Yesterday, I did 1,130 words on Chapter Six of The Red Tree. Afterwards, we read over the pages. Any day that "the rushes" manage to give Spooky the creeps is a day I know I've written well (that is, of course, provided I meant to evoke creepiness that day). Looking at my schedule, deadlines, short stories, Sirenia Digest, and so forth...it's a damned good thing I had those 1,500+ word days, because, otherwise, I'd be unspeakably behind.

As for the remainder of yesterday, I read through a couple of papers in the June Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology —— "A reassessment of some poorly known turtles from the Middle Jurassic of China, with comments on the antiquity of extant turtles" and "A rare Danian (Early Paleocene) Chlamydoselachus (Chondrichthyes: Elasmobranchi) from the Takatika Grit, Chatham Islands, New Zealand." Spooky got Chinese takeaway for dinner, and then there was far, far, far too much World of Warcraft ("elf crack"). By the way, it's not just me, so there's no danger of Spooky becoming a "WoW widow." She also has a night-elf character, a druid named Syllahr. As for Merricat, she reached Level 14 and almost made it to Level 15, but quests seemed to be running short, and so I fear it's away to Darkshore for me. I also attended to some SL business, some notices regarding the Howards End sim. And late, watched (for the umpteenth time) Joseph L. Mankiewicz's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' brilliant and horrifying play, "Suddenly, Last Summer" (which I recently summed up as The Golden Bough meets Lovecraft by way of the Southern Gothic). I am endlessly fascinated by Violet Venable tending dead Sebastian's primordial jungle. Anyway, that was yesterday.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, and note that not only is there a copy of The Five of Cups, but there's the first copy of Tales from the Woeful Platypus that we have ever offered for auction. Oh, have I mentioned that subpress will be doing my third "weird erotica" collection, Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart, next year? I must have...

Also, remember that subpress is now taking pre-orders for my first sf collection, A is for Alien, and that the new mass-market paperback of Daughter of Hounds is now available..

Okay. The words are waiting. But here are a few photographs from our drive down to Harbor of Refuge on Monday evening:

( Harbor of Refuge, September 15th, 2008 )

The current eBay auctions are ending today. Please have a look, if you are so inclined. That seems to be our last copy of the sold-out trade hardback edition of To Charles Fort, With Love.

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Woke to a rainy morning here in Providence. It is impossible, of course, not the check into the NOAA website to keep an eye on the progress of Gustav, and for that matter, Hanna. I know too many people in the paths of each storm not to worry.

A week or so ago I mentioned being somewhat pleasantly baffled that Trisha Telep chose "Untitled 12" and "Ode to Edvard Munch" for her anthology, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance. From Amazon, the following quotes illustrate my point. A reader reviewed the book story-by-story, giving each story a star rating (X out of 5). Of my two, she wrote, "My least favorite were both of Kiernan's entries...the vague poetic style of these stories left me unconnected to their characters." I am amused:

"Ode to Evdard [sic] Munch" - Caitlin Kiernan - A man shares his blood with a mysterious vamp for a piece of her dreams. (3 stars - no romance and the connection between the leads was odd)"

—— and especially ——

"Untitled 12" - Cailtlin R. Kiernan - A sick woman searches until a vampire finds her. (1 star - I detested this one. More on the horror side, the vampire and the turning were truly icky, though I debated giving an extra star to the author for inspiring such strong negative feelings with so few words.)"

There's no place here where I can say that the reader seems to have misunderstood anything, unless, perhaps, it was the fundamental principles of fiction and that low-brow bit about "vague poetic style." I am rather pleased that "Untitled 12" inspired such loathing, as it was written, in part, as a response to the glut of "romantic" vampire prOn, and "Ode to Edvard Munch," being, in part, a dream cycle, it is undeniably "odd" (though I am left to wonder how a mortal and a vampire would have a non-odd connection). I think this gets back to what I have said before about the expectation of genre readers defeating texts, and writers who cater to such readers. And the "supernatural romance" crowd is at least as bad as the hard sf crowd. For my part, I'm pleased that Telep wanted these two stories in her book, and that pleasure arises specifically from the knowledge that they were so completely opposite of what the readers would be expecting. You know, blood, instead of red cotton candy. In the end, I blame Anne Rice (who once knew better), and her idiot step-daughter, Laurell K. Hamilton, for the the sad state of affairs with vampires in genre fiction, as well as this whole absurd "paranormal romance" subgenre thing.

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Yesterday. It throws me off making entries late in the day. But, yesterday there was...stuff. Last night, Spooky and I watched Martin McDonagh's genuinely brilliant and thoroughly delightful In Bruges (2008), which I recommend most highly. Great cast. Great script. And Bruges. I read another paper from the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology —— "Mahajangasuchus insignis [Crocodyliformes; Mesoeucrocodylia] cranial anatomy and new data on the origin of the eusuchian-style palate." Mahajangasuchus is one of those grand bull-dog crocs, and the observations on the evolution of the "hard" palate in crocodyliforms was especially interesting, that the structure might have arisen both as a response to the need to decouple the oral cavity from respiration (an advantage only to aquatic forms, and pretty much the leading idea since Huxley proposed it in 1875) and also as a response to torsional feeding stresses. I even have a picture:


Cast of the skull of Mahajangasuchus from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar

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Last night, more EVE, which I do enjoy, despite the breakneck learning curve and despite the emphasis on PvP action. The latter is especially problematic, and I'm disappointed the game places so much stress on conformity and cooperation and makes no real provision for loner malcontents like me (and most of the characters I create). Then, too, there is the game's manic devotion to corporate commerce as a driving force for its story, when there could have been so much more of substance to motivate its players (religion, race, politics, etc.). Economics has always bored me to tears, and much of EVE revolves around buying and selling and stock and shares and blah, blah, blah. I just want to zip around the universe fighting space pirates (or, better yet, being a space pirate), shagging hot aliens, and gawking at new star systems. So, EVE gets two thumbs up for realizing such an amazingly complex gaming universe, and for making it beautiful, and two thumbs down for turning it into a dreadful capitalist bore that expects me to constantly interact with PvP-obsessed teenagers who name their starships after their penises and wouldn't know "suspension of disbelief" if it cut off their allowances. Regardless, tonight I have to get back to work on Howards End. It's time to attend to a lot of the details of the necropolis/warren/train tunnel complex, and soon we'll be laying the streets. My thanks to everyone who's sent me information on potential characters. If I have not already been in touch, I will soon. I just badly needed a break from SL.

Postscript (4:32 p.m.): from NOAA: 000
WTNT62 KNHC 301718
TCUAT2
HURRICANE GUSTAV TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL072008
120 PM EDT SAT AUG 30 2008

DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT GUSTAV HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN AND NOW HAS MAXIMUM WIND NEAR 145 MPH...230 KM/HR WITH HIGHER GUSTS. THIS MAKES GUSTAV AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. A SPECIAL ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED AT ABOUT 200 PM EDT TO MODIFY THE INITIAL AND FORECAST INTENSITIES. THE SPECIAL PUBLIC ADVISORY WILL TAKE THE PLACE OF THE INTERMEDIATE PUBLIC ADVISORY PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED FOR THAT TIME.

Yesterday, for the first time, we read aloud through "The Z Word," start to finish. I hadn't heard any of it out loud, which is unusual, as we usually read the days pages aloud right off. Anyway, it holds up. Vince has already begun work on the illustration. The rest of the workday was spent going over the Daughter of Hounds excerpts that will also appear in Sirenia Digest #33, and I wrote an extra-long prolegomena for the issue (or so it felt, at 661 words). I also spoke with Bill Schafer about doing a third erotica collection for subpress next year, and that project now has a green light.

Please note that the copy of To Charles Fort, With Love included in the current eBay auctions appears to be the last copy of the trade hardcover edition that we have for sale. Which came as a surprise to Spooky and me both. So, considering the collection is sold out, and this is likely my last copy for eBay, you might want to have a look. Also, if you missed it yesterday, A is for Alien now has a cover (art by surrealist Jacek Yerka, which just pleases me no end).

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When the work was done yesterday, Spooky said, "Let's go to the beach," so we did. Only, first we stopped in to see her mom and dad in Saunderstown. We talked about apples, Wyoming, rock climbing, Colorado, jellybeans, and the subversiveness of science. Her dad had several back issues of Science for me, all of August, I think (he's a department chair and Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Rhode Island). Then we headed south to Moonstone Beach, which we'd not visited since way back on July 28th. This beach has so many moods, and yesterday it was still and quiet. Not much surf, and the air was so clear we could see south all the way to the northern shore of Block Island, about 13 miles away. We waded a bit, and both got a lot wetter than we'd intended. There were tracks of plovers, gulls, and cormorants everywhere. Tiny dinosaur tracks. We saw a flock of almost forty cormorants, when we'd never seen more than three or four together, previously. The last of this year's rose hips have ripened. We saw the pair of swans on Trustom Pond we've been seeing all summer long. A beautiful evening. There are photos below.

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Back in Providence, we got some Chinese takeaway and, being in the mood for something goofy and charming, we watched Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou (1965, directed by Elliot Silverstein). Then I did some work on the first go at a set of rules (the "do's and don'ts" sort) for the Howards End players and sent it out. It will need a good deal of expansion and revision before we begin in October, but it's a start. Basically, I'm looking at all that time I've spent in other sims and other rps, at everything that's mucked up rps in which I have taken part, and trying to weed out the problems before they arise. The terraforming is coming along nicely, most notably the warrens and necropolis by the sea, and the old train tunnel under College Hill. Oh, and I got a really oogy new skin for my Ravnos antitribu character (from Corvinus, a different rp), so now we no longer have to pretend she has welts and blisters and seeping open sores due to her horrid photohypersensativity. Now she looks the part. Oh, and Spooky worked on the Bailff avatar, who is looking quite a bit like Sid Haig

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Today has been declared an Official Day Off, my first since Monday the 18th, nine days ago. I was getting kind of ragged. Anyway, here are the photos:

( Moonstone Beach, August 27th, 2008 )

I have an email this morning from director Frank Woodward, maker of Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown. Frank writes. "Just wanted you to know that Lovecraft won Best Documentary Film at Comic-Con. Your section on Deep Time continues to mesmerize. People consistently mention it to me after they see the film." So, that's cool. Very cool. May it win many more awards.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,015 words on "Derma Sutra (1891)," for Sirenia Digest #32. This piece is genuinely "weird erotica." No. Ditch the silly, pc "erotica" tag. This is "weird pornography." If Lovecraft had ever decided to write porno, well, I think, honestly, it would have looked a lot like "Derma Sutra (1891)." Even though there's not a single tentacle or a squamous batrachian fish-person in sight.

I haven't been wanting to write here about my dratted health. The last month I've been struggling with pain from that upper left molar I cracked in the grand mal seizure back in October. My dentist in Birmingham was skeptical of her chances of saving it. And now I'm thinking that she didn't. She sent me off to Providence with a penicillin script and another for Lortab, should the tooth go hot before I find a dentist. I have not yet found a dentist. And I've only taken one of the Lortab, as ibuprofen is controlling the pain, mostly, even though it does a number on my stomach (and me and pain meds have an ugly history I do not want to see replayed). So, if I have seemed out of step or extra curmudgeonly or whatever, it's mostly the pain and worry about the pain and the uncertainty and so forth. The pain wakes me in the mornings. It's become that very first thing of the day, this sensation like someone's socked me in the jaw right proper. But I absolutely can't stop work on The Red Tree and the digest to have a tooth pulled or root canaled or whatever. I cannot risk being sidetracked, not at this point (yes, this is part of the "romantic" life of a freelance writer).

Spooky's added a PC copy of the leather-bound edition of Frog Toes and Tentacles to the new round of eBay auctions, along with another copy of Alabaster Please have a look, and bid, should you be so disposed. Thanks. And I'll remind you that subpress is now taking preorders on A is for Alien.

After the writing yesterday, we escaped the house and headed for Moonstone Beach. I was hoping that the storms on Sunday would have cast up some interesting things. And, in fact, when we reached Moonstone, we discovered wonderful lag deposits of pebbles, which are not normally present there, not in such great numbers. So, as the sun set and Asian families fished for blue crabs in Trustom Pond (using chicken legs on string), we crawled about on the sand and stone, looking for bits of beach glass. Spooky found the best pieces. My eyes are just too lousy these days. We picked up a bag full of plastic garbage. At some point, I just lay down on the wet pebbles and sand, just lay there listening to the surf and the birds. And it occurred to me, This is what I have, and this is why I do the writing, and put up with the pain. This is why I'm hanging on, because I can lie on the beach, with the sea lapping at my feet, and know that this one thing, at least, is real. It's not much, but, then again, it's everything, the seashore, that liminal space where earth and ocean meet. It's what I desire, and what I have earned. Ah, and I found a very nice carapace of a spider crab (Libinia emarginata) and brought it home with me. We left as it was getting dark, and the Asian families were still snagging crabs with chicken legs.

Set me aflame and cast me free.
Away, you wretched world of tethers...

After dinner at Iggy's in Narragansett, we stopped by Spooky parents' on the way back, to get cucumbers and yellow crooked-neck squash and eggs and just visit. The sky is so marvelous over their farm, the stars so brilliant. Heading back into town last night, I think my mind was still lying on the beach. Entering Providence, I had some weird flashback to Southland Tales, and it seemed to me —— and the sensation lingers this afternoon —— Here is the Future, as much as there is ever a "future," and it is bizarre and deadly, ugly and wondrous, and I have no place here. It's an unsettling sort of realization, and yet I can't find any fault with it. I think it was about 10:30 pm when we finally got home again.

Oh, there was a question from a reader, who asks, "I was reading some of your old posts today and it reminded me you sometimes referred to your 'favorite Thai place' in Atlanta. Could you share the name with me or in the blog?" And yes, now that I am here in Providence and no longer have to worry about dinner being interrupted by a well-meaning fan, I can (it actually happened at that restaurant a couple of times, which is why I never named it). Thai Bowl in Decatur, though the old, now-deceased location off Highland was better. Thai Bowl is one of the few things I miss about Atlanta.

And one last thing in this long entry. Yes, to create an avatar in Second Life that looks good, that moves well, etc., you will have to go beyond the default freebie av. And roleplay is far better with good avs and decent animation overrides and so forth. But, here's the thing —— compared to the charges incurred by popular MMORPGs, (which SL is not, not an MMORPG, I mean), such as WoW and The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, creation of a good av is really incredibly cheap. For $10 (US; and that's a nice pile of Lindens), or $20 (if you want to get really fancy), you can create a wonderful, unique character, and it's not like there are monthly charges on free accounts, or like the rp sims charge you to play there. Just saying....

Below are four photos from yesterday evening:

( Moonstone Beach, July 28, 2008 )

So, yes, the list of not-writing things I have to do today is annoyingly long, a string of undertakings united only by the fact that a) they are related to writing, b) are not the actual act of writing, and c) I do not wish to do them. But there you go. Tedium is just another part of the landscape.

Yesterday. Let's see.

Well, I read Volume Two of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and as some had predicted, I liked it even better than Volume One. This one was Mina's, and I couldn't have been more pleased. I adored the Barsoom stuff at the start, and the love scenes between Mina and Quartermain were touching and sexy and funny. In the end, I think, Hyde almost stole the show, and I adored that, too. My only complaint was that the ending seemed just a little rushed, bringing down the Martians and all, and it seems to me the story could have used a couple more issues. But that's a quibble. Now, of course, I have to wait until October for The Back Dossier.

Sometime after dark, we went out into the steamy night, to Videodrome, to rent Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006), which I somehow missed during the one week it was playing at Midtown here in Atlanta. Based upon Patrick Süskind's novel, Das Parfum (which Spooky has read, but I haven't), it is surely one of the most sublimely erotic films I have ever seen. Like all the best erotica, it's not for the faint of heart, or those who have no use for fairy tales, or those who get queasy at the sight of blood or filth or maggots. There were echoes of Angela Carter and some of Herzog's early films (I'm thinking Heart of Glass, in particular). When it was over, and I was breathing normally again, I told Spooky that the last film that affected me that viscerally was The Proposition. It's that raw, that unfettered, that fucking perfect. This is a film that truly must be seen, unless visceral isn't your cup of tea. In which case, you may be excused. But damn, what an amazing, amazing film.

The heat is still with us. We shall likely see 100F again today, and I won't even make a guess at the heat index.

A couple of days back someone asked if I am in the "Al Gore camp" as regards mankind being responsible for global warming, for this current period of global warming. And I said that yes, of course I am. I said that, given the preponderance of available data, from such such diverse disciplines as meteorology, paleoclimatology, geology, and oceanography, that there is no longer any other reasonable conclusion to be drawn. But I think there's something more I should have said. And it is this. Regarding global warming the only remaining controversy is political, not scientific. Science has reached a consensus, after decades of research. Sure, you can still find scientists who are skeptical that humanity is the cause, because that's how science works. But there are fewer of them every day. The only reason the public "controversy" persists is because so many people have such a profoundly nonscientific and economic stake in there seeming to be a controversy. Which is to say, it's not something that people want to believe, because the consequences of believing it and accepting responsibility are so dire. But that's not how science works, this matter of believing only that which is convenient and comfortable. At least not when science is working right. Anyway, I felt like my reply was incomplete, and now it is less so.

Okay. There's tedium awaiting me...

Because, you know, you can only write "yesterday I didn't write anything" so many times. It gets old. But yesterday I did write, 1,332 words on a piece called "Scene in the Museum (1896)" for Sirenia Digest #21. It did about 300 words the day before. I'm getting back in the saddle, as they say. I am striving, presently, to write an erotic tale that has neither fantasy nor sf elements (though it has a murder-ballad edge); we shall see how that goes.

The heat continues, though we did get a brief respite yesterday, and it won't be too terrible today — only 90F right now, with a heat index of 98F, high forecast at 96F. But if the meteorologists are to be trusted, the worst of August will arrive later this week. I went five days without leaving the house. Last night, Spooky pushed me out the front door and we had a good and bat-haunted walk. Then, later, we went out again to try to catch a glimpse of this year's Perseid shower, but between the inescapable light pollution of Atlanta and the humidity (which was making a glowing haze of the former), little could be glimpsed of the sky, and no meteors were seen. I think it was about 2:45 a.m. when we came in from not seeing meteors.

Nothing much to say about the last couple of unblogged days. Besides the writing. We're working our way through the Matrix trilogy again: The Matrix on Saturday (nine years already?), then The Matrix Reloaded last night. They hold up well, and the second film is, I think, far better than I gave it credit for being at the time of its original release. I'm still reading bits and pieces of Anaïs Nin, and yesterday Spooky picked up a copy of Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (1998), a sort of modern Victorian erotic novel. We seem to be swaying in that direction these days. Well, that and wooden legs with secret compartments for the stowing of Derringers. I've been getting by on absinthe, iced coffee, Red Bull, pink lemonade, and as little food as possible. Byron came around on Friday night for Dr. Who and didn't leave until sometime after one a.m. It's official: David Tennant has grown on me. Now Byron's in Chicago for a week of job training, so we shall be even more reclusive than usual. On Friday, I guess it was, I read all of Mike Mignola's Jenny Finn, which I'd been meaning to get to for forever. We've had quite a bit of Second Life, though I closed the Palaeozoic Museum until August 17th, while I prepare the cephalopod exhibit. And really, those are the highlights.

This week, I have to decide on the cover artist (likely to be a photographer) for the forthcoming subpress edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder.

I've been pointed towards the blogs of various members of Abney Park: robert_from_ap, abneyangel, nathan_fhtagn, and magdaleneveen. My thanks to ellyssian and chenderson for those links!

Though I think I have made this announcement already, I'll make it again, to avoid confusion: No, I will not be at Dragon*Con this year. I'm too busy, too far behind on deadlines, and, at any rate, I think the days of conventions are behind me.

Okay. It's 12:39, and I must get back to the writing. I'd still love to see more comments on Sirenia Diigest #20!

As I begin this entry, the temperature here in Atlanta is 96F with a heat index of 100F. The day's actual high is forecast at 101F.

Yesterday, the postman brought a present from Peter Straub, a copy of his new book of non-fiction, Sides (Cemetery Dance Publications), which includes the afterword he wrote for the first edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder back in 1999. Thank you, Peter.

No writing in these quarters yesterday. It's so hot there are no birds singing until long after sunset. Or so it seems. Even the cicadas hardly make a sound. We read more Anaïs Nin — "Marieanne" and "Elena." Spooky went out into the fullness of the heat a couple of times, but I didn't leave the house.

In the 1930s and '40s, Anaïs Nin was "the madam of a literary house of prostitution." For one dollar a page, she and many of her friends — other writers and artists — wrote erotica for an anonymous "collector." The collector insisted, again and again, that the erotica be devoid of any hint of "poetry." This from the preface to The Delta of Venus:

December, 1941

George Barker was terribly poor. He wanted to write more erotica. He wrote eight-five pages. The collector thought they were too surrealistic. I loved them. His scenes of lovemaking were disheveled and fantastic. Love between trapezes

He drank away the first money, and I could not lend him anything but more paper and carbons. George Barker, the excellent English poet, writing erotica to drink, just as Utrillo painted painting in exchange for bottle of wine. I began to think about the old man we all hated. I decided to write to him, address him directly, tell him about our feelings.

"Dear Collector: We hate you. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships that change its color, flavor, rhythms, intensities.

You do not know what you are missing by your microscopic examination of sexual activity to the exclusion of aspects which are the fuel that ignites it. Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements. You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood.

If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality,
you would be the most potent man in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.

How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you could enjoy a harem of distinct and never-repeated wonders? No two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on a description of hair; no two odors, but if we expand on this you cry Cut the poetry. No two skins with the same texture, and never the same light, temperature, shadows, never the same gesture; for a lover, when he is aroused by true love, can run the gamut of centuries of love lore. What a range, what changes of age, what variations of maturity and innocence, perversity and art...

We have sat around for hours and wondered how you look. If you have closed your senses upon silk, light, color, odor, character, temperament, you must be by now completely shriveled up. There are so many minor senses, all running like tributaries into the mainstream of sex, nourishing it. Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy."

I may spend the day hiding in the bathtub.

Oh, I keep forgetting. Spooky has listed another copy of the mmp of Theshold on eBay, so if you'd like a signed, personalised copy, you might want to have a look.

If there's anything I've forgotten, I'm sure it can wait until later.

Postscript (3:23 p.m.) — The temp has reached 100F, with a heat index of 108F.

The heat is even worse than yesterday. At this moment, it's 93F with a heat index of 100F. I had a cold hard-boiled egg for breakfast, with iced coffee. The thought of anything warm turned my stomach. I've already lost 10 lbs. this summer from not eating. Forecast high is 99F.

No writing yesterday. I did read aloud what I wrote on Sunday, the piece I was calling "Penance to the Idol of Perversity (1917)," which was quite good, but I have no idea where it's headed. And I think I'm going to set it aside and work on something more suited to Sirenia Digest #21. Already, a quarter of the month has slipped past me. But wait...I'm supposed to be resting. But wait...I have deadlines. Argh. At some point yesterday afternoon, I decided I absolutely had to read Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus, but after riffling though the shelves, could not locate the copy I thought I owned, nothing by Nin by Spooky's copy of The Four-Chambered Heart. This led to a trip out into the broil, back to Borders for a new copy of Delta of Venus. I almost picked up a collection of vintage Victorian erotica, as well, but books are so frelling expensive. I'm also having fits to read Alan Moore's Lost Girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's too hot to do anything but read. We came home. I had a cool bath and washed my hair, and then read Nin to Spooky — the preface and "Lilith" and "Linda." It's much too hot for anything but reading. And iced coffee.

And note that the mmp of Low Red Moon is now available in bookshops and from Amazon.com and other online booksellers. Please do me a huge favour and order a copy or five. Note, too, that you can get it from Amazon with a copy of Daughter of Hounds (tpb) for a mere $19.89. That's a bargain, surely.

I meant to bring this up days ago and forgot, but on September 6th, five years to the day after it came online, I will be taking down Nebari.net. The pages will likely be archived at my CRK website, and I will be keeping the URL registered. But I want to save the $20 a month to pay the weekly rent on my two lots in New Babbage (the Palaeozoic Museum and the forthcoming Jules Verne Memorial Park), thus trading one obsession for another.

Too hot for a walk last night. Maybe at midnight we could have walked, maybe, but in this neighborhoood late-night walks are unadvisable. Instead, we had a grand Second Life rp session, with the help of blu_muse and Molly Underwood. Best. Toy. Ever. But I've gotten very far behind on Nareth's journal and will try to catch up this evening.

Phoenix is on its way to the Martian north pole. A shame there's no rover on board. Touchdown, May 2008.

Any thoughts/comments on Sirenia Digest #20 would be much appreciated today.

Time to make the doughnuts. Or at least sit here and stare at the dough.

Okay, well this is something new. I have been accused, in an Amazon.com "review" of The Value of X, of uncorrupting Poppy. To be more precise, one Faye S. Lewis (I'd almost forgotten about her) has claimed that I "upbraided" Poppy for writing erotica and that Poppy took my "advice" on the subject and this led to the changes in her work between Exquisite Corpse and TVoX. The astute Ms. Lewis writes:

Poppy gave up the ghost when she started listening to the voices of her friends and not those in her own head. After Cait Kiernan upbraided her for using sex as a plot point, Poppy has set out to live by rules created for her, rather than by her. There is nothing wrong with a touch of the erotic (watch her chase her tail in a rage if you even say the word in relation to her work now) if it creates the atmosphere and sells the relationship on another level. Sadly, she's taken the advice of a person who once said of sex in literature: "It's like going to the bathroom. You know they do it, but you don't need to write two pages on it."

This is, of course, total gopher twaddle. True, I did once say something like the comment Lewis attributes to me here. I can't recall when or where (this may be a direct quote; I don't know), but my attitude towards extended sex scenes in novels is certainly no secret. I talked about it openly in this journal as recently as this spring, when I was working on Frog Toes and Tentacles. But. To suggest that Poppy hasn't been thinking for herself, that I am somehow responsible for the fact that she's no longer writing "erotic horror" (or whatever) is an insult to Poppy. And it's an absurd insult, at that. I mean, you might as well suggest that Harlan Ellison or William Burroughs or Hunter S. Thompson or Kathy Acker, at some point in their careers, stopped thinking for themselves because some friend or another "upbraided" them for some perceived literary transgression. It has been my experience that Poppy does what Poppy damn well wants, even when it's not in her own best interest. Ms. Lewis is the sort of reader, it seems, who believes authors are writing for them and that, when push comes to shove, the Reader Knows What's Best. Ms. Lewis is, therefore, a fool.

Anyway...

My thanks to tagplazen for an unexpected and wonderful package that arrived here from Seattle earlier this week. A veritable cornucopia of dradness that has been much appreciated. It included: a whoopee cushion, four CDs that we haven't yet had time to listen to (but I see there's stuff by Residents and the Lotus Eaters), a sheet of glow in the dark stickers (stars, moons, Saturns, shooting stars), five identical bumpterstickers which read "Let Them Eat Cake," three very cool postcards depicting various Hindu gods and goddesses, a package of 120 "Topical" ten-commandment stickers, Jogging With Jesus by C. S. Lovett (this is the gem of the bunch), a package of "Fantasy Garden Incense" (20 sticks of a scent identified as "Pussy"), a poster from Crimethinc., and a red "Proud to be Drug Free" pencil (with a well-loved eraser). I mean, wow!

And Spooky gave me a Halloween Pez dispenser today. An embarrassment of riches, says I.

Okay. Back to work. And it's not too late to hit those eBay auctions, if you feel so inclined.