubero in the litter box. Never mind.

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I've been getting some very enjoyable RP in City of Heroes and Villains. The Rift RP never materialized. I simply could not get more than a couple of people into the game. Mostly, people talked about wanting to RP at some future date. Anyway, I returned both our Rift guilds back to their inactive statuses, and followed stsisyphus back to the land of super heroes and super villains (and giant spiders). Spooky and I are both still playing quite a lot of Rift, and she's found a good guild on the Shatterbone PVE shard. But we're playing just to play, not for RP.

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Today is World Turtle Day, and I refer you back to this entry I wrote in 2010.

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And here are four more photos from Sunday's trip to West Cove:

( 20 May 2012, Part the Second )

I never get tired of lichens.

Rumbling,
Aunt Beast (La Cabrita)

Yes, I am an atheist. No, I do not believe in the soul...or any other "spirit" inhabiting the human body. Consciousness = mind = the function of the brain. Period. No breath of god/s. Meatbags that have evolved a degree of self-awareness, which can only be considered "higher" relative to other meatbags (say gorillas, or frogs, or sea cucumbers).

That said, I was just considering old conversations. Specifically, the ones in which some friend or relative would declare that I was hell bound if I didn't change my infidel's mechanistic outlook on the universe, if I didn't forsake humanism for Xtianity, if I didn't decide creationism makes a lot more sense than the sciences, and so forth, ad nauseum. There was always this wonderful trap, a sort of paradox, into which I could not resist luring the god botherers. Simply stated: a) You're a righteous and god-fearing person, right? And the Kingdom of Heaven will be your reward, right? And, b) because your god is a god of love (or Love, or even LOVE), you will exist in bliss forever and a day, blah, blah blah, right?

Points a) and b) were unanimously met with confirmation. But, then we come to the third and fourth items: c) people who care about, and perhaps even LOVE, will not join you in Heaven, but, instead, suffer damnation for all eternity – whatever that damnation might be – so d) precisely how will you be happy knowing that I will be suffering while you soak up the love of the Big G? These two questions were most often met with sputtering or a flabbergasted silence. But, on a couple of occasions, the person to whom I was speaking would claim that so mighty was their love of god, and His love for them, that they would not question His decision, and would accept His judgment as fair. No, really. I shit you not. Anyway, sitting here, just a memory bubbling up to the surface.*

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Yesterday should have been a very fine day off. It was meant to be. But someone (I shall not say whom, only that it was not Spooky) worked me into such a furious state that any sort of relaxation became impossible before we even left the house. We went to West Cove and Beavertail on Conanicut Island. The tide was spectacularly low. There were children swimming, and I wished I'd thought to bring my bathing suit. I considered going in nude. The cold, deep water of Narragansett Bay looked so inviting. There were too many people, too much noise. I sat atop one of the granite cliffs and tried to let the sound of the waves wash away the anger, but to no avail. We returned home very early, and the dispiriting trip was essentially a waste of time and gasoline. I want to throttle the person responsible for putting me in so foul a mood ahead of time. Back to god bothering. (MS Word! Stop correcting my spelling RIGHT THIS SECOND!). So, a day off that became a day lost, despite the sea.

Today, I put a few finishing touches on Alabaster: Wolves #1, then send it off the my editor at Dark Horse. This issue ends the mini-series. Then, I look at my short story deadlines, and figure out what's up next. And I dread my birthday. And stare out at the grey sky. And I listen to more of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir audiobook, because NGP is waiting on my approval. And I dread, too, the impending editing of Blood Oranges

Comments would be nice today.

And if you've not preordered Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, please, please do so today. Thank you. Think of it as a birthday present.

Oh, and at least Spooky got some nice photos yesterday. Here are a few of them, behind the cut:

( 20 May 20120 )

Not a Happy Camper,
Aunt Beast (La Cabrita)

Postscript that ought be unnecessary but isn't: All "believers" are not god botherers. I know that, so I don't need anyone to tell me how they believe, but aren't judgmental, evangelical shitheels. I get that. I was not talking to you. Don't be so defensive.

A great Kid Night last night, which I'll come back to in a moment. And it's a beautiful, sunny, warm, green day out there (wide carnivorous sky or no), and I'm sitting here – we'll come back to that in a moment. I woke this morning at 8:30, after getting to sleep at 3 ayem. I dozed off watching Rodan (1956) on the iPad. And then I woke from a very strange dream, and I knew immediately I wouldn't be getting back to sleep, never mind I'd only managed five and a half hours (lately seven has been the norm). I left the bedroom so as not to wake Spooky, and sat in the middle parlor reading until she got up at 10:30.

Being up alone for two hours afforded far too much time for quiet reflection. I am fairly convinced most humans manage to avoid that these says, even those, like me, who understand its importance. But when I do stop and look, too often I don't like what I see looking back at me. How did I become this? Is this really me? Where does personality and artifice begin and end? I've spent so many years building up various personas, erecting alter egos, tearing them down, rebuilding, and I have to wonder if I'm still in there. Worse still, I have to wonder if I ever was in there? Yeah, getting all existential and shit, but I'm serious. I consider myself with any (inherently doomed attempt) at objectivity, and, more often than not, I'm entirely perplexed at the person I see. Do I even like this woman? Would anyone? Am I far too hard on myself? Am I failing to factor in all the most important known variables? Am I falling into a hundred different winnowing traps created by generations Y and Z, the Echo Boomers and the iGeneration? Am I not everything that is anathema to this new world of obsessive virtual socializing, freely relinquished privacy, and unwarranted optimism? Writing this, it's taking on aspects of a grotesque sort of apparent self parody. Silly Ol' Aunt Beast, that unfeeling, sharp-tongued windbag. Just a sad little goat girl lost in time and space, loony as a fruitcake, tumbling down the abyss of her own navel. Okay – hahahahahah – but enough of this.

I've been told again and again that no one reads long paragraphs if they appear online (actually, I was being told that about print in 1985, when I worked for the college paper). If this is so, I don't have to erase anything I've just said. If it's not...

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Today is Andre the Giant's Birthday. He has a posse, and likely always shall.

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Yesterday, I spent many hours rebuilding Alabaster: Wolves #5. And it's done, except for one logistical problem, which I only solved an hour after I was done with the last page (I'll fix that today or tomorrow). It's a much darker ending than the original one. It's also vastly less convoluted. I'll send it to my editor on Monday.

Oh, and my comp copy of David Hartwell and Jacob Weisman's The Sword and Sorcery Anthology (Tachyon Press), which reprints my S&S story, "The Sea Troll's Daughter," arrived yesterday. Which I maintain is one of my most underrated and, possibly, misunderstood tales. I am the stealth feminist, gender criminal incognito, she who shatters "genre" conventions well out of sight! Oh, also, Hartwell and Weisman's book is not to be confused with L. Sprague De Camp's 1963 anthology of the same name. It helps avoid confusion that Hartwell and Weisman actually include female authors (well, 4 women to 19 men). Anyway, yes, "The Sea Troll's Daughter," plus Rachel Pollack, Joanna Russ, Jane Yolen, and a bunch of dudes. I'm going to shut up about this book now, before I allow as how there's really no excuse for having included so few female writers. In the early 1960s, De Camp might possibly have fairly made that argument; no one today can.

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Pizza from Fellini's on Wickenden Street last night, then two Kid Night movies. Both of which we saw last year in theaters, but both of which I've been wanting to see at least a second time. We started with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing (prequel to Carpenter's 1982 film, which was a remake of Christian Nyby and Howard Hawk's 1951 The Thing from Another World, the first of three film adaptations of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1938 short story, "Who Goes There"). All in all, there really is a lot to like about this film, but, on the other hand, I think, in the end, if falls flat, and I hate saying that. It makes an enormous blunder right off, by eschewing the unrelenting claustrophobia and sense of isolation, that are two of the elements that made Carpenter's film so powerful, by leaving Antarctica and inserting an unnecessary scene at Columbia University. The director and screenwriter could easily have gotten Dr. Sander Halvorson from New York to Antarctica without dragging the viewer away from the Norwegian camp. For starters, if they'd have done their homework, they'd known that, in 1982, there were paleontologists working on Seymour Island on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the whole Columbia University digression wasn't even necessary. Anyway...I likely had more praise for this film when I saw it in the theater. And, like I said, there's a lot to like...the creature design, for example. But there's just not enough to like...

Our second feature was the extended version of Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens. I loved it the first time I saw it, and I love it even more now. The tide of critical opinion be damned. It's a wonderful, fun, and surprisingly poignant film. Ford, Craig, Clancy Brown, Olivia Wilde, and Keith Carradine all deliver fine performances in a "genre" mashup someone should have done this well long before. The design of the spacecraft and its mining technology is better than the creature design, but both are quite good. I'm pretty sure the studio, distributors, theaters, and filmgoers simply had no idea what to make of this film. It straddles categories and really fits nowhere convenient and marketable. Which is a point in its favor. Like this year's John Carter, it might have been a box-office bomb, but that doesn't get in the way of it being a hell of a lot of fun.

So...I think I'm taking today off. It's warm and green. The sun is shining in the sky. There's not a cloud in sight...

Yeah, Quoting ELO (I'm Old, Okay?),
Aunt Beast

This morning, reading back over LJ entries from this day in years past, following links, links from links, I came across this headline: "Can We Save the Tastiest Fish in the Sea?". Now, this is actually on Discovery News, a more or less respectable source for science news (March 4, 2010). Just seeing the headline – "Can We Save the Tastiest Fish in the Sea?" – my reaction was something like, "Yeah, because that fucking matters, worries about saving what tastes good to humans while the world's fish populations and marine ecosystems collapse, while an essentially fishless ocean by 2050 has become a very real possibility...let's worry about the tastiest fish." Which, by the by, turns out (no surprise) to be Bluefin tuna. The article is actually a short piece on declining tuna stocks, Japan's role in pushing the bluefin towards extinction, and efforts employing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITE, drafted in 1963) treaty to try to ban commercial fishing of the species internationally, at least until we see if bluefin populations can recover. Two years later, key nations – those who profit the most from tuna fishing – continue to block legislation to protect the fish, while stocks plummet perilously. And so it goes.

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Yesterday I felt like one of those directors who's always rewriting the script on the set, while actors and cameramen and whatnot sit around twiddling their thumbs. I have so rewritten Alabaster: Wolves #5 that it's beginning to look like the original script only in its broad strokes. No one asked me to do this. My editor requested fairly minor changes. But, suddenly, a couple of weeks back, I decided that I could do a lot better. And that's what I'm trying to do. At the very last fucking minute, even as Steve draws #4, and Rachelle finishes coloring #3, and #2 is on the shelves, and #1 is on eBay, and...

Anyway, that's what I did yesterday. Today, I need to make an end to this. Complete this second version of the script so my editor can have it on Monday. Oh, and I also proofed the inked pages for #4 yesterday. Spooky sent a mountain of corrections for The Yellow Book (FREE with the limited edition of Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart) to Subterranean Press, all to "Ex Libris," which we discovered, reading it aloud on Wednesday, was fairly riddled with mistakes.

And, also, production on the audiobook for The Drowning Girl: A Memoir is finally complete. It's thirteen hours long, and I'm having to listen through the whole thing, so that I can sign off on it before release. It's great be given genuine creative control on projects. Final say, et al. But I've only made it through about an hour and a half, so far. And I'm listening to it out of order. But, I have to tell you, hearing 7/7/7, I almost cried. Spooky, too. It's that good. I chose a very good reader.

Only eight days remaining until -08. Holy fucking fuck.

Last night, Spooky and I began reading The Return of the King. Poor Pippin has no idea what he's gotten himself into. I also spent about an hour and a half yesterday on a virtual jigsaw puzzle (yes, I finished it).

Gonna go take the blue pill now. I think, ironically, we call it Red Bull.

Superannuated,
Aunt Beast

There's something I'm going to get over and out of the way up front, and then we can move along to other things. But, firstly, those who read this journal need to know, truly need to know and believe, that I am not to be told – ever – what I may and may not write about here. For example, should you be so clueless a git as to tell me that I must "stop saying things about parenting" – just for example – I will tell you to fuck off. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a friend of a friend or if you're Stephen fucking King. Now, yes, of course, I'd like this blog to have as many readers as possible. That would be keen. That would be bow tie. But not at the expense of suffering fools. Especially fools who've apparently not a) read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or who b) are unaware that this is, in fact, my blog, in which I am free to say any goddamn thing I wish, no matter how profane, unpopular, and no matter how much it might rub your little pet delusions the wrong way. So, yes, let's not mince words. If you have, or intend ever to, behave in such a fashion, fuck off. I have no need of you.

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Yesterday, Spooky and I took the morning off and caught a painfully early matinée of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. I honestly wasn't sure I'd like it. For many reasons, it could have been a train wreck. But I loved it. It's a delightful film. It's fun! Dark Shadows manages to balance camp and a cockeyed sort of earnestness in a way that far too few films do. Think Burton's own Edward Scissorhands (1990). Like that. The script and casting are both superb. The soundtrack and Danny Elfman's score are both wonderful, spot on (even if I can't get the Carpenter's out of my head today). The casting...okay, screw it. There's nothing I can think of offhand about this film that I didn't like, right down to the intentional continuity flaws. It won't break any box-office records. It might not even break even. But it's gonna be a great cult classic. I suspect the studio had no idea what to do with this film. It doesn't "fit" into any of the marketing folks' tidy little caskets. It's too busy being what it is, disregarding expectation. It's an homage, but it's also a parody possessed of an unexpected core of sincerity. I think lots of people take the original series far too serious, and miss its absurd, unavoidable campiness (which the cast never did). Melodrama, kittens, melodrama! I'd say see it, but you might hate it, and then you'd blame me. But it's bow tie. Top to bottom, stem to stern. I will add that you ought recall the surviving cast members of the TV show were very pleased with the film, and that Kathryn and I are both fans of the original. Very nice that it was dedicated to the late Dan Curtis.

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A paltry ten days stand between me and -08, which pretty much blows my goddamn mind. Who'd have ever thought I'd live this long. Should have seen me in 1991, or 1996, or even as recently as 2010, and you never would have believed it. Anyway, it seems I shall. I've been trying, very hard, not to think about it, so have neglected to post the usual link to my Amazon wish list.

However, should it come down to gifting me with this or that distraction, or, instead, picking up a copy of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir or preordering a copy of Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, I'd prefer you buy one (or both) of those two books. It's a lazy and neglectful author who does not put her work ahead of birthday fripperies. And these two books have been woefully neglected, as I struggle with all the ins and outs of Alabaster: Wolves. However, if you're remarkably flush and desire to do both....

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I assume subscribers have received Sirenia Digest #77. I'd love to hear reactions to it (or 76, or 75...). It's a lot easier to keep this up every month if I hear thoughts on the stories. And it's best if they're posted here, not emailed. Let's stimulate discussion!

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Yesterday, after the movie, I came home and worked on this major revision of Alabaster: Wolves #5, and also went over cover copy (and rewrote a bit of said copy) for Blood Oranges, as Danielle, my bow-tie editor at Penguin has marketing nipping at her heels for copy on a book we've not even begun editing. Today, I have to sign signature sheets for Joshi's Black Wings II, which reprints my story "John Four," and proof the text for The Yellow Alphabet (the hardback chapbook that comes FREE with the limited of the aforementioned Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart. Tomorrow, it's back to Alabaster: Wolves #5 (which I need to finish by Friday evening).

Last night, Spooky and I finished reading The Two Towers. I hope we can begin The Return of The King tonight. I'd forgotten what a fine chapter is "The Choices of Master Samwise."

And now...word mines!

Beastly,
Aunt Beast

I do adore waking up and immediately discovering that the world is even more angrifying than when I went to sleep. Wait, no. That's not right. I don't find things worse upon waking. I'm not that goddamn naïve. I wake up, look at CNN.com, and get a face full of humanity. Which really puts the fault on me for looking, as humanity cannot be expected not to be angrifying. Like the woman on that Time cover (by her own leave). Attachment fucking "parenting"? Yes, Virginia, humans are the only mammals too stupid to know when to wean.

Or, worse still, the crazy shit black pastors are saying to defend the role they played in getting North Carolina's Amendment 1 passed and to justify their outrage at the President. For example, have a look at this article on the aforementioned CNN: "Is the Black Church Guilty of Spiritual Hypocrisy in Same-Sex Marriage Debate?" (I fixed the capitalization in the headline). The answer is "Fuck, yeah. Are you an idiot?" But the gem in this piece is, I think, Rev. Fred Robinson's (of Charlotte, NC) assertion that "It says in the Bible that homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God. How do you explain that one away?"

Don't explain it away. Fuck 'em. If I have to be someone other than who and what they would have me believe their god made of me (or made me weak enough I might become), if it's all that sick and twisted and sadistic, why would I want to dwell in the house of that lord? Maybe the truest mark of human intellectual evolution is giving our "gods" the middle finger. More and more, I think so. Circle back to XTC and "Dear God." Tell them to fuck off, then stop believing in them.

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I've been getting a decent amount of reading done, though a lot of its been on the technical side. Spooky and I have been finishing up The Two Towers (we'd have been long since done, but it's been a crazy spring). I've read, in Chiappe and Witmer's Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs (University of California Press, 2002), Witmer's "The Debate on Avian Ancestry: Phylogeny, Function, and Fossils," Chiappe et al.'s "The Cretaceous, Short-Armed Alvarezsauridae: Mononykus and Its Kin," Novas and Pol's "Alvarezsaurid Relationships Reconsidered," and Elzanowski's "Archaeopterygidae (Upper Jurassic of Germany)." It's a very good volume, if a little dated. The study of the evolution of birds is progressing so rapidly these days that pretty much any book's bound (hahah) to be out of date by the time it's published. This is how science works.

Anyway, I've also been enjoying a couple of graphic novel adaptation of Lovecraft. I. N. J. Culbard's take on "At the Mountains of Madness" (Sterling, 2010) is wonderful, and I'm equally enamored with Volume 1 of Self Made Hero's Lovecraft Anthology (2011, 2012). Neat stuff.

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have you pre-oredered your copy of Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart? If not, please do. I think I'm going to be sending a copy to Rev. Fred Robinson in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Also, there's the ongoing Alabaster auction. Letter "F" (is for Flammarion!), so don't forget to have a look. Remember, this is a one of a kind auction.

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Friday: Spooky had a migraine, and I suffered from a lack of focus. Sirenia Digest #77 went out in the ayem, and I answered a lot of email. But not much else, writing-wise. I washed some clothes and had another go at organizing my office. Spooky was feeling better by the evening, so we had a good Kindernacht. We watched Troy Nixey's "remake" of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010). Nixey's film isn't so much a remake, I'd say, as a masterful reimagining, and vast improvement upon, the original 1973 version (which, ahem, I saw when it was new). A very nice fairy tale inversion, and I highly recommend it (as does Guillermo del Toro, by the way). Right now, you can stream it from Netflix.

Saturday: I took a day off, because the weather had finally begun to warm up (now that we're halfway through May). We wanted to drive to the coast, but wound up at the Old North Burial Ground, instead. Which was nice. Spooky found the grave of an ancestor (on her mother's side). I found names for stories. A mockingbird sang to us, and then we sang to it, and then it sang back to us. Swapping songs with birds. There will be photos from the cemetery in tomorrow's entry. Also, Saturday night we saw the very fine Fringe season finalé (just one season to go!).

Sunday: Yesterday, the entire day was spent reading back over – picking back over – Alabaster: Wolves #5. I read the entire script aloud to Spooky. I'm actually about to do that thing I almost never do. A genuine rewrite. I'm gutting the script. I wasn't well when I wrote it, and it shows, and this series needs the best ending I can write. This script is not the best ending I can give it. So, now that I have it all in my head, and now that I've talked through various alternative takes, today I begin remaking it.

And, fuck, it's 12:52 p.m. Comment! Well, comment if you've read this far. And I doubt many have. I can spend an hour writing a blog entry, or thirty seconds on a tweet. I can spend five minutes reading a blog entry, or fifteen seconds reading a quip on Facebook. It's clear what most people choose. Their loss.

Grateful for Green,
Aunt Beast

One day soon, maybe tomorrow, I'll sit down and write a real "this-is-what-I've-been-doing" entry. But for now, just a reminder that we have the very special Alabaster auction up, and the clock's ticking. Please have a look. This is letter F of the limited edition ("F" is for Flammarion!), and we rarely offer the limiteds of this book. Much less do we offer them with a one-of-a-kind prop from Les Fleurs Empoisonnees.

One day, someone will actually solve the mystery of Miss Aramat Drawdes. Maybe. There are secrets and scars and personal demons I show all the world, but keep entirely to myself.

More tomorrow, kittens.

Briefly,
Aunt Beast

Here in Providence, it may be that Cold Spring is sliding towards the chilly beginnings of summer. We have some sun today, some sun, but still some clouds, too. Maybe mostly clouds. It's about 61˚F out there, and I have the office window open a crack. Just a crack, to let in some fresh air. But I have to keep the space heater running, or the temperature in here will plunge (my window faces west, and so is presently still in shadow).

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Sirenia Digest #77 went out to subscribers this ayem. You should have it by now (unless, you're not a subscriber, but that's easy to fix).

And Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion has not been forgotten. I have a web lemur on standby, and a back-up web lemur, should she need any assistance. At this point, the ball's in my court. I mean to have the podcast up and broadcasting by the end of May. The podcasts will be free, but you won't be able to download them. At least not for now. I'll investigate other options when I have time. Which I presently do not.

We have a very special new auction that began last night.

And speaking of last night, the latest episode of Fringe was almost as emotionally harrowing as the last episode.

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It's unfortunate I spend so much time pondering the nature of hatred. The news is hatred, writ large and small. Past war and acts of terrorism, what really caught my eye this morning, sitting out in the middle parlor trying to wake up, was a story on CNN.com informing me that Bristol Palin blames the President's daughters for his support of same-sex marriage. Because they watch "too many episodes of Glee." So, just exactly when did we begin caring about the opinions of Bristol Palin? And just why? Okay, set that part aside. But now the bigots can at least blame Ryan Murphy for this turn of events. Of course, many of them saw it coming.

I grew up, for the most part, in Leeds, Alabama way back in the 1970s. Alabama schools had been forcibly, violently desegregated during the years immediately preceding my enrollment at Leeds Elementary in 1972 (before that, I was attending school in Jacksonville, Florida). In theory, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had ended segregated schools. In practice, it was a much messier affair. But, at least, black kids and white kids went to the same schools. Meanwhile, the town was anything but desegregated. Almost all the African-American inhabitants of Leeds lived – were confined would be a more accurate description – to a slum part of town known as Moton, the "black part of town." They didn't eat in the same restaurants or shop in the same grocery stores. And I grew up hearing racial slurs from most (but not all, not my mother who did her best to teach us better) the members of my immediate family. Shit I would never repeat. My "father" once struck my sister at the dinner table because she innocently showed us a photograph that had been taken of her and a close black friend standing together (I'm pleased to say they're still friends today, decades later). There were no interracial couples, no interracial children.

So, now we have a black president – well, actually an interracial president whom we label black – and, coming from where and when I do, that, in and of itself, seems miraculous. And now our president has stood up for gay marriage. He has said we should be able to have the same rights afforded heterosexual couples who love one another. Much of the nation is outraged. Sounds familiar, right? But here's the kicker. Many of those decrying the President's announcement are black men and women. From an ABC News article, I quote:

African Americans oppose gay marriage 55 percent to 41 percent, while all poll respondents support it 52 percent to 43 percent, according to an ABC News poll taken in March. While 94 percent of black voters in California supported Obama in 2008, 70 percent also supported the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, according to exit polls.

This is irony, if ever you needed a concrete example of irony. It also isn't especially surprising, which I suppose creates a sort of psycho-social paradox.

Christians (and others) condemn the government's attempts to legislate morality. But, see, that's how we stop hatred in this country. You think you can educate it away? You think you can sit bigots down and calmly reason them out of their hatred? You think this is about fear and ignorance? I don't. I think it's about hatred, which does not follow from emotions like fear and ignorance, but is, in itself, an emotion. It took the Federal Government's intervention to end racial segregation, right down to the use of the National Guard, and it's going to require the Federal Government's intervention to slowly, painfully end discrimination against gay men, lesbians, and transgender people. Period.

Back in Leeds, things are better if you're black. Much better, though, of course, far from ideal. Most still live in Moton. But no one tells them who they can and cannot marry. Queers on the other hand...well, let's just say that Kathryn and I felt the hatred as recently as December 2007, just before our move to the Northeast. Change will probably come. Probably, it's inevitable. But it will not come of its own accord. Simple love does not trump hatred. It has to be beaten down, suppressed so that in generations to come children may grow up less encumbered (but never truly free) of it.

But those black church leaders in the South, I have to look at them and feel a deep shame and confusion. They won their freedom by the same means the GLBT community will. By force. Nothing's really changed, not in those darkest parts of the human psyche. Or, if you prefer, soul.

I Remember,
Aunt Beast

I'm listening to Keaton Henson's album. It's a beautiful thing. Utterly fucking beautiful. My thanks to whoever was kind enough to send it to me. Outside, the sun is coming and going, and the ceiling of clouds has, mercifully, been shattered. It's only 57˚F right now, and it likely won't go higher than 66˚F, and, even here in Providence, this is a paltry excuse for May (ironically, we've had a warmer than average year so far, overall). I'm looking towards Saturday, when we may reach the mid seventies with sun. If so, I will not stay inside, and the work be damned.

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Yesterday, for the first time ever, I blurbed a novel. I've been asked numerous times, but on each occasion discovered I didn't like the book anywhere near enough to put my name on it. I've written a couple of introductions and afterwords, but that's not quite the same thing. Anyway, yesterday I gave a blurb to Richard E. Gropp's first novel, Bad Glass, due out from Del Rey on September 25th. I won't post the blurb here, but I will say you ought to preorder this novel. It's something rare, and it's something grand. My thanks to Richard and his editor for the opportunity to read this prior to publication.

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So, yesterday Alabaster: Wolves #2 "hit the shelves," and there were some stunning reviews. My head spins. No, I didn't expect this. Here are links to three of the best reviews:

1. A very nice in-depth review from Kabooooom, examining the need for strong female heroes in comics (as opposed to fanboy fantasies of femininity):

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not advocating the notion that Dancy is a feminist bastion for superheroines. This young woman, for one thing, lacks the flash and flair of a superheroine. People know who she is, but they are underwhelmed upon seeing her in person. This plays directly against such notions of mainstream superhero comics. But let’s take a look at the character Kiernan is presenting to readers and whom Lieber & Rosenberg flesh out. She’s clearly a female, but we know this only in less overt ways. The occasional panel that highlights a bodily curvature that seems less masculine than it is feminine; however, we are not inundated with the over-the-top “porn aesthetic” that so many other female heroes are subjected to in their respective comics. Dancy has a basic kitchen knife for her armaments, no protective armor, and only her own wits to protect her. She is street smart, gritty, and still very dangerous. Furthermore, she possesses an admirable mission but is complex enough of a character to recognize the possibility of the gruesome work she is committed to doing might affect her in some less than positive ways. She might not be murdering others, but she is still killing these things, and this repeated act seems to take its toll—an occurrence rarely seen from standard fare superheroes—as she desperately attempts to hold on to “her stuff,” or what might be seen as an attempt to hold on the part of her that is still human. Instead of a super-powered model in lingerie who deals in absolutes, readers are presented with a protagonist who relies upon her own ability and provides much more possibilities for character development due to being depicted in a far more real and proportionate manner. When I think of the possibility for successful female characters, Kiernan’s Dancy Flammarion is one rising star who stands out from the pack.

You can read the entire review here.

2) Kind words from Badhaven, who pronounce Alabaster "...one of the best titles of it’s type currently on the shelves."

3) Geeksofdoom write of #2, This is really good Dark Fantasy, on par with the Stephen King Dark Tower books. It’s also great horror in the Southern Gothic tradition and I wouldn’t mind telling any fan of Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing to check it out. Considering that Moore's Swamp Thing was a direct influence on the comic, that I went to the artists and said remember that, that's what we're after – this is high praise, indeed. Here's the entire review.

There are others, and I expect there will be more to come, but you get the picture. It's going very well. If you haven't bought to book, it's out there, and there's always Dark Horse Digital.

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Here's a Kickstarter project that I absolutely have to encourage you to support. Lee Moyer (who did the cover for Two Worlds and In Between and Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart) and Paul Komoda have something amazingly eldritch in the works: The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, or Monopoly goes Lovecraft! They're almost a third of the way to their goal, with 26 days to go, so it's looking good. I chipped in all I could afford, $75, but I will be spreading the word high and low.

And now, assembly day for Sirenia Digest #77 begins. By the way, this issue reprints the Dancy story, "Highway 97," which has never appeared anywhere since that long, long out-of-print subpress chapbook.

High and Low,
Aunt Beast

Last night, I meant to make what would have been a somewhat simple entry. We woke yesterday morning to the news that Maurice Sendak had died, which hit both Spooky and me pretty hard. His beautiful, brilliant work was so important to both our childhoods. And, I don't know, I think some part of me fantasized I'd one day be able to tell him that in person. As with Edward Gorey and Doctor Seuss and so many others, this was not to be, and so it goes.



And, in the news of Sendak's death, we learned that he was gay, and that he'd been with his partner for fifty years. Sendak is quoted as having said, "All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.” There were two videos I wanted to post last night, so I'll post them now, in memoriam:




Karen O and the Kids



The Dresden Dolls


And, there's this marvelous comic strip by Art Spiegelman, recounting a conversation he had with Sendak on the subject of children and books (behind the cut):

( I knew terrible things. )

And then, this morning, the news that North Carolina had passed Amendment 1.

And then...President Obama, finally, finally, gave voice to his conscience, and came out in favor – indisputably – of gay marriage. Sir, this is one reason I voted for you. And no, it's not political suicide*, and it's not too little too late. It's a bold move, and it's a step towards what we've been fighting for – and you get what you've been fighting for in bits and pieces, as it comes. Don't you dare fucking whine.

So, you see...it's been a complicated couple of days.

Bittersweet,
Aunt Beast

Postscript: Well, unless you concede that so is being a black man running for the US presidency.

Upon hearing the news from North Carolina, the passing of their second constitutional amendment (the first, in 1875, was to ban interracial marriage, by the way), I wasn't surprised. The outcome was a given. Too much money greasing the palm of the Hand of God, as it were, for the sexual infidels to ever carry the day. These bigots, this is the "tyranny of evil men" mentioned in Ezekiel 25:17. So, fuck the lot of them. Fuck them to the nearest hell. There may, possibly, come a day when the ignorance and hatred that saw to the success of "Amendment 1." North Carolina, and this nation as a whole, may one day mature to a point where it understands that forbidding two women or two men to marry is as reprehensible as forbidding marriage on the basis of race. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

To repeat what I said on Facebook, fuck the men and women who fear and hate. I'll remain Aunt Beast. I don't need their god – or any god – to approve of...anything.

There were other things I was going to write, but I think I'm too angry. Just because I wasn't surprised doesn't mean I was prepared for my emotions upon hearing the outcome.

Later,
Aunt Beast

Okay, so as if yesterday's wonderful MTV shout-out to Alabaster: Wolves wasn't enough to make me do a triple take, there's more. Today, MTV Geek! proclaims of Alabaster: Wolves #2:

Dark Horse has three great offerings this week, including ALABASTER WOLVES #2. If you weren’t sold on the title from the FCBD story, we’re not friends anymore - but before we break off relations permanently, check out this issue for one of the darkest, saddest stories of supernatural extermination ever recorded.

Here's the full article (though I quoted pretty much everything pertaining to Dancy).

Alabaster: Wolves #2 hits shelves tomorrow, hardcopy and digital! Virtual shelves, in the latter case. Hope folks have been asking for pull bags...

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Today, Spooky and I played hooky and saw a 12:30 matinée of Joss Whedon's The Avengers. I loved it. I loved it a lot, top to bottom, stem to stern. And I am ecstatic that Whedon finally has an unqualified directorial blockbuster to his credit. There are too many great moments in the film to bother singling them out, and I don't wish to descend into spoiler territory here. Two bits of advice: 1) be sure to see Kenneth Branagh's superb Thor first and 2) stay through the credits, and I mean all the way through the credits. But, I did miss Ed Norton.

Pleased,
Aunt Beast

MTv Geek! loves Dancy. If you'd told me, twenty years ago, that I'd ever be lauded by any aspect of MTv, I'd have told you to fuck off and stop smoking on the crack. But, here you go:

The real stand-out though, was two pages of Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Alabaster: Shelter story (the other half was in the Star Wars/Serenity book), which had all the emotion, horror, humanity, and incredible character of her Alabaster: Wolves series. The headliners were cute, but the angel was the centerfold.

In celebration of this amazingly fucking bow-tie review – I mean, I bested Stars Wars, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Guild – I shall celebrate by posting the the video from the song from which the above pun was derived (and if you're a kiddo, you likely don't remember this song; as a teen, I loved it...and the mildly naughty video). And if my sentences are less coherent tonight, and seemed possessed of less syntactical integrity, blame the bird:

I would say that I think I nuked a bridge yesterday (because why bother with just a little biddy fire), but I seem have discovered some bridges are too dumb even to have the decency to combust when ignited.

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Bad days, wrestling with the writing, and the amazingly shitty weather – barely managing sixties Fahrenheit in goddamn May, and do not even fucking dare to say, "I'll gladly trade our weather here in blah blah fuckity blah." Think it, if you can't help yourself. But do not say it. We only got the faintest glimpse of Saturday night's "super moon" as it rose above the rooftops before vanishing behind clouds. Today is sunny, but it won't last. So, the writing, the weather, the rabid freight train that is -08 racing towards me, anger, bad teeth, idiots who haven't the decency of respecting their betters, and, right on top, a fairly severe seizure (that's almost poetry, severe seizure).

It hit me on Saturday, one of the convulsive , flopping around on the floor like a dying fish sort. It left me ill and dazed and sore, and I bit the hell out of the back of my tongue. It was the first seizure since October. You begin to think there will never be another. You let your guard down. You think you're safe. Never let your guard down. Never believe you're safe.

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Yesterday, I wrote 1,533 words on ""Hauptplatte/Gegenplatte," and finished the story. With luck, Sirenia Digest #77 will go out to subscribers on the tenth. After the writing, we went to the Met Cafe in Pawtucket (where's Mawtucket, anyway?) and saw Brown Bird. They were wonderful as usual, and maybe even a little more so.

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Monsieur Insomnia came to visit this morning, and there was no sleep until sometime after five ayem. The sun was coming up (and no decent sun rises at 5:33 ayem). A few hours before I'd learned that something I've wanted since, fuck...since 2004...could actually be mine. That I can go back. Only, there's a catch. I can't go back. And if all the other little bees buzzing about inside my head were insufficient to keep me awake, that bit of knowledge did the trick. Yes, Virginia. I'm being cryptic. But in ten years, if the vagaries of technology and capitalism have permitted these words to survive, and if I have survived, I'll read them and know exactly what I meant.

I slept until noon, but I'm still tired. It's not the sort of tired that comes from not having slept. It's the sort of tired that comes from not having lived.

Foundering,
Aunt Beast

Postscript: Just in case you're the sort of dog needs a silver lining where there really isn't one, here's a bone: It's been more than six months since last I squandered a moment in Second Life. I've managed to steer clear of all those pathetic motherfuckers who cling to SL because they have no First Life. So, yeah. I'm still clean. Well, in that respect.

The weather is grinding me down. Day after day after day now of rain and overcast skies, highs in the fifties Fahrenheit, sixty if we're lucky. Outside it's green, but I cannot summon the energy to step out into the dank and wet and chill. And this is May? I haven't been outside since Monday, but tonight is Kindernacht, and I'll go out with Spooky to get pizza at Fellini's and movies at Atomic Video.

Where did my LJ readers go? Not you few who are still here, but all the many who used to comment. Did they truly take part in some bizarre exodus to FB and Twitter? I'd like to think better of them than that.

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TOMORROW is Free Comic Book Day, and a new Dancy story, "Shelter," will be included in the Dark Horse offerings (divided over two books). Do not miss it!

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Yesterday, I wrote 1,362 words on "Hauptplatte/Gegenplatte" for Sirenia Digest #75. New subscribers always welcome!

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Yesterday, I was also sent inked pages for Alabaster: Wolves #3, pages 14-18, and they're looking fantastic. By the way, this issue is largely comprised of a graphic-novel retelling of the short-story "Alabaster." The issue will be available June 13th (and #2 will be on shelves and in pull bags May 9th!). By the way, here's Greg Ruth's beautiful cover for #3:



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Did I mention my insidious new addiction to Pinterest? Thought so. New source of time displacement. Six boards thus far.

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If you're in the Providence area, I urge you to come (in the foul fucking weather) to see Brown Bird at the Met Cafe on Sunday night. They won't be playing Rhode Island again until the sold-out Newport Folk Festival this summer.

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If you have not already done so, please preorder a copy of Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart! The trade is a mere $40, and you get twenty-five stories for that $40. Twenty-five, kittens. And help insure that Subterranean Press will continue to publish my collections.

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One last thing. All those people getting bent out of shape about the new Kickstarter project by Amanda Palmer need to shut the fuck up and get a clue. You think it's cheap to do the sort of shit she's trying to do here? You think you're so goddamn privileged art ought to come to you free on a silver platter? You think she's gonna turn a huge profit on this endeavor? You think we who struggle to make a living on our art are sell-outs? Then you're a moron.

Weary of the Morons,
Aunt Beast

Talk to me, kittens. Today, we have salmagundi:

1) A new review of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir at the Strange Horizons website has made me momentarily very happy (don't worry, it never lingers). It's the most cogent review of the book I've read since Brit Mandelo's at Tor.com (which you can read here). Anyway, you'll find the Strange Horizon's review by following this rabbit hole, and thank you, Niall Alexander. I hope it's not poor form to thank your reviewers by name.

2) Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Volume 1 has been nominated for Best Collection by the 2012 Locus Awards. Which does me proud. A shame the book is sold out, and there's currently no plans for another printing or a second edition.

3) A reminder that May 5th, which is to say Saturday (Satyrday, also Cinco de Mayo) is Free Comic Book Day. Dark Horse is giving you a free Alabaster story (!!!), "Shelter," divided over two books. The first half will be found in the Stars Wars/Serenity comic and the second half in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Guild comic. So, find your way to a comic shop! By Sunday, these are bound to show up on eBay for moronic prices, I'm sure.

4) Last night, I remembered that St. Vincent had a Providence show planned. Then I thought, fuck, we've already missed it, because I forget shit and don't like crowds. Then I discovered, no, the show's tonight – but tickets would cost me and Spooky $40+, and I just can't see the expense right now. See, this is how shut-ins and agoraphobics talk themselves out of seeing shows they truly want to see. Whoa, see used four times in two sentences. Bad Aunt Beast.

5. Day before yesterday, a wonderful package from the wonderful Steven Lubold. I'll say more about its contents when I can once more take time to breathe.

6. Alabaster: Wolves #2 will be on shelves on the 11th, a mere eight days from now. Yesterday, the post brought me an advance copy, and it's even more handsome than #1. Trust me, and don't miss it.

7. For those backers awaiting the highest three tier rewards on our The Tale of the Ravens Kickstarter, I should say what you're really waiting on is me to find time, and get off my fat ass, and write the story to accompany the illustrations. Your patience has been amazing and much appreciated, and I'll get to this in May, I swear, with dog as my witness.

8. As part of our ongoing "Make This Damn House More Functional" project, we added an eleventh bookshelf to my office on Monday, after my doctor's appointment. And still, I fear it's only gonna make a dent in the stacks of books to be found all about our abode.

9. Fuck, I'm sleeping a lot lately. Though, on the other hand, it has been determined that stress has made me ill the last few months, stress and exhaustion. So, I'm making a concerted effort to go a little easier on myself, and not angst over every fucking development. I do my best, and then these things are out of my hands. I can't make people buy books, I can only write books. I can only do so much to persuade a publisher to do this or that. I may have already said that my current motto has become "It is what it is."

10. Yesterday, I began – just barely – a new story for Sirenia Digest #77, "Hauptplatte/Gegenplatte." This story will be accompanied by a Vince Locke illustration. This issue will also include a sort of addendum to last month's story "Cages I," as written by David T. Kirkpatrick. I am beginning to see "Cages" as an ongoing collaboration that will one day congeal into something much larger than its constituent parts (pun unintentional, but apt).

11. I have found kindly people to help me get a page online for Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion, the weekly weird fiction podcast, so that's actually going to happen. And should be along fairly soon.

And I have time to say nothing more for now. Gotta see a man about a platypus.

It Is What It Is,
Aunt Beast

I actually slept about eight hours last night. On the downside, I woke to find that the world is still filled with idiots and douchebags, and that the high today – on the fucking second day of May – will only reach 52˚F.

Yesterday, we read through chapters Seven and Eight of Blood Oranges, found THE END, and so finished with that stage of the editing process. About a thousand errors were marked. No, I'm not exaggerating. Plus my editor's corrections, of course. Today, I'm going to try to write a strange, short epilogue sort of thing for it, and begin something new for Sirenia Digest #77. Which I'm doing my damnedest to have out to subscribers by the 10th.

If only this cold spring would end. If only we'd have a day in the eighties Fahrenheit. Four or five of them in a row.

---

So, this is interesting. Yesterday morning, trying to wake up, I was reading a fairly intelligent and articulate discussion of The Red Tree online. I won't say where. But, for the most part, I was pleasantly surprised that I found myself actually looking at the novel in new ways (novel ways, hahahahah), finding perspectives I'd not previously considered. That's always cool. But then – okay, I'm going to have to quote this, and if the author of the following comment is offended, so be it; if you comment on my work online, please assume I will read it and may publicly respond:

Secondly, the book [The Red Tree] for me illustrates one potential pitfall of narrators this unreliable; the reader must trust that the writer has absolute control of the narrative and that any mistakes and inconsistencies in the narrative are deliberate. I trust Gene Wolfe to have that absolute control; if Severian or the narrator of Peace contradict themselves, I know damn well that they're really contradicting themselves and Wolfe didn't simply make an unintentional error. But I'm not sure whether I can assume the same of Kiernan which makes piecing things together more difficult. Is this error intentional? Is it a clue? Did Kiernan just screw up? I'm not as sure as with Wolfe.

1) Why does the this reader trust Gene Wolfe, in particular, with unreliable narrators more than he or she is willing to trust me? (I love Gene Wolfe, by the way, and I mean no slight to him.) Why the differential?

2) Are there actually readers who do not understand that certain information is unknowable, that it is ultimately inaccessible to them? That is to say, if I (or Gene Wolfe) "make an unintentional error" or drop "a clue" or "screw up," how can they possibly ever know? They could ask me (or Gene), obviously. But I might lie, right? And how would she or he ever know I wasn't lying? They couldn't. Period.

3) The Red Tree is not a mystery novel. Not in the genre mystery, Agatha Christie sense that there's a solution to be uncovered. There is at least one central mystery. But there is no solution, and the sharp reader knows that going in. To do otherwise is to adopt an a priori assumption. In this novel, as in most of my writing, the inexplicable is meant to remain forever inexplicable. Hence, there can be no "clues," excepting those that might sway a reader to one or another interpretation (and any number of interpretations of the text are equally valid).

That said, coming back to the matter at hand, at no point – in any of my work – am I intentionally withholding information from the reader. I don't do that. In the case of The Red Tree, the reader has access to pretty much the same information that I do. There are secrets I keep by never telling myself the answers. At least not consciously. Sounds fucking bizarre, I know, but it's true. You can trust me on this or not. I don't really care.

But later, the author of the above comment adds, "It does seem like Kiernan may be palming her cards a little here. Having CH [Constance Hopkins] refuse to comment in any way on what did or did not happen is cheating a bit." No. If I'm not trying to hide something from you, if there's not even an ultimate answer I know and so could hide, then I can't very well cheat. You're not watching a stage magician, and "palming her cards" is a pretty inaccurate metaphor.

4) I would say that there are multiple reasons that I employ "unreliable" narrators. For example, I might say that I want to examine the nature of insanity, and how could so unbalanced a mind as Sarah Crowe's or Imp's ever be "trusted" to relay the facts (not to be confused with "truth"), assuming either of them even know them? Except, on reflection, I see that's not what I'm doing at all. Because. There is, in the end, no such creature as the truly reliable narrator. Reliability – the conveyance of a factual narrative – may be assumed to occur to varying degrees. The narrators of Moby Dick or Heart of Darkness (two of my favorite novels, as it happens) may well be believed by the reader to be doing their best to tell the events of their stories as they actually occurred. But even the best intentioned, most mentally stable narrators forget shit. Or misremember.

Don't believe me? Here's an experiment. No test tubes required. Just try to write down an accurate narrative of any given day, a few hours of any given day, and it can even be one on which something momentous (good or bad) occurred. An important day. You'll likely recall the broad strokes. But specifics of conversations? No. And you may, depending on circumstance and your temporal distance from the day, have to cope with the fact that we all experience false memories. Psychology has shot the myth of the reliable narrator all to hell and back.

I could go on and on about this. I could, if my jangling mind would permit, write a monograph on this very problem in literature. Suffice to say, unless you gravely misapprehend my intent and the nature of narratives, I trust you will not make the same mistakes as the author of the above commentary. I have nothing to hide from my readers. I make no attempt to hide that nothing. If I did, I sure as hell wouldn't admit that both the novels discussed here are, to greater and lesser degrees, autobiographical. And yes, the bit about me keeping secrets from myself still stands, even when issues of autobiography arise. There are vast stretches of my psyche that are hidden from my view (as is the case with us all).

---

Platypus says, "Shut up already. You slept late. You haven't brushed your teeth. Or done your exercises, and there are miles to go before you sleep, beast." So, yeah. Time to make the doughnuts.

Nothing Up My Sleeves,
Aunt Beast

I have never actually used the LJ "scrapbook" feature, but I figured a lot of you might (Spooky does), so I'm reposting this. Note that LJ could not be fucking bothered to offer an English translation of the Russian announcement:

Originally posted by cupcake_goth at Livejournal, come on.

Happy Beltane.

1) You may now read "Random Thoughts Before a Fatal Crash" in the Spring 2012 Subterranean (at Subterranean Press, natch). There's a bit of interesting history to this piece. It first appeared in Sirenia Digest (#64, March 2011), and was intended, originally, as part of the "Back Pages" of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. But it came out too long, and turned out to be a longish, stand-alone short story (or "novelette") in its own right. Still, it went into "Back Pages," until Peter Straub rather emphatically objected and told me to remove it. Which I did, because he was right. Had I left it there, the weight of it would have unbalanced the novel. And if we do not listen to our mentors, why bother having them. Anyway, here it is. Albert Perrault fans rejoice.

2. As we continue the read-through on Blood Oranges, one thing is at the forefront of my mind. Actually, several things are. But, for now, I shall focus only upon this one. After reading the ms., my editor wrote, "As I was reading it felt like there were a lot of 'cunts'." That is, I used the word a lot, though it's true a lot of the characters are fairly characterized as cunts. Anyway, she also wrote, "I'm not offended – I'm mentioning it because I'm not bothered by the word but it still made me take notice. I will caution that it kind of lost some of its impact as I went along." She and I have both counted only seven uses in the novel. Seven words out of over 70,000. Do the math. It's a truly negligible percentage – .01%, to be precise.

Now, I am often amazed at the power of this word, and how our profanity-saturated culture continues to hold this word so taboo. At least here in the U.S. I am aware Brits, for example, are much less shy with cunt. I have been trying to think of even a single word for male genitalia that is met with such outrage. There isn't one. When I was writing for DC/Vertigo, this was the only word I was forbidden to use. Why? No idea. It's very useful. You cannot substitute, say, twat. That slur suggests a person is silly and incompetent, while cunt suggests a person is cruel, inconsiderate, and so forth. It is a valuable bit of slang, just like all those derisive terms for penis (or relating to penises): dickhead, dick, cock, tool, prick, nob, pecker head, wanker, ding-a-ling, et al. It's not entirely a feminist issue, as all other profane euphemisms for vagina (in American English, to my knowledge) are met with far less shock and indignation. It's as if cunt has become a magical word, almost an incantation. It remains powerful. Anyway, Siobhan Quinn, the novel's protagonist, would use it quite freely, so most usages of the word will remain. Say, five of those seven. I have no wish to divest a powerful word of its power. It's just a casual part of her vocabulary, and we ought not force a character to speak this way or that simply to avoid offending, well, anyone. Art is a hammer.

3. If you haven't already, please preorder a copy of Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, my next short-story collection. It will be released either late this Spring or on July 31st. I'm unclear on that point. But it is important this book sells well.

4. Oh my dog, but I have become addicted to Pinterest. It is the perfect expression of the plentiful emptiness of the 21st Century. Countless images on the internet, and we make vast numbers of virtual scrapbooks. Another bit of time displacement. I find it addictive. I can't stop. Anyway, if you want to follow me, I'm simply Caitlín Kiernan, beta de tante. That link may or may not work.

5. Last night, we watched Friday's episode of Fringe, "Worlds Apart." I am not ashamed to admit the ending made me cry just a bit. "Keep looking up. After the rain. Keep looking up."

Okay, having soliloquized far too long on cunt, it's time to go forth and brush my teeth, then read the last two chapters of the book. I may even write that aforementioned "epilogue," a dash of "meta" that may, in fact, make the book.

Fiery,
Aunt Beast

I have to be at the dratted fucking doctor at three (which kills the whole day, and she doesn't even give me good pills), so this is mostly going to be me reposting important stuff people likely didn't see on Saturday. Then again, so few people read LJ these days, probably no one much will see it today, either.

But, I try.

Outside, it's a balmy 55˚, here at noon on the last day of April. I want to go home. I don't know where home is, but I'm pretty sure it's someplace that actually has spring.

The past three days have been spent reading back over all of Blood Oranges, reading it all start to finish for the first time. We'll likely be finished tomorrow. We'd be finished today if not for the thing with the goddamn doctor visit. Last night, though, a sort of "epilogue" for the book occurred to me that elevates it a bit above the station of "anti-ParaRom" werepire romp. But just a little. It's still mostly the middle finger. Actually, the "epilogue" (that's not really what I mean, but I have no other word to do the deed) may only make it more so. An extra joint to that middle finger, as it were. And yet still leave it utterly amenable for the contracted sequels, Fay Grimmer and Puppy Love.

---

So, on Saturday I wrote:

People have been asking for news of Dancy's future at Dark Horse beyond the five-issue Alabaster: Wolves mini-series. At this point in time I can say that yes, there will be more. But exactly how much more there will be, and when, and all that...these are questions I'm still working on. The ball is in my court. As are about twenty other projects. Or tennis balls. Or whatever. Between now and the end of the year I have to*:

01. Sort of rewrite Alabaster: Wolves #5, because I decided I don't like the ending.
02. With the rest of the Alabaster creative team – Steve, Rachelle, Greg, and Rachel – continue to construct the remainder of the mini, issues #3-5. You didn't think it was finished, did you?
03. Edit ( i.e., proofread, correct) Blood Oranges, and address issues raised by the editorial letter.
04. Write Fay Grimmer (the sequel to Blood Oranges).
05. Appear as Guest of Honour at Readercon 23.
06. Write the first half of Blue Canary, so that my agent can begin shopping the series.
07. Write a metric shit-ton of short fiction. Between now and the December I have to write about (conservative estimate) seventeen short stories/vignettes, between Sirenia Digest and various anthologies.
08. In late November and December, begin The Dinosaurs of Mars for Subterranean Press (which I've only been trying to get around to writing since 2007), which hopefully will be finished in early January 2013.
09. Get Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion up and running.
10. Work with Centipede Press to compile the super bow-tie deluxe, limited hardback edition of The Red Tree (to be released in 2013).

So, whatever additional Dancy comics are to be written this year have to be considered in the context of this schedule. There will be more, and soon, I promise, and I may have the details for you before long, but if it's not what you'd hoped for, please consider the list above. There is a limited quantity of me.

I have so much on my plate that I've just turned down a modestly profitable offer to teach a course on writing fantasy and sf. I was, by the way, very flattered they weren't asking me to teach a course on writing "horror. I cited my schedule, plus the fact that I have no idea how to teach anyone else to write. It's just what I do, and it'd probably take me a year to even begin to figure out how I do what it is I do. Moreover, to be frank, and as I have said before – no one can teach anyone else to write. You can show them their mistakes. You can tell them about the industry. You can discuss good fiction and bad fiction, and the inherent subjectivity in telling the one from the other. You can teach them grammar. But you can't teach them to write. That "craft" stuff it bullshit. You have the talent – which has to be honed before your writing is worth a shit, and which we spend our lives honing – or you don't. If you don't, no one can make you a writer. Oh, they might even, maybe, make you more acceptable to editors and get you published. But you'll never be a writer. And the people who teach writing workshops aren't happy when an instructor tells a student they simply don't have the chops and they never will – as most students don't and won't (no matter how many expensive workshops they attend). Also, why would I want to create additional competition in a highly competitive and already overcrowded field?

See, I'm trying not to worry over the lost income by reassuring myself I'd have been fired after a week, anyway.

But yes, more Dancy. Definitely. But details TBA. Meanwhile, don't forget that a special Dancy story will be available come Free Comic Book Day (May 5th). It's called "Shelter," and is divided between the two free Dark Horse comics (the first part in the issue with Star Wars and Serenity, the second half in the issue with The Guild and Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Also, Dark Horse has released a six-page color preview of Alabaster: Wolves #2. Go have a look.

---

And now I have to do a tiny bit of work before the guillotine. I do have a link to an article Stephen King has written that you ought to read. Normally, I don't care for Stephen King, but this political op-ed piece is spot-on: "Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!"

Cherish Your Anger,
Aunt Beast

Outside it's sunny. And the trees are green. But it's 53˚F – on April 28th – which essentially negates both the sunlight and the greenery. I miss you Spring. Please come back to me.

---

People have been asking for news of Dancy's future at Dark Horse beyond the five-issue Alabaster: Wolves mini-series. At this point in time I can say that yes, there will be more. But exactly how much more there will be, and when, and all that...these are questions I'm still working on. The ball is in my court. As are about twenty other projects. Or tennis balls. Or whatever. Between now and the end of the year I have to*:

01. Sort of rewrite Alabaster: Wolves #5, because I decided I don't like the ending.
02. With the rest of the Alabaster creative team – Steve, Rachelle, Greg, and Rachel – continue to construct the remainder of the mini, issues #3-5. You didn't think it was finished, did you?
03. Edit ( i.e., proofread, correct) Blood Oranges, and address issues raised by the editorial letter.
04. Write Fay Grimmer (the sequel to Blood Oranges).
05. Appear as Guest of Honour at Readercon 23.
06. Write the first half of Blue Canary, so that my agent can begin shopping the series.
07. Write a metric shit-ton of short fiction. Between now and the December I have to write about (conservative estimate) seventeen short stories/vignettes, between Sirenia Digest and various anthologies.
08. In late November and December, begin The Dinosaurs of Mars for Subterranean Press (which I've only been trying to get around to writing since 2007), which hopefully will be finished in early January 2013.
09. Get Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion up and running.
10. Work with Centipede Press to compile the super bow-tie deluxe, limited hardback edition of The Red Tree (to be released in 2013).

So, whatever additional Dancy comics are to be written this year have to be considered in the context of this schedule. There will be more, and soon, I promise, and I may have the details for you before long, but if it's not what you'd hoped for, please consider the list above. There is a limited quantity of me.

I have so much on my plate that I've just turned down a modestly profitable offer to teach a course on writing fantasy and sf. I was, by the way, very flattered they weren't asking me to teach a course on writing "horror. I cited my schedule, plus the fact that I have no idea how to teach anyone else to write. It's just what I do, and it'd probably take me a year to even begin to figure out how I do what it is I do. Moreover, to be frank, and as I have said before – no one can teach anyone else to write. You can show them their mistakes. You can tell them about the industry. You can discuss good fiction and bad fiction, and the inherent subjectivity in telling the one from the other. You can teach them grammar. But you can't teach them to write. That "craft" stuff it bullshit. You have the talent – which has to be honed before your writing is worth a shit, and which we spend our lives honing – or you don't. If you don't, no one can make you a writer. Oh, they might even, maybe, make you more acceptable to editors and get you published. But you'll never be a writer. And the people who teach writing workshops aren't happy when an instructor tells a student they simply don't have the chops and they never will – as most students don't and won't (no matter how many expensive workshops they attend). Also, why would I want to create additional competition in a highly competitive and already overcrowded field?

See, I'm trying not to worry over the lost income by reassuring myself I'd have been fired after a week, anyway.

But yes, more Dancy. Definitely. But details TBA. Meanwhile, don't forget that a special Dancy story will be available come Free Comic Book Day (May 5th). It's called "Shelter," and is divided between the two free Dark Horse comics (the first part in the issue with Star Wars and Serenity, the second half in the issue with The Guild and Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Also, Dark Horse has released a six-page color preview of Alabaster: Wolves #2. Go have a look.

---

Yesterday, Spooky and I went to a matinée screening of James McTeigue's The Raven. I went in (as I usually try to do when doing to the movies) with few expectations, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I liked it a lot. I know the critics are being harsh, but the critics are often full of elephant manure. Just keep in mind this is, essentially, an alternative history, and John Cusack is a hell of a lot more sexy than Edgar Allan Poe, and you'll be fine.

A Hell of a Lot Sexier Than Edgar Allan Poe (But Just As Wretched),
Aunt Beast

* Inevitably, some of this will spill over into 2013, but I have to keep that spillage to a minimum, because next year will be just as busy.