There have been previous Earth Days when I've had a great enthusiasm for reporting just how awful the state of the planet is. Today, I just can't seem to muster the gumption (as they say back in Alafuckingbama). Sure, I could point out that as of 14:57 GMT (EST+5) today, the Earth's human population had reached 6,662,970,347 (with the US population accounting for 303,912,188 of those humans; that's one birth every 7 seconds in the US)*. I could get started about all those damned plastic water bottles, or the melting ice caps and rising sea level, or the fact that humans have triggered one of the most dramatic mass-extinction events in the planet's history, or the fact that populations of large shark species have declined more than 50% since the 1970s, with many coastal species, including the tiger, scalloped hammerhead, bull, and dusky shark having lost 95% of their worldwide populations in this thirty-eight year period. But. I think numbers and facts just make people act stupider, to tell you the truth. If you'd like, have a look at my Earth Day entries from 2004 and 2005, days on which I had more "gumption" than I have today. Oh, and this quote from my Earth Day entry last year:

"And today is Earth Day. And it seems to me that people are more concerned with finding 'green' solutions that will permit business as usual, and continuing technological escalation, rather than drastically scaling back this runaway civilization, which is the only truly 'green' solution. The only solution at all. I might as well be asking for world peace, and I know that. Humans hate. Human breed. Humans consume. Humans spoil. There are other things that humans do, and some of them are wonderful, but the global effects of these wonderful capabilities pale by comparison with all the hating, breeding, consumption, and spoilage. I do not hate humans, and I don't want to give that impression, but I see no point in denying that today, on this Earth Day, I'm rooting for the other team."

* courtesy the US Census Bureau's US and World Population clocks.
---

No writing again yesterday. A lot of reading. Thinking. And dithering. And the dithering has to stop today. I have come, very reluctantly, to the conclusion that I may have to set The Red Tree aside, write all the pieces I need to write for the next four or five issues of Sirenia Digest (say May-September), and then go back to the novel once we're in Rhode Island, where I can do the research that needs doing for me to write the prologue, which needs to be written for me to finish Chapter One. It really doesn't matter, as all this stuff has to be written, either way, but I am loathe to set the novel aside without even Chapter One finished. Regardless, no more dithering. Oh, and I also have to get the introduction to A is for Alien written, and a couple of other things, as well.

Yesterday, we mostly read House of Leaves, though, about 4 p.m. or so we drove over to Decatur, to Books Again, where we still had more than $78 in credit from the more than $500 dollars in credit we got when we took in mountains of books after the move from Kirkwood in December 2004. I had this fear of forgetting about the credit and not remembering again until we were in Providence. Anyway, yesterday we picked up the following (because, you know, we need more books to move):

The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer by Doron Swade (2000)
A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable by John Steele Gordon (2002)
Three Men on the Beagle by Richard Lee Marks (1991)
Return of the Crazy Bird: The Sad, Strange Tale of the Dodo by Clara Pinto-Correia (2003)
Deadly Beautiful: The World's Most Beautiful and Poisonous Animals and Plants by Laurence Gad (1980)
Crossing Over: Where Art and Science Meet by Stephen Jay Gould and Rosamond Wolff Purcell (2000)
The Nature Companion's Rocks, Fossils, and Dinosaurs (2002)
Cabal by Clive Barker (1988; to replace my battered paperback of the same)

Books Again (and it's bookshop cat, Octavio) should be added to that very short list of things I will miss about the South. There's a photo (by Spooky) behind the cut:

( Books Again )

The lease for the apartment in Providence arrived this ayem. Thank you, Deneise and Kurt. Also, my thanks to whoever answered my wish and purchased the copy of Soderburgh's Solaris for me yesterday, and to Steven Spector for a copy of Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian.

Last night we stopped by Videodrome after dinner, because I had an urge to see Robert Harmon's They (2002) again. It's not a Very Good movie, but it has its moments, and the creature design and SFX are quite effective. It all works much better with the alternate ending, by the way. And that was yesterday, and now there must be coffee. And, also now, all I need are five or six or seven or eight really good ideas for vignettes for the next few issue of Sirenia Digest.

My journal entries have been a little long-winded recently, so maybe this one will turn out shorter. Or maybe it won't. But, the sun and warm air are back. The tree outside my office window is green.

Yesterday, I did 1,216 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree. Sarah Crowe, I fear, is going to be one of my most autobiographical characters to date. The novel is being written in the form of her journal, which has been edited for publication. That might work, and it might not. Right now, I'm struggling with a desire to use "editor's" footnotes. Also, I determined yesterday that if I can write a minimum of 1,200 words a day until May 1st, I might have a chance of getting this novel done by September 1. Truthfully, I'd like to get that up to 1,500 words per day.

"The Wolf Who Cried Girl" (Sirenia Digest #24; November 2007) has been selected for the 2008 edition of Horror: The Best of the Year (edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz; Prime Books). You'll recall that "Pony" (Sirenia Digest #2; Jan. 2006; but also in Tales from the Woeful Platypus) was chosen for the 2007 edition of Horror: The Best of the Year. It pleases me that the digest is being noticed by editors.

Lots of income tax chaos yesterday, of course. Spooky handles most of that. I just sign my name on the dotted line. Regardless, it did nothing to make yesterday more pleasant. But! I went Outside! All the way to Videodrome and the market with Spooky. I was so proud of myself. Anyway, on something far more perverse than a whim, we rented Kevin Lima's latest Disney outing, Enchanted. You'll recall that, after the Oscars, I had nothing but foul words for the three songs that were nominated. I think "insipid" was one of them. Well, to my surprise, the film itself — with the songs placed in their proper context — is peculiarly charming. And bizarre. And quite charming. And, well, it just sort of works. Also, it is an extraordinarily gay movie (you know, in the homosexual sense). Amy Adams gives an absolutely toe-curlingly creepy performance as a cartoon princess come to life. Timothy Spall is always, always a joy to watch. Susan Saradon seemed to be having fun, hamming it up as the villain. And kudos to Pip the chipmunk. No, I did not smoke crack last night. I did not even have a wee glass of absinthe.

Okay. The tyrant platypus (Ornithorhynchus tyrannus) says it's time to have coffee and make some doughnuts.

I think the insomnia has reached a point where it's easier to count how many hours I didn't sleep than those I did.

It's spring outside today. It's spring, and it looks and feels like spring. High 60s today, low 70s tomorrow. The trees are going green.

And I keep forgetting to mention that the mass-market paperback of Murder of Angels is out. Indeed, I think it's been out for a week or two. With great luck, you can find it in bookshops. You can't yet get it from Amazon.com, for reasons no one is bothering to explain, but you can get it from Barnes & Noble (just follow the link above). If you can, if you are interested, please pick up a copy. Spooky put a lot of time into the corrections on this edition. And it has a nice cover (and a dubious cover blurb):



By the way, anyone who subscribes to Sirenia Digest between now and midnight (EST) on Sunday will get #28 FREE when they receive April's issue (#29).

Yesterday, we made the 3:15 screening of Carter Smith's The Ruins (based on the novel by Scott Smith). And despite having four or five interchangeable and utterly vapid protagonists, once I got past the sluggish first half hour or so (and my annoyance at the bland glamor of the aforementioned "characters"), the film suddenly comes alive and delivers a deeply chilling bit of weird fiction. Two words: screaming flowers. That ought to be enough, right there. For a short bit, I feared that The Ruins would merely be a crawl through a perilous underworld, such as that already delivered quite well by Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005). Instead, The Ruins turns out to deal with a sort of horror that occurs almost entirely above ground and usually in broad daylight, which, of course, makes its horror all the more horrible. There's something here that harks back to films of the seventies, in the bleakness of delivery, in the wonderful abruptness of the conclusion. I am reminded, in the main, of Stephen King's short story, "The Raft," and in a lot of ways, The Ruins is that story moved from a lake in Maine to the jungles of Mexico. The gore is handled skillfully and never overpowers subtler effects. Graeme Revell delivers a score that helps to move it all along. I can't say this is a genuinely good movie, if only because the beginning fails so completely, but it is a very rare film that juggles darkness well enough to artfully unnerve me. When it was over, I'd had enough, which, I think, is the way a film like this ought to make you feel. I'd even been made to feel sympathy for the idiot American college students, because the Bad Thing waiting for them in the ruins of the title is bad enough, wrong enough, that the threat to life and sanity it poses struck me as something not even those disposable fools deserved. Had the director seen fit to insert actual characters for his carnivorous Cannabis to munch on, I think this might have been a genuinely good film. Regardless, definitely worth a matinée, though you shouldn't pay full price.

Back home, we watched Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street again, and it's still gorgeous and brilliant and sexy. The rest of the evening is a blur of insomnia and Second Life.

My coffee is cold, which is probably for the best.

By now, everyone who is a subscriber should have Sirenai Digest #28, as it went out about 6 pm on Monday. The first part of yesterday was spent hammering down the last few nails, and then it went away to Gordon (thingunderthest) for vinyl siding (er...PDFing). Hope you like it. Comments would make me happy. And if you are not a subscriber, the part where it's too late to become one hasn't happened yet. Oh, and I cannot believe no one pointed out to me, after Saturday's entry, that "The Sphinx's Kiss" appeared in #27, and so obviously wouldn't be part of #28.

Yesterday, once the digest was out of my hands, became a much needed day off. A day off and out (even though it was cloudy and a bit chilly). Too much time spent sitting in the house lately. Too much time staring at the monitor. First, Spooky and I caught the 2 pm matinée of Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino's adaptation of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, which we enjoyed a great deal. Jim Carrey may now stop apologizing for his part in the abominable 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. After the movie, we swung by The Fernbank Museum of Natural History, because we'd not yet seen the "In the Dark" exhibit. Nocturnal animals, subterranean animals, deep-sea animals, blindness, etc. Right up my alley. Sadly, the exhibit is very kiddy oriented, but there were still a few cool things for us ancient types. Two photos (behind the cut) from the Museum:

( tube worms and sponges )

After the Museum, back home, I finished reading the article on Ennatosaurus tecton, and even made it through the rather frustrating phylogenetic analysis of the taxon. Then I read George R. Guffey's essay, "Aliens in the Supermarket: Science Fiction and Fantasy for 'Inquiring Minds'" (1987). And after dinner, well, I gorged Second Life rp in Toxia, during which time, among another things, I cleaned a tombstone with a scrub brush and finally met scarletboi's SL alter-ego (insert lesbian wolf-whistle here), who brought me the gift of lower-abdominal tentacles. I don't think I made it to bed until almost 5 ayem, which was stupid, yeah, and I'm paying for it today, but it was fun while it lasted. Somehow, I survived most of yesterday on nothing more than a cup of coffee and a handful of candied walnuts. Will wonders never cease?

Also, cdennismoore asks that eternal question, "Have you TRULY not been to Oxford Town?" No, I have not. Neither in England nor in New Jersey.

We may have found a house in Providence. Spooky and her mother are working on it, and I'm thinking what a huge relief it will be, to know where I'll be living come June.

And now, it's time to make the doughnuts...

We are watching the world melt. We are watching Antarctica melt. In 2002, it was the Larsen B Ice Shelf. On this day, two years ago, I wrote about Iceberg D-16 breaking free of the Fimbul Ice Shelf. This morning, I read about the imminent collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The world is melting.

And I didn't write anything yesterday.

There have, however, been some truly marvelous suggestions come in from Sirenia Digest readers, in response to my call for suggestions. Sadly, many of them are a bit more like short-story suggestions than vignette suggestions. But still, thank you. One or two have real possibility. If you can make me flinch, I stand impressed.

So, what do you get when John Carpenter's Escape From New York (1981) meets the three Mad Max films (1979-1985)? You get Neil Marshall's Doomsday. As for Mr. Marshall, I really didn't care for Dog Soldiers (2002), but I liked The Descent (2005). Yesterday, Spooky and I made a matinée of his new film, Doomsday, which I liked very, very, very much. I went largely on the recommendations of Byron and robyn_ma, and I am glad that I did. Doomsday is a genuinely delightful post-apocalyptic romp from start to finish. I laughed. I clapped. I cringed. Marvelous. So many recent films, from Underworld (2003) to Ultraviolet (2006), have tried and miserably failed to do what this film does to perfection. Craig Conway pretty much steals the whole show as the wickedly vengeful Sol, turning in one of the most thoroughly charismatic villains since Clancy Brown's Kurgan in Highlander (1986). Oh, and his female sidekick, Viper (played by stuntwoman Lee-Anne Liebenberg), my gods, what a fine bit of eye candy. Rhona Mitra makes a nice XX-chromo version of Carpenter's Snake Plissken (in fact, she might even give Kurt Russell a run for his money), though she's called Eden Sinclair in the film. Those are the three performances that help make the film such a delight. But we also get serviceable work from Alexander Siddig, Bob Hoskins, and Malcolm McDowell (on autopilot, but, hey, it works). There was just really nothing about the film that wasn't fun. Loved the soundtrack. I think it was robyn_ma who said that Doomsday does what Planet Terror only tried to do, and, if so, she's right. This is a Grade-A B-movie, a grand, gory, beautiful homage to both Escape from New York and The Road Warrior. It's a blast, and you really ought to try to catch it in the theatre.

Oh, and I read two papers in the new JVP — "Ontogeny of cranial epi-ossifications in Triceratops" and "The skeletal anatomy of the Triassic protorosaur Dinocephalosaurus orientalis Li, from the Middle Triassic of Guizhou Province, southern China."

Every time I think maybe I'm getting the Second Life monkey off my back, I get sucked in deeper. Thank you, Lorne, for the following IM, which was so amusing I have to post it here (a parody of my own complaints following our rp on Wednesday night):

"Quit fondling me, mistress. I have a headache, 'cause I didn't bend space and time the way you're s'pose to, and nearly got sucked into oblivion by the third singularity that formed..."

And apologies to whoever I stole the icon from. It was just too fine for too me to pass up, and, you know, I do talk to wolves. Now. This is where this entry ends, I think.

Yesterday was a much-needed day off. On Tuesday, I wrote a very respectable 1,665 words and reached THE END of "Pickman's Other Model" (total word count, 9,892). And that made eight straight days of writing, and at least eleven days since my last "day off." I very much like how the story turned out, subtler than I'd planned, more suggested than shown — you know the drill. And you can read it in Sirenia Digest #28, if you've subscribed, and if not, that's easy to fix.

Obama took Mississippi, which I entirely expected, but am pleased with, nonetheless.

Yesterday, the postman or UPS or somebody delivered my comp copies of of the mass-market paperback 2nd edition of Murder of Angels. And even though the book has a street date of April 1st, Amazon is still not taking orders. I suspect this is because they bought so many remaindered copies of the tpb, the ones that I was supposed to be able to buy, but couldn't, because my former editor "forgot" to let me know, etc. Regardless, Barnes & Noble is now taking orders, and you can order a copy just by following this link. And if you can, please do, because I'd like these editions to stay in print a while. I like how the mass-market paperback turned out. I'd forgotten, until yesterday, that I actually began this book in 2001, then shelved it and wrote Low Red Moon in 2002, and only came back to Murder of Angels in 2003. How do you forget a thing like that?

Not enough sleep last night. I really have to make an effort to be in bed by 2 ayem or so until this upcoming appearance is done (no matter how unnatural going to bed at 2 may feel). Originally, today was to have been spent shopping, finding a couple of outfits for the trip to Maryland next weekend, because I've not made anything like a public appearance since November 2004 (except the Lovecraft documentary thing last April). But there's a bunch of the busyness of writing I must attend to today, instead. And it's actually a relief, because I hate shopping for clothes that much.

So, yesterday Spooky and I made a 2 p.m. matinée of Roland Emmerich's 10,000 BC (a date that marks the beginning of the Mesolithic, by the way). This is slightly odd, because I do so despise the films of Roland Emmerich. Still, I've seen most of them at least once. Independence Day? Hated it. The Day After Tomorrow? Hated it. Stargate and Universal Soldier and Godzilla? Let's not even go there. Anyway, I've had a thing for the "cave man" subgenre since I was a kid, and after seeing those gorgeous shots of mammoth and phorusrhacid birds, how could I stay away, Roland Emmerich or no? And I went in with the mindset that this was the sort of story that Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard or H. Rider Haggard might have written, a sort of big-budget Conanesque thing. And as it turns out, it is pretty much exactly that. And having gone in with that set of expectations, and much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the film. It's not a Very Good Movie, but it's great eye candy, and it's exactly the sort of film ERB or REH would have written. It helps that I've had a thing for Cliff Curtis since The Fountain (2006) and Sunshine (2007). And that the creature SFX are really quite good. Yes, the science is shit. The history is absurd. The geography is even screwed up. And one could also make arguments concerning sexism and the problem of "Mighty Whitey" coming to the rescue, but, and still, taking the film strictly on its own merits, as what I think it was intended to be, it mostly succeeds, which is more than I can say for any other film this man has directed. Well, the no-sacrifice ending was sort of a cop out, that's true (and compounded the absurdities). Point is, I had fun, and I think, these days, films are so expensive, especially SFX extravaganzas (and 10,000 BC cost a whopping $140 million), and there's so much bullshit hype, that it's hard to just enjoy what should merely be a popcorn movie, a big dumb bit of fun. Anyway, I never thought I'd live long enough to enjoy a Roland Emmerich film.

Later, we had a good walk in Freedom Park (and saw two of our local red-tailed hawks). Then lots of rp in Toxia, and two more episodes of Angel ("Calvary" and "Salvage"). A decent enough day off, all in all. There will be fewer and fewer of these as June approaches. Anyway, yes, many annoying things to be done today, and the platypus just reminded me that talking about cave-man movies will not make them go away. Oh, and if you've said that you want to be part of the Sirenia Players, and you've told me so but have not yet received an invitation, please, please remind me again (and give me your SL username). Right now, we have 13 members, but more are welcome.

How can a day go badly when, after sleeping a full eight hours, I am greeted with a description of "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées" as "Designing Women meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? No way it can, I say. My thanks to francis_clay for that, by the way. It's from his post to the species_of_one forum (which might get more traffic if I ever mentioned it).

Yesterday was sort of a mess, writing wise. I did not finish "Pickman's Other Model." I only did 748 words. Then I had to stop and walk over to Sweetgrass to have my eyebrows done. I'm trying, frantically, to reconstruct myself after all these months of illness and neglect and reclusivity, so that my physical appearance is not greeted with too much horror and dismay when I show up at the O'Neil Literary House. It's probably only further evidence of my wrongness that I find eyebrow waxings/pluckings to be extraordinarily soothing. Anyway, yeah, eyebrows. Hair on Friday. Not much I can do about the 12-15 pounds I've lost, though (most of it's muscle mass, not fat).

Wow. This is a prattling entry, isn't it? The dextromethorphan is controlling the cough, but my already addled brain is...more addled. Yes, people. I'm the reason all those pharmaceuticals are showing up in your tap water. From my bladder to the glass, no extra charge.

After Sweetgrass, we wandered around Criminal Records for a while. Later, we watched Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave (1994), which I'd never seen, but liked a great deal. Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, murder, greed, mayhem, betrayal, blood, revenge, and all in one movie — what's not to love? Later, there was rp in Toxia (a Second Life sim), with Lorne and Larissa, in which Nareth learned...well, several terrible things. Hearts were torn still beating from chests (but that's okay, I put it back when I was done), a star was forced into premature nova, and the blade of Nareth's thirsty straight razor was satiated (for now). In short, lessons were learned. Good stuff. Oh, and I've been loving Ghosts I-IV so much that I'm now revisiting NIN's Year Zero, which, I realize, I never listened to enough to really let it sink in.

So. That was yesterday. This will be today...

Yesterday was a decent enough writing day. I did 1,125 words on "Pickman's Other Model" and finished the third section of the story. HPL never gave first names for either Eliot or Thurber, and after looking into names that were popular in the late 19th Century, when Thurber (narrator) of "Pickman's Model" would have likely been born*, I have settled on William Thurber, who, it turns out, had an older sister named Ellen (I think).

Have I mentioned how much I love the 3rd edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder. I do not generally tend to look at my books very much once they are published, but I'm making an exception with this one. It's been such a long road, turning this collection into a book I'm happy with, I feel I should try to savor it. This edition more than makes up for the mess that Meisha Merlin foisted upon me (and everyone who bought the book). This is probably as near to what I'd originally intended it to be as I can ever hope to come.

Byron dropped by last night, and we did dinner at the Vortex, and broke the news to him about the move to Rhode Island. I'm going to make a very short list about the things in the South I will miss, and Bryon is on that list. He took it well. Of course, I wish we could just haul him north with us. Anyway, after dinner, we watched Austin Powers (1997), which I'd never seen, and Spooky had only seen while stoned. I fear I was not impressed. I tried to be impressed, but it just seemed like the same only faintly humorous line delivered again and again. For spoofs of sixties spies, I'll stick with James Coburn and Lee J. Cobb in Daniel Mann's Our Man Flint (1966). After the movie, we happened to catch the infamous scientology episode of South Park (which I'd only seen once), and I swear, that one episode is such a tremendous service to mankind that Trey Parker and Matt Stone deserve a Nobel Prize.

Sometime back, I decided it was best for this blog to steer clear of politics, but Hilary Clinton's behavior the last couple of weeks has finally pushed me to break radio silence on the subject of the 2008 US presidential election. Specifically, her bizarre attempt to convince voters that, if worse comes to worse and she doesn't get the Democratic nomination, that the Republican's McCain would make a better President than would Barack Obama. Has any Democratic candidate ever made such a twisted, desperate bid to sway an election? It's very hard to listen to her campaign rhetoric and not come away with the impression that what she's really saying here comes down to, "Yes, McCain's the enemy, but at least he's white." So, though I hate sounding like a reactionary, I have chosen what is, in my opinion, the lesser of two evils, or, more specifically, Hilary Clinton's actions have made the choice for me. The Obama sign goes up in the front yard next week. Besides, he's kind of cute, and we surely can't say that about McCain or Clinton, and I think he's more likely to get the country out of Iraq than is the somewhat hawkish Hilary Clinton. As usual, Olbermann does not mince words:



Anyway, don't forget that Sunday everyone switches back to Caitlín Standard Time (which is sort of annoying, as I will no longer be early for everything).

* I draw this conclusion based upon Thurber describing himself as "middle-aged" and the assumption that the story is contemporaneous with the time that HPL wrote it (September 1926; published October 1927).

Yesterday was not a good writing day. It took me all afternoon to produce a measly 716 words on "Pickman's Other Model." The constant need to fact check (everything from the movie industry in 1920's Fort Lee, New Jersey to the geography of the Massachusetts North Shore) didn't help, and there was one paragraph I spent almost an hour on — writing it, rewriting it, re-rewriting it, trying to get the wording just right. The voice of this story does not bear much resemblance to the peculiar use of first-person narrative that Lovecraft employed in "Pickman's Model." It's far more reserved, as the character of Eliot, as i am choosing to write him, is quite a different person than was Thurber (the narrator of HPL's story). One neat thing, yesterday I discovered an unexpected overlap between Low Red Moon and "Pickman's Other Model," and, as it turns out, this story will provide a bit more history to Narcissa Snow's family. Anyway, hopefully today will go better. Truthfully, I should not have attempted such an ambitious short story when I have so many deadlines pressing in on me, but, damn it, this is what I want to be writing. Also, my thanks to derekcfpegritz for pointing me to a better e-text of "Pickman's Model" (at Wikisource).

So many things in my head this morning, I'm bound to forget something.

Yesterday, after the writing, UPS dropped (literally) a 45 lb. box of Tales of Pain and Wonder and Tails of Tales of Pain and Wonder onto our front porch. And now I have seen the 3rd edition of the collection, and it is beautiful, and I am extremely grateful to Bill Schafer at subpress for giving me another chance to get this book right. In particular, Richard A. Kirk's artwork is reproduced beautifully. It's just a gorgeous book, and if you haven't already ordered, I urge you to do so now, because soon it will be sold out once again, and, if you wish to own it, you'll have to resort to paying exorbitant eBay prices to people who are not me.

And I was extremely pleased that Christian Siriano won Project Runway 4. I just had to say that, because I am a fashion nerd (thank you, Diana Eng).

No walk yesterday, because I just wasn't up to the chilly wind. It's much warmer today, I'm glad to say.

I'm considering (and I know this is a strange idea, bear with me) of establishing an rp group on Second Life to try rping through certain scenarios before I write them as vignettes or stories for Sirenia Digest. I'd probably call it "The Sirenia Players" (how could I not), and it would be a small group, no more than ten people, I think. Part of the great, untapped potential of SL is all the ways it can aid authors, and this would be another way of taking advantage of what it has to offer. To date, I have derived a number of pieces for the digest from SL rps, including "The Steam Dancer," Scene in the Museum (1896)," and "In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection". Anyway, speak up here or via email — greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com — if you might be interested, and I'll keep you posted.

Also, you can now "See the Alternate Ending for I Am Legend That Was Too Satisfying for Test Audiences," courtesy New York Entertainment (my thanks to chris_walsh for pointing me to this). It's still not the right ending, but is an ending that follows logically and emotionally from the rest of the film, doesn't reinforce the myth that the military can save us from a doomsday of our own devising, and it is far, far preferable to what was shown in theatres. Of course, if you have not yet seen the film and want to, it's probably best not to watch this ending, as it is undeniably spoilerish. If only the practice of employing "test audiences" to aim films at the lowest common denominator (which is to say, the average audience) would go the way of the non-avian theropods...

Long have I regarded March 1st as the first day of Spring, and never mind that the equinox is still three weeks away. I actually wrote an entry about this two years ago. Anyway, for me, Spring begins March 1st and ends on June 1st. So, hello Spring. Right now, it's 60F outside, and the meteorologists say we'll go to 63F.

By now, all subscribers should have Sirenia Digest #27. If you don't, email Spooky at crk_books(at)yahoo(dot)com, and she'll make it right. I'd love to hear some feedback on the issue today, but it is a long issue, so I expect many people won't have finished reading it for several days yet.

Yesterday was an odd blur of work and movies. Early on, I did some work getting the last loose threads tied off for Sirenia Digest #27. Then Spooky and I went to the 2:40 pm (CaST) matinée of Justin Chadwick's The Other Boleyn Girl (based on Philippa Gregory's novel). Truthfully, I mostly went for the eye-candy factor. Most of the film is carried by Natalie Portman, though Scarlett Johansson's role is more robust near the ending. Not a great film, and I don't expect it to wind up on many "Best of 2008" lists, but I found it quite enjoyable. Back home, the signature pages for Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy arrived via UPS, and I received the final version Vince's illustration for "Beatification." I think the Digest actually went out about 6:30 pm (CaST). We found our Kid Night movies from Videodrome this week, which got me out of the house twice in one day — a Val Lewton double feature, I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and The Body Snatcher (1945). The latter is a particular favorite of mine, and surely one of Boris Karloff's finest films. Lewton produced and wrote The Body Snatcher, but it was directed by Robert Wise. I Walked With a Zombie was also produced by Lewton, but directed by Jacques Tourneur. Anyway, a great double feature, and I ate too many Oreos.

Someone sent me a link to the video for Björk's "Oceania," which I almost based a vignette on, a year or so ago, but never got around to finishing the piece. Regardless, it's very Sirenia Digest, and so I'm including it below:



Also, thanks to Wikipedia, I finally know why eBay is named eBay: "Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name echobay.com (the domain has recently been put up for sale) but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com." So, don't go sayin' I ain't never learned you nothin'. And speaking of eBay, please have a look at the current auctions, set to end on Monday.

And, lastly, I could not resist taking the "Deep and Meaningful Winnie-The-Pooh Character Test." I am not in the least bit surprised by my results (behind the cut):

( Deep and Meaningful )

I woke about 7:30 this morning to the commotion of the most wonderful thunderstorm, rain coming down in great roaring sheets, lightning. I fell asleep again listening to the storm, but have no recollection of whatever dreams followed.

Yesterday afternoon, still without an idea for another vignette for Sirenia Digest #27, I got in touch with Sonya (sovay) and asked her to please toss a couple of ideas my way. The first few, I could see straight away, were doomed to become actual short stories, but then she gave me one word, "Snegurochka." Marvelous! Unfortunately, then I had the call from my agent regarding Joey Lafaye, and Spooky and I needed to proofread "The Steam Dancer (1896)" for Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, and there was eBay to be done...so, at the end of the day, I still had not begun a second vignette.

Though I'm not making the final decision until tomorrow, I think that Sirenia Digest #27 may be comprised of the one new vignette, plus two reprints from early issues. We have so many new readers this month, that will help to give them a more balanced idea of what to expect from the Digest. Of course, I also might miraculously produce a second vignette today, in which case, #27 would be two vignettes and a couple of reprints. Hopefully, everyone will be cool with whichever way this goes. This month has been a disaster, but it was being sick the last two weeks that really screwed things up good and proper. At any rate, expect #27 on Thursday or Friday.

We had a good walk yesterday afternoon, about a mile there and back again. We walked to Videodrome and rented Olivier Dahan's La Vie en Rose (aka, La Môme), and now I see that it really is a beautiful, brilliant film. Marion Cotillard's performance is sublime, and the makeup artists were, indeed, deserving of that Oscar.

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, which include a copy of the Japanese edition of the Beowulf novelization. Thanks. And because Amazon, with their "bargain books" boondoggle, is still making it rather difficult to find some of the new editions of my novels, the ones I will be judged by the sales of, here are the links again:

Daughter of Hounds

Silk

Threshold

Low Red Moon

Right, platypus. First coffee, then email...

This interminable bug seems to have gone at last, but has left behind a persistent, wracking cough. The less I talk, the less I cough. But, I have always been prone to these coughs after illness, and Altoids help. Oh, and not only have they gone and changed the tins again, they've taken out the artificial flavouring and the glucose syrup, which are good changes (that have affected the flavour not at all). But, yeah, cough, cough. Oh, and I stink like Tiger Balm, because I'm learning it's not so much the fits as the damage I manage to do to myself during the fits. There was a smallish seizure night before last, and I pulled a muscle in my neck, which made yesterday all sorts of fun.

But, there is sun coming in the office window, and it looks like spring, even though another cold front is about to bring rain and freezing air down upon us.

Yesterday was maddening, workwise. Having finished the piece that is not called "Untitled 33," I sat here trying to find a second piece for Sirenia Digest #27. I thought and thought and thought, and prowled through books of Symbolist painting, and talked with Spooky, and looked at the most deviant internet porn I could find (I have become quite skilled at the latter), and all to no avail. Nothing would come, nothing that would make an erotic vignette and not a full-blown erotic short story (which I presently haven't the time to write). However, two things did occur to me:

1) My writing is giving future generations of feminist literary theorists loads of stuff to demonise. Even though I myself am a feminist, they will vilify it as blatantly misogynistic (though it's not), indicating some deep-seated insecurity and self-hatred on my part, probably arising from our society's persecution of lesbians and those who fall outside normative gender states. That I am a lesbian who falls outside normative gender states will matter not at all. They'll do it, anyway. The way Bram Dijkstra used Idols of Perversity to demonise the Pre-Raphaelites, for example. My erotica will be at the centre of this, because, you know, no self-respecting woman would ever write these things, no woman who respects other women. That I am a witch, they'll warp that around somehow, as well, perhaps citing my assertion that a Divine Androgyne must, logically, be as important to Wicca as the Goddess.

2) I got to thinking, wouldn't it be incredibly cool if I could offer Sirenia Digest subscribers multimedia content each month? I still have a lot of thinking to do on this one, but it may be a whole lot more feasible in the near future than it currently is. Basically, I would invite graphic artists, photographers, makers of short films, etc. the opportunity to showcase their material on the Sirenia Digest website, and to perhaps even adapt some of the vignettes into other media. For my part, though I am a writer, the best erotica is almost always visual, and it's a project I would love to work on. It would come to subscribers at no added charge.

So, yeah that was the productive part of yesterday. I will try again today to find a second vignette for #27. But I also have to call my agent, and that always seems to derail the day.

As for the Academy Awards last night, not a bad 80th Oscars, if you ask me. I actually got six of my wishes. And I was utterly delighted that "Best Supporting Actress" went to Tilda Swinton, who, last night, was even more ravishingly androgynous than usual. Though I still maintain that There Will Be Blood was the best American film of 2007, I am perfectly happy with No Country For Old Men, with seeing Cormac McCarthy at the Oscars, and seeing the Coens get Oscars #s 3, 4, and 5. I was surprised and very happy to see Best Art Direction go to Sweeney Todd and Best Visual Effects go to The Golden Compass. My only real regret is that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford received no award. I will say that the three songs we had to endure from Enchanted left me with no desire whatsoever to see the film. I loved the Gaultier worn by Marion Cotillard and the Georges Chakra worn by Helen Mirran, but my favourite dress was the Lanvin worn by Tilda Swinton. I think I'd give a "worst dressed" notice to Diablo Cody, who apparently thought it necessary to try to bolster her street cred as an ex-stripper by dressing like one. Anyway, yes, a wonderful Oscars ceremony.

Okay. Coffee, I am ready for you.

Okay, here are my hopefuls. These are not predictions, as I am notoriously bad at predicting who will win an Oscar. This is just a list of who I'd like to see win. And it's all behind the cut, for them what do not care:

( My Oscar picks, 2008 )

Generally speaking, when seen from space, the earth is a blue planet. Not a green planet. I was thinking this some indeterminable number of weeks ago, after a barrage of "green" television commercials — everything from "green" house cleansers to "green" automobiles to "green" oil companies. Whatever genuine meaning the word might have ever held for environmentalists, it has now been co-opted and lost to doublespeak and marketing/PR strategists. However, since this world is actually a blue world, and not a green world, the only damage that has been done is that a lot of gullible (if, perhaps, well meaning) people have been suckered into believing that they're doing good when they're only adding more crap to the landfills and more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Yesterday, I did 1,132 words on the story that will not be called "Untitled 33," and came rather unexpectedly upon the ending. It's a vignette, which was, after all, the original purpose of Sirenia Digest. I only partly suspected I'd found the ending, but then Spooky read it aloud, and she said, "That's the end." So, there you go. I went ahead and sent it to Vince Locke to be illustrated. Today, I will try to find a second vignette for #27. Oh, and I've had several people email or comment that they don't mind if the digest is a little late, to which I reply, thank you, it's a kind and generous and appreciated sentiment, but just because my brain has decided to start having these stupid little electrical storms, it doesn't mean I'm going to start slacking off.

Yesterday, sovay asked for photos of the Japanese edition of the Beowulf novelization, and I meant to take some photos, but never got around to it. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow. I'm thinking of adding one copy of the Japanese edition to the eBay auctions. Also, if you intend to pre-order the 3rd edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, which comes with the FREE Tails of Tales of Pain and Wonder chapbook, perhaps you should do so before much longer, as I am told it will likely sell out soon.

Spooky made a marvelous Indian dinner last night — a brown curry with potatoes, carrots, and beef, along with nan and samosas. Later, Byron came by for Torchwood, and afterwards we talked for a while. It was the first time we'd seen him in a couple of weeks.

I take it as some bit of evidence that I have begun to heal from the idiocies of 2005 that I'm actually interested in the Oscar telecast this year. I've always been sort of an Oscar nerd, then in 2006, I just didn't care. In 2007, I simply forgot to watch, which had never happened before. But this year, I'm actually somewhat excited. It probably helps that there are so many good movies nominated, and that I've seen a fair number of them. Anyway, later today I'll do my obligatory Oscar post, my list of who I think ought to win.

Well, the good news is that I've not perished of this blasted bug, and that I finally seem to have pretty much recovered, aside from a persistent cough. The bad news is that I've been trying to begin a new piece for Sirenia Digest #27 since Wednesday, and have yet to make any notable progress. And the month is fading. Quickly. I like to think that there is some alternative universe where people have learned to live without deadlines.

The day is grey and rainy. Cold. Spooky says it's like winter in Portland (OR). I wouldn't know, as I have never been there, and I assume she would know, as she lived there from September 1996 to October 1999. Regardless, it's a decidedly unpleasant sort of day out there.

Not having gotten much of anything written the last few days, there really isn't a whole lot in the way of news. Mostly, I've been reading the Osborn biography, watching movies and Season Three of Angel, and enjoying food I've been unable to chew the last few months. Tuesday night we watched both Tony Gilroy's Micheal Clayton and Ridley Scott's American Gangster. I liked both quite a lot, but while Michael Clayton demonstrates a wonderful sort of quiet, cold desperation (and has Tilda Swinton), I loved American Gangster more. Russell Crowe gets me almost every time. But yeah, not much else. I haven't really left the house since the evening of the 15th.

The eBay auctions continue. My thanks to everyone who has bid or who plans on bidding.

Today, of course, is the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Edward St. John Gorey.

Not really much to say, except that I am less sick than I was yesterday, though not quite well. UPS just tossed a box onto the front porch, and it turned out to be my copies of Tails of Tales of Pain and Wonder (the 56-page chapbook that comes free with Tales of Pain and Wonder). Bill Schafer at subpress has given me permission to auction one of these chapbooks, before the collection is released, and I likely will. Oh, there are also copies of the ARC of T