Spooky came back from the doctor yesterday having been diagnosed with an inner-ear infection. And since, for now, I cannot travel alone (the PNES seizures) and don't drive and have no valid photo ID (so no airplanes, anyway), I have had to cancel the appearance at Washington College this Friday and Saturday. I swear to fuck, there is a curse that hangs over my attempts at public appearances. When was the last time I even tried? Alabama Bound last April? And before that, the reading in Boston in August 2006? I've not managed to actually make a con or a reading or anything else of the sort since Fiddler's Green in November 2004 (Minneapolis), and it's beginning to feel like a bad joke. Kathryn has not been sick in ages, and out of the blue, this ear infection. Anyway, my apologies to anyone reading this who was planning to be at Washington College this weekend. I have been asked to reschedule (this autumn or next year), and have agreed to do so, and, with some luck and maybe a blood sacrifice, I'll make it to Chesterton sooner or later. I have some hope that by moving to Providence, I'll have more opportunities to make appearances that won't entail long trips that inevitably get canceled.

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More reading yesterday, in between all the stress about Washington College. Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo" and "A Descent into Egypt." Oh, and I love this quote from ST Joshi:

"...the weird tale...did not (and perhaps does not now) exist as a genre but as the consequence of a world view." (Joshi, 1990)

In the end, the one thing I can think of that unites pretty much everything I've written from 1994 up to now — the dark fantasy, the "gothnoir," the sf, the erotica, everything — is that it all derives from and reflects a world view that has changed only by small degrees. Oh, and there's another good quote from Machen:

"For literature, as I see it, is the art of describing the indescribable; the art of exhibiting symbols which may hint at ineffable mysteries behind them: the art of the veil, which reveals what it conceals." (Machen, 1931).

Certainly, I can think of no single sentence that so perfectly describes my own approach to the fantastic, and to writing, in general.

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Today, I need to proofread "Pickman's Other Model" for Sirenia Digest #28, and hopefully get a start on reading through the A is for Alien manuscript (just a quick read though, as Sonya [sovay] has kindly agreed to do the actual proofreading on the collection). Also, I need to read over "The Ape's Wife" again, so I can send a corrected version of the story to Steve Jones for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #19.

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Last night, I tried to get around my disappointment over the Washington College appearance by cooking a huge meal for Spooky, who felt too bad to do much of anything but lie on the sofa and moan and whimper. I made a corned beef brisket with cabbage and onions and carrots and boiled some potatoes. We skipped the Guinness, as, between her amoxicillin prescription and my anti-seizure meds, alcohol is out for now. Later, we watched still more Angel ("Shiny Happy People" and "The Magic Bullet"), and then I got into trouble in Second Life. That was yesterday.

Next verse...