I think this may be a Day of More Than One Entry. It feels that way.

A good Samhain and a good Halloween. But we had a lot less trick-or-treaters than last year, which was kind of annoying, as last year we had too many trick-or-treaters and almost not enough candy, so this year Spooky stocked up on the candy, and Hannah brought even more, and now we have a great surplus of confections that neither I nor Spooky can be trusted not to consume. Argh. Damned brats! Maybe we'll take it to over the Junkman's Daughter or A Capella Books. Those poor people need candy much worse than we. Which is to say (glancing at my belly), I need it not at all.

We spent much of the day decorating the porch and carving pumpkins and getting dressed and made up and other such endeavors as are appropriate to the day. I did the elf thing again. I think a definite character is beginning to emerge from my flirtations with elfinesss. At some point last night, a rather drunken woman, dressed as a "soccer mom" and ushering a herd of children about, made a show of trying to remember the name of the elf she thought I was supposed to be — "You know, from that movie." In her state, she could not recall The Lord of the Rings, much less the names of elves. Finally, I let her off the hook, because she was really becoming annoying, and said, "Arwen Evenstar." And she was delighted she'd guessed correctly, even though she hadn't technically guessed anything. Then I turned to Jim and said, "But I'm not Arwen Undómiel. I'm the bitch who took the one ring when Galadriel wouldn't. And there will be Wal-Marts in Gondor!" It was that sort of evening. Spooky had let her horns grow all week. She usually keeps them filed down to nubs. She tried to convince Jim and Hanah and Byron that she was only in "costume" as a demon of some sort, but we all know better.

After the trick-or-treaters died off to a trickle, we went inside for Vincent Price on TCM. What a glorious, campy mess is Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death (1964). Later, when our company had taken their leave, I ate leftover candy and watched The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), probably my favorite Vincent Price film ever, and the end of a Blue Man Group concert on Georgia Public Television. The latter would have been better had not some utterly horrid woman kept interrupting to ask for pledges. Someone out there needs to show these botox- and plastic-surgery addicted fiends a photograph of a Scarran and ask if the similarity is intentional. Oh, and there was some Samhainy stuff after that, and then bed, and I tried to read but fell asleep almost immediately.

Thanks to Christa (faustfatale) for pointing me towards Emerson LaSalle's wonderful, wonderful rant about Amazon.com "reviews" and "reviewers," which you can read here. I was especially pleased with his proposal for the model Amazon.com "review":

"Thanks. You worked hard to write a book. I'm impressed. I could never do that in a million years because I'm still trying to understand the difference between imply and infer."

Indeed.

So, anyway, as mentioned earlier, yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the first performance of Death's Little Sister. A whole damn decade. How frelled is that? It seems entirely impossible that so much time has passed and so much has transpired since that freezing night in Athens, Georgia. There were two other bands playing Galaxy 500 that evening, La Guano and Static Lounge, and I cannot remember even the first thing about either of them. I can't even recall the order in which we played. But I was somewhat drunk and sleep deprived and pretty sure we'd get booed offstage. We brought jack-o'-lanterns, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was projected onto the wall behind us while we played. Our asshole drummer tried to set the stage on fire (he skipped out on us right after the show and was never seen again). After we played, I got about an hour's sleep before driving to Atlanta and flying to Chicago for the '96 World Fantasy Convention. Those were the days. Anyway, here's a gothedy band photo to commemorate the date (behind the cut; the asshole drummer is not in the photo), courtesy Matthew C. Grasse (wherever you are):





Okay. Time to write. I'll post a few photos from last night sometime later today, because stsisyphus was promised pix of me with pointy ears. Meanwhile, any feedback re: Sirenia Digest 11 is, of course, welcomed. Oooh. My ears are still messy from the metamorphosis. Yuck.