"Nothing can kill a show like too much exposition..."

“Every man’s fantasy becomes his worst nightmare.”

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:39:48 GMT

As I mentioned, I’ve been trying out the Twitter thing, and shockingly, embarrassingly, even, I…really like it. So while I theoretically agree with everything ktempest has to say about the ephemeralness of the medium, I've been sucked in anyway, maybe because I associate with the sort of people that tend towards complete, witty sentences and constantly teeter near the 140-character maximum.

The thing is, though, I’m a lousy enough blogger that Twitter may be your best source for new content from me. Consequently, I'm going to resist my better judgment and copy said content over. So: under the cut, if you want it, is a quick recap of the past two weeks.

I'll confess that I fixed, like, two misspelled names, but everything else is exactly as posted.

Okay, I am officially jealous of all of you functional twitterers. And the 140 char limit may be a godsend for me. Hell, I'll give it a try. 05:57 PM July 02, 2008 from web

Blurb campaigns: not fun, exactly, but some kind of interesting. 06:51 PM July 02, 2008 from web

I'm going to try that crazy thing where I twitter from the laundromat. Currently waiting for the wash cycle to start so I can add more d ... ... 10:42 PM July 02, 2008 from txt

Laundry=semifail. Everything's clean, but I was guilted out of dryer time. My bedsheet is now drying on my balcony, weighed down by CMOS15. 01:03 AM July 03, 2008 from web

P.S. They really are serious about that char count! AKA, the last word of update 3 was "detergent," obviously. Well, you post; you learn. 01:19 AM July 03, 2008 from web

Okay, CMOS is FIRED; I am a MORON; bedsheet may be gone forever. Desperately hoping to find it in the vacant lot below when the sun rises. 01:55 AM July 03, 2008 from web

Woah: total false alarm, flat sheet just wrapped up in fitted. Sheesh. Drama over, time for soup/line editing/packing/sleep. 02:19 AM July 03, 2008 from web

On my way to the HRSFA House Party in DC with James. The Bolt bus does indeed have outlets, but my ipod touch doesn't like the wifi. Alas. 06:34 PM July 03, 2008 from txt

We are finally within city limits. Fortunately, that means I can probably eat at a restaurant instead of that small child two seats away. 10:12 PM July 03, 2008 from txt

Nearly asleep in College Park. About 35 people here so far. Tonight we were talking about custard, nanotechnology, albalone teeth. 04:00 AM July 04, 2008 from txt

I've been very lax about this. But apparently Dev is twittering song titles with the nouns replaced with "sheep," so perhaps you are lucky. 09:31 PM July 05, 2008 from txt

Watching the slideshow of our photo scavenger hunt. Someone just scored points off a picture of my bra. 10:07 PM July 05, 2008 from txt

Heading home. Today's fun: 2nd Wall-E viewing, 1KBWC. Not: James's trip to the ER, sitting in holiday traffic while cold, wet, and hungry. 09:10 PM July 06, 2008 from txt

Huh, look at that; I am on Readercon programming after all. 01:20 PM July 07, 2008 from web

That Grand Unifying Theory About Everything About People would come in real handy right about now. 02:47 PM July 07, 2008 from web

OMG, save for the part where he claims that MS "tastes bad": http://tinyurl.com/5n4h89. MS is awesome. I get mine at the KeyFood at 4th&A. 04:48 PM July 07, 2008 from web

Was going to work late(r), but I'm sort of down (post-HRSFA-ness?) and distracted. Maybe I should go home, take a nap, and THEN work more. 07:25 PM July 07, 2008 from web

Amazing what ice cream, rest, some well-timed e-mails, and homemade soup will do for one's outlook on life. 11:40 PM July 07, 2008 from web

@johnjosephadams Dude, did those damn Night Shade boys reallllly switch you from a cover with hot zombie chicks on it to one without? :) 11:44 PM July 07, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

Despite everything, I sort of resent Pixar for putting a Peter Gabriel song in my head. Going to try to chase it out with Kaitlin's mix CD. 12:44 AM July 08, 2008 from web

Trying on the proposed outfit for tomorrow night. I think my theme is "jungle tart." 03:45 AM July 08, 2008 from web

Getting sandwiches with Jim Frenkel and Ellen Datlow. 12:23 PM July 08, 2008 from txt

@johnjosephadams I just told him that very thing. You're not sneaky at all. 12:56 PM July 08, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

@johnjosephadams Only 19 hours on Twitter, and you're already a pervert. 01:43 PM July 08, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

Note to self: a watched e-mail inbox never boils. 03:11 PM July 08, 2008 from web

Off to the Explorers' Club. Exciting! 07:11 PM July 08, 2008 from web

Lovely party, which included actual conversations with Jonny Porkpie, GiGi La Femme, and Doc Wasabassco. Now we're hunting food on the UES. 09:45 PM July 08, 2008 from txt

@diminutivetiger I am sort of shocked you weren't there! It was very neat. I guess Charles A. has some kind of hook-up. Well, next time. 12:50 AM July 09, 2008 from web in reply to diminutivetiger

Heading workwards. Aww, apartment: New Roommate Sarah brought sunflowers and vonmeggz reset the Gel Gems in the bathroom. Also, veggies. 09:43 AM July 09, 2008 from txt

I really do not know what to do with the line "Fried milk may be all the rage these days, but..." (via http://tinyurl.com/693czz) 12:16 PM July 09, 2008 from web

Brought in a disc of old themed mixes so I could burn my Antifolk mix for Kaitlin. Listening to it while I check a CE. Still pretty awesome. 02:06 PM July 09, 2008 from web

This is one of those days where I really wish I didn't have kinda-three jobs. 06:53 PM July 09, 2008 from web

Replying to letters from ungrateful people who don't understand publishing is my favorite thing ever. 08:00 PM July 09, 2008 from web

@cmpriest Aww, I know. I don't even expect appreciation, just hate having to provide complicated justifications for everyday occurrences. 09:49 PM July 09, 2008 from web in reply to cmpriest

Copyedit checked, plane tix to Denver reserved, Amanda Palmer / Spiegeltent tix ordered. Now my tummy is grumbling and it's time to go home. 10:37 PM July 09, 2008 from web

Dinner: beet greens with turkey sausage plus mashed potatoes with snap peas, onions, and a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. And it's only 1:05! 01:05 AM July 10, 2008 from web

@johnjosephadams Hey, was the show at Irving Plaza? I saw a lot of metalheads in the area at 11:30ish and wondered if you were among them. 01:06 AM July 10, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

Jim is walking around the office with the Big Tuna. I am trying to get our launch sheets in order. 21 books this season! 11:50 AM July 10, 2008 from web

Just sent an e-mail that included the line "(I will gladly handle any and all interviews tor.com needs to do with robots.)" 01:55 PM July 10, 2008 from web

Jim's one-on-ones are over! It's finally time for lunch! 04:16 PM July 10, 2008 from web

Heading off to see Edward Albee's The Occupant at the Signature. Mmmm, sculpture. 06:24 PM July 10, 2008 from web

At Starwich--got confused abt curtain time so I'm an hour early. Funny how I only care that I left my cell at work now that I'm twittering. 07:25 PM July 10, 2008 from mobile web

Oh, Occupant: Mercedes Ruehl is lovely, Larry Bryggman is Larry Bryggman (that is, delightful), and I still find the show mostly tedious. 11:02 PM July 10, 2008 from txt

Is it a bad sign that I wrote myself a note on my hand during intermission and I already can no longer read it or remember what it says? 11:34 PM July 10, 2008 from web

Twitter! Losing my first 3 updates was one thing, but now you've reposted a txt 5hrs after I sent it and won't delete it. Are we in a fight? 09:34 AM July 11, 2008 from web

Friday is an excellent day for getting one's life in order. 12:24 PM July 11, 2008 from web

Envying friends’ hookups is not so conducive to work, but might be a vital part of staying sane when I'm still here at 7 on half-day Friday. ... 07:07 PM July 11, 2008 from web

@cmpriest Oh, jesus, honey. Give him my best. 09:25 PM July 11, 2008 from web in reply to cmpriest

Page 225/413. I am craving some chinese-food-style tofu so badly right now. 11:36 PM July 11, 2008 from web

Caved at 283 to go get some for Mexican food. I'm not liking my average rate here, but will finish tonight if it kills me. 01:15 AM July 12, 2008 from web

@tobiasbuckell True. The downside is that I'm totally dependent on city life and EXPECT to be able to find good food at all hours. 02:47 AM July 12, 2008 from web in reply to tobiasbuckell

Drat! Either food or nap was my undoing, and I'm just too tired for the last few pages. Gonna walk home and see how I feel once I'm there. 04:31 AM July 12, 2008 from web

Finally sent George his line edit--hopefully he'll take it as well as the editorial note. And now, back to my other steampunk book. :) 12:51 PM July 12, 2008 from web

Heading out to Prospect Park for OtherLizG (the DC Comics editor, not the writer)'s birthday picnic. 05:58 PM July 12, 2008 from web

@reluctantcad Wow! Perhaps they thought you were good breeding stock. 11:36 PM July 12, 2008 from web in reply to reluctantcad

Liz et al did suck me into playing Rock Band, but then their entire apartment lost its power. You see why this is not meant to be? 11:40 PM July 12, 2008 from web

It would really be helpful if I could stop being distracted by the itunes app store and go back to work reading instead. 03:16 AM July 13, 2008 from web

Just woke up from an action-movie dream. Now I'll never know if the lounge singer chasing me through the science museum managed to catch me. 11:46 AM July 13, 2008 from web

Dad's not feeling well, so I'm heading to Rockland for the night. The only thing I've eaten today is raw kohlrabi; not the best plan. 01:42 PM July 13, 2008 from txt

Watching an episode from the first season of SNL. Oddly unfunny, and Richard Pryor is hosting, so about 80% race jokes. Also, drunk muppets. 10:59 PM July 13, 2008 from txt

Once again the geek universe proves to be even smaller than I had previously imagined. Make that twice. You don't even want to know. 11:35 AM July 13, 2008 from web

@johnjosephadams Bug me at RCon--far too convoluted to explain over Twitter. Don't think it's anyone you know, but amusing nonetheless. 1:36 PM July 13, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

Smart enough to realize that it’s a terrible idea; crazy enough to want it anyway. I think that’s the motto these days. 1:49 PM July 13, 2008 from web

And now I'm pondering Bai Ling photo ops and documenting how to post things in Joomla. My job is increasingly unfathomable. 3:19 PM July 13, 2008 from web

@Annaleen Awesome post--reminds me of the argument that post-singularity SF is becoming a cheap way to avoid thinking abt today's problems. 3:27 PM July 13, 2008 from web in reply to Annaleen

I don't know what I would do if I had a job that made me feel weird about using the word "crazypants" in work-related communication. 5:08 PM July 13, 2008 from web

Just got email about an interview opp for a movie called Zombie Strippers (Tagline: “Every man’s fantasy becomes his worst nightmare”). 6:54 PM July 13, 2008 from web

And if that wasn’t good enough: my assistant Steven claims it’s an “adaptation” of Ionesco’s Rhinocéros. 6:54 PM July 13, 2008 from web

@johnjosephadams I think it's actually DVD-bound, but that's what movie nights are for. Fair warning that it might be softcore porn. 8:36 PM July 13, 2008 from web in reply to johnjosephadams

IreneGallo just took us out to dinner because she's a rock star. In less-good news, I'm suddenly terrified that I left my cell on the bus. 11:38 PM July 13, 2008 from web

If this is remotely of interest to any of you, I’ll try to send a summary once or twice a week. If it's not, you can feel free to spew a bunch of invective at me—or just avoid looking behind the cut.

Oh. I never do this, but since I was posting anyway, and we're all heading to Readercon in three days, I might as well clue you in on my programming schedule. I'm sort of surprised I even have a schedule, since until a week or two ago I was only in the reserve corps; and now I'm suddenly on four panels. I hold Readercon programming in immense esteem, and this all happened relatively quickly, so I’m going through an abbreviated version of my standard “Good lord, why did I think I had anything intelligent to say aboutthat?” cycle. But I’ve done this enough by now to know that I'll figure it out eventually, so I'm sure I'll calm down about it by the next time you see me. Anyway, the schedule:

Friday 3:00 PM, RI: Talk / Discussion (60 min.). Breaking Into the Ghetto. David Anthony Durham with discussion by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Liz Gorinsky, Louise Marley, Sandra McDonald, Michaela Roessner, _et al_. Durham's decision to move into fantasy after three successful historical novels shocked his editor, who saw a whole host of problems, concerns, hurtles, and uncertainty in the decision. But why is such a career move considered so risky? Is fantasy still somehow disreputable despite the huge commercial and reasonable critical success of Tolkien, Rowling, and others? And aren't readers smart enough to accept different things from writers? Durham takes a personal look at the topic and discusses the issues with other authors that have tried to (or would like to) cross genres.

Friday 5:00 PM, ME/ CT: Panel. Steampunk and Beyond: What Would a "Gibson Chair" Look Like? Holly Black, Paul Di Filippo, Liz Gorinsky, Mary Robinette Kowal (L), Sarah Micklem. Steampunk, originally just an sf subgenre, is now also a burgeoning underground design movement. There's precedent for this: modernism was not only a literary movement, but had artistic, musical, architectural, and design wings as well. Is the steampunk design movement an essentially fluky outgrowth of our fascination with all things retro? Or could other f&sf subgenres sprout their own design branches as well? Could the creation of actual, useful, physical objects lead to better-imagined literary art? How close is the relationship between the visually striking artifacts of steampunk and the literature that spawned them, anyway?

Friday 6:00 PM, ME/ CT: Discussion (60 min.). Interstial Arts. Ellen Kushner (L) with R. Scott Bakker, Lucy Corin, Liz Gorinsky, Theodora Goss, Judith Moffett, Delia Sherman, Sarah Smith, Nancy Werlin, _et al_. The Interstitial Arts Foundation is a group of "Artists Without Borders" fighting the Balkanization of art. They celebrate work that crosses or straddles the borders between media, the borders between genres, the borders between "high art" and popular culture. They are not opposed to mainstream fiction or genre fiction, nor are they seeking to create a new category. They are just particularly excited by border-crossing fiction (and music and art), and want to support the creation of such works and to establish better ways of engaging with them. The IAF has had a presence at Readercon from its beginning, and last year Small Beer Press published _Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstial Writing_, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss. Interstitial Arts is an idea, a conversation, not a hard-and-fast definition--and it's a conversation you are invited to join.

Sunday 12:00 Noon, RI: Panel. Podcasts of Mars. Jim Freund (L), Liz Gorinsky, James Patrick Kelly, Mary Robinette Kowal, Cat Rambo. Podcasts like _Escape Pod_ and _Free Reads_ from James Patrick Kelly are presenting audio discussions, short stories, and even entire books in a free portable format. We'll take a critical survey of what's out there and discuss the future of this new medium. Is it possible to model the podcast on the science fiction convention, which also includes discussions and readings? Could new technological approaches allow the podcast to go places that earthbound discussions can't?

I'll be sharing my room with Brian Slattery, who—totally unrelated to how much I adore his fiction—is one of my favorite people in the world. He's also a pretty rare presence at conventions (or even on the internet), so please do let me introduce you if you happen to run across us.

I sincerely hope that this won't be the most egregious set of recycled content you’ll see all day, and look forward to seeing a bunch of you in Burlington.

Experiments in Brevity, Part 2

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:45:03 GMT

Okay, so that last outing was obviously a failure. Perhaps this one will fare a bit better, though I have no intention of keeping up that level of activity—does everyone get that punch drunk when they start up a Twitter account? I’m spending the holiday weekend in Washington, DC/College Park, MD with current and former members of HRSFA (I’m not one, but I mooned around Vericon so much during college that Tom eventually took pity on me), which should be a good test case.

By the way: they asked me for some bio information for a brief talk I’ll be doing at Clarion Prime when I’m out in San Diego for CCI, so I cleaned up the relevant sections of my public wiki (which will theoretically also be incorporated into my new web page, whenever the heck that happens) and gathered them into this page here. Probably of most interest is my travel schedule—which puts me at Readercon, SDCC, and WorldCon in the space of four weeks; I’m not stressed out about that at all—but there is also some information about the sorts of submissions I’d be most excited about seeing. They tell me it is professionally inadvisable to post such things publicly, but I’m afraid I just cannot see the harm in it.

“I am not one of those women who can stand things.”

Sun, 11 May 2008 08:22:38 GMT

Alright, I suck. We’re going back in time a week.

The first time they ran Free Comic Book Day I was in college, with enough idle geeks in my environs that I could justify organizing a trip to all of Manhattan’s major comic book stores. This hasn't been feasible for awhile, and this time the comics wound up being incidental to the mission of flyering for MoCCA (I picked up a bagful, of course, but this was at Forbidden Planet, where they were dispensing mostly superhero comics that I didn’t much care about—which ought to teach me to go straight to Rocketship next year). We got rid of all of our fliers before too long, netting some positive responses from anyone who actually looked at them, and then I headed uptown for a home-cooked CUSFS banquet. Going back to college? Still weird.

Sunday was a theatre day with the parents that wound up encompassing both the dregs and the heights of the New York theatre scene. Our matinee was The New Century, the last show in our Lincoln Center Theater subscription. I disliked it enough that I’m pretty sure it’s knocked something else off my list of the ten worst shows I've ever seen, and we’re probably talking over 600 of ‘em by now. Granted, plenty of the audience3and a lot of reviewers, but New York theatre reviewers are hopeless—seemed to be enjoying themselves, but that almost made it worse: jokes about broad gay stereotypes are bad enough when they're aimed at audiences that will understand that they're jokes, but are vaguely creepy when most of the people watching are straight old people from New Jersey. Probably the show's only redeeming quality was Jane Houdyshell, who can't help but inject some humanity into whatever she's in.

But the day was a net gain thanks to The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928), an Elevator Repair Service show at the New York Theatre Workshop that’s grounded in a word-for-word enactment of the first part of The Sound and the Fury. It is a living example of theatre’s transformative powers that a direct literary adaptation could yield something so beautifully done and weird and funny and involving, one of those shows that teaches you how to watch it as you go. I immediately wanted to see it again, but this is why theatre both gives and takes in its ephemerality: given a fast-approaching close date and the droves of people lining up to get on the wait list, I pretty much had to give up that idea as impossible. But then they extended the show for a week and I was able to grab four more tickets for the final performance: bless you, NYTW and your $20 Sundays. If you're at all able, you should try to snag one, too.

I can't remember anything about what I did on Monday, and there is nothing in my schedule wiki, which is kind of discomfiting. Did I see you? Was I there? But on Tuesday there was NYRSF, where I heard Kelly read her glorious story "The Cinderella Game" for the third time. And dinner gave us the opportunity to have a long talk for the first time in awhile, a secret cabal of quiet-voiced people talking under the crowd.

On Wednesday we had the volunteer orientation for the MoCCA Art Festival. It was reasonably well-attended by interested-seeming people; the only downside being that that meeting marks the point where, whenever I am doing non-MoCCA-related things with my free time (like, oh, writing this entry), I am kind of shirking and should kind of be stopped. After we finished, I rushed home to eat a sandwich and meet a prospective new roommate, who...did not show up. He is automatically less awesome than ecmyers.

A digression: Back in ‘04, my dearest darling Shay got me into the habit of attending the annual screening of Oscar-nominated shorts that the Academy puts on each year at Lighthouse International. I eventually sucked fullcopy into the habit; but we missed it this year, out of strike-related timing confusion, and me with theatre tickets, and him with bridge. Eventually he convinced julianyap that we should just buy all of them on iTunes and do a home screening. On Thursday we actually went through with this plan, and though it was a long night, and I disagreed with the winners (as usual), it was probably the strongest overall slate I’ve seen so far. glvalentine, have you seen "Tanghi Argentini"? It is darling.

On Friday, musetoself, ladyaviva, and I ate some empanadas (the new cupcake!) and then saw Crooked at the Women's Project. It was impeccably acted, frequently hysterical, sometimes brutal, and— though I kind of felt like I'd been slapped when it ended—I basically loved it and can't stop thinking about it. There is only one performance left, but if you're not doing anything on Sunday afternoon, there are many worse things you could do than show up at the Julia Miles at 2:00 and try to rush it.

After the play, I bought some cookies and brought them to Matt's party, where I felt vaguely entertaining for awhile, totally awkward for about twice that long (repeating “this is why people drink” in my head the whole time), and then gave up and went home in a fit of social retardation. Sigh. Unrelatedly: friends my age getting engaged? Still weird.

When I started this entry on Saturday morning, it was supposed to end that afternoon with some statement about what a relief it was to have a completely unscheduled day, especially given how full my Sunday was going to be. This plan was spoiled by the fact that I had been shockingly moronic and had listed the two plays on the wrong day in my schedule, a mistake that was—comically? tragically?—perpetuated by an e-mail from my mother that said "We'll see you at 1:30 at Sunday" (she meant in the Park with George, of course, though she did not actually say that last part). I misread this note as a confirmation that both shows were on Sunday, and didn’t think enough about how improbable that was until my parents showed up at my apartment, half-convinced that I was dead, to ask why I had failed to show up. Eeep. Don't let anyone ever tell you that too much theatre doesn't lead to a life of ruin! Anyway, I have the unused ticket, and I’ve managed once before to recover from gross flakiness by convincing the box office to let me transfer an unused ticket to a future performance (feminine wiles? No, I have none of those—probably sheer patheticness), so perhaps all is not lost.

Luckily, I hadn't imperiled our plans for The 39 Steps. I'm having a hard time judging this one: I thought the performances were great; the stagecraft was brilliant; that the show is charming and clever, delivers everything it promises, and is doing something genuinely new; and I’d gladly recommend it most anyone. And yet, there's a tiny part of me—the part that hates uncomplicated fun—that feels a little bit dirty about the whole operation, like I’d bought into something I oughtn’t. I suspect I may be dragging unrelated emotions into the equation, but it’s hard to tell from here. Ask again later, I guess.

And that’s it for the past. I am hyperaware that by conflating too many subjects people are less likely to read or respond to any of them, but perhaps you will humor me this time around. Yes? No?

"He'll be both a thug and a grammarian. He will be the WWE character I always wanted to be."

Sat, 03 May 2008 22:53:56 GMT

[Argh. I'm falling behind on entries and comments, cannot keep to a sentence limit, and am increasingly unsure why anyone would actually want to read what is basically "what I did today" reportage. Is this whole experiment worth it? I am dubious!]

Thursday: I've become more and more of a This American Life groupie since I've started walking to work and back in the company of podcasts, so I was very excited when they announced a live launch of the second season of the TV show, and crushed when the tickets sold out instantaneously and they started going for astronomical rates on Craigslist. Consequently, I am absurdly grateful to the nice guy who posted on Thursday morning offering up four tickets at face value (he later asked if he could take one back, and Irene and Greg took the other two). The event was amazing—funnily awkward live transitions, compelling previews from upcoming episodes of the TV show, hysterical outtakes from previous ones, and all— and suffused me with adoration from the second it started through to the very end. Why, yes, I am swoony for Ira Glass.

The event was in the Skirball Center, throwing distance from the Dessert Truck, which has fiendishly keyed into the obsessive unique-experience-collector side of my being with its get-it-while-it's-here weekly special. But they were out of the special by the time the show let out (fie!), so I fought with myself, then caved and tried the chocolate peanut butter thing instead. Alas, the milk chocolate mousse was sort of wishy-washy, the only menu item I’ve tried so far that's been a misfire. Perhaps it’s only disappointing in light of the absurdly high standards set by the rest of their options, but it still seems like some kind of a lesson in delayed gratification.

Friday: I'd planned to make it a relatively short night with an early show, the Dufus CD release at Cake Shop. But then there was a run of really weird offerings on my theatre comp service (Manicurist to Millionaires? Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z?), capped off by the chance to see Al Gore at Radio City Music Hall. I debated for about three seconds before deciding to both. That course of action seems to have been given the universe's tacit approval by the fact that Toby Goodshank—solo musician, Moldy Peach, half of Double Deuce, scheduled to play at the Dufus show that very night—apparently works for my theatre comp service, and was there when I went to pick up. Okay, I get it already: New York is tiny. Anyway, the show was on Cake Shop's new upstairs mini-stage, which I approve of, because what’s better than sitting on the floor of a bar with a PB&J bagel and coffee and getting pretty songs sung to you? And, yes, America's sweetheart was there, too.

I had to leave partway through Seth's set, but can't regret it too much: the Al Gore talk was even better than I expected (and I have no idea what I was expecting), funny, charming (really!), and humble to start, then alternately depressing and terrifying for the next hour or so. At the end, there was a note of optimism about the resourcefulness of the American people that didn't quite ring true to me—I'm not ready to give up yet, but most of the hope I manage to retain is couched in cynicism (see also: Part V of this Thomas Friedman article, or the first section of the Slate Cultural Gabfest on personal virtue)—but I don’t think you can blame him for offering some consoling measure. The moderated discussion after his talk was also great, bringing up a lot of the questions on everyone's mind but letting Gore duck them in amusing ways. I’m still working out what lessons I’ve formed from the experience, but I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to see the catalyst.

And now I really should start my journey to the CUSFS banquet.

08-05-04 @ 02:44: Edited for suckage.

"I'd say that they were all great dancers, and lord knows I love to dance"

Fri, 02 May 2008 04:04:25 GMT

[...momentarily harboring the delusion that posting before midnight is like posting yesterday...]

Wednesday: I darted off after work to an organizational meeting for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's MoCCA Art Festival, for which I'll once again be coordinating volunteers, and for which I've got two pressing appointments: on Saturday I'll be flyering and talking up the festival in front of one of the shops participating in Free Comic Book Day (where are you getting yours?), and our volunteer recruitment meeting will be next Wednesday.

There were two neat concerts I was considering for after the meeting, but the sold-out Langhorne Slim show at the Mercury Lounge seemed to actually be sold out (though I was told I'd have a good shot at it if I stopped back just before eleven); so I tried the Emilyn Brodsky show at Lit Lounge and found it strangely…non-existent—by which I mean that Emilyn was there, but she wasn't playing a show yet, and I'm not really one to stand around in an empty bar until an event coalesces around me.

So I trudged home, worked for awhile, made a last-minute decision at 10:50 that I'm happier at rock shows than not, and headed out again. The Langhorne show was great, but deeply weird: the second or third time I saw him, he wound up having the last set of a long, late show, so it was probably after 1:00 by the time he started, and there were maybe twenty people left; but by the end of it, he and the band and every damn person in the room were dancing, and it stands as one of my favorite concert memories ever. And now he's gone the way of so many of my favorite antifolkers, and is getting Famous, and is selling out shows to rooms full of screaming girls; and I really don't think that that process ever stops being strange.

"cuz new york is a certain kind of sickness"

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:11:44 GMT

The weird thing about seven-hour meetings (well, almost seven: I took a short break in the middle to do some publishing-rather-than-web-related stuff) is that you can go to work all day and barely feel like you've been there at all. Nonetheless, when kristin_wins, gl0ry_gl0ry, and some other ladies from the office caught me right afterwards and told me they were going downtown for free ice cream, it was basically impossible to refuse. I will probably regret this tomorrow, but hopefully I'll be too busy going INSANE.

"What?! You agree with WHAT?"

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:48:03 GMT

[You know I suck at the LJ thing (or maybe the waking up thing) when I can write a three-sentence entry, get too exhausted to proofread it and post it before I go to bed, and run out of time to do it in the morning. So, despite appearances, this is actually YESTERDAY'S ENTRY. Today's entry will appear, well, later today. Maybe even before midnight, if I'm really good.]

Monday! A relatively productive day at work, after which I went home and made wasabi grilled tuna and Japanese eggplant with miso in an attempt to dispense with some ingredients I'd bought for my dinner party but didn't wind up using. I was a bit underwhelmed by the tuna (though, to be fair, I might have cooked it for too long—I'm still mastering grill-to-broiler conversion times), but the eggplant, while a bit odd at first, really grew on me: not a bad effort, on the whole. The crucial question now is how much conscious time I have left to read this awesome manuscript before my eyes start closing on me.

"Hamlet 2? Doesn’t everybody die at the end of the first one?"

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:19:10 GMT

I gave today [er, yesterday—my internet issues are apparently more pervasive than I had hoped] over to food and friends, starting with brunch in Greenpoint with lowellboyslash et al, then frantic preparation for a dinner party I was throwing in the evening, a joke housewarming for my friend James. This may strike you as odd if you recall that musetoself, ecmyers, and I moved into our apartment in Alphabet City in September 2006. But we never got around to having a housewarming party due to the insanity surrounding our walls, and James has insisted on calling the place "new" until we did, so I figured the best way to make him stop was to hold a small dinner party for him, the roommates, their SOs, and julianyap. A trio of Japanese-esque dishes later and I think we can safely call our apartment warmed, with the added benefit of giving us our first chance to try out the living-room-plus-dining-table layout. The lack of a dinner party venue has been the biggest gap in my social puzzle, and—because I am secretly an old-fashioned housewife—I am absurdly excited about finally having the means to fill it.

[Edited 08-04-28 to fix our move-in date.]

"The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack."

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:21:13 GMT

Today was a theatre day, consisting of Antony and Cleopatra at Theatre for New Audience and Ty Jones' Emancipation at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, two companies that we love dearly and have subscribed to for years. Unfortunately, despite the heaps of strong reviews, I wasn't in love with either, for similar reasons: the productions were thoughtful, attractively designed, elegantly acted, intellectually appealing, and politically striking,
but I couldn't connect with either of them emotionally. In cases like this I'm prone to wondering if it was just me—was I distracted? was I in the mood for lighter fare?—but I don't think so: a college Shakespeare prof of mine who was at TFANA for the talkback concurred that A&C "acted very well, right past each other"; and Emancipation was oddly bloodless given the subject matter (the trial of Nat Turner after his slave rebellion) and the the gloriously engaging work I've seen come out of CTH director Chris McElroen in the past. Still: one could do much worse.

"nuns with guns and chicks with sticks"

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:28:55 GMT

[I swear I wrote this last night, but my internet connection was hiding when I tried to post it, so I just went to bed. Belatedly:]

For the record, I am not at all impressed by how much I've been whining to you this past week, but it does appeal to my sense of perversity that the week I start blogging every day would coincide with one of my toughest weeks at work in recent memory. Today was a perfect storm of madcap delights, including acquisition-related hijinks, Tor's longest meeting of the season (launching our winter '09 list), frantic preparation for said meeting, coming back after it to find that my systems department had forcibly disconnected my computer from the network but would not tell me why, and then one last four-hour tor.com meeting before we left. I came home kind of miserable, but a long talk with musetoself improved my mood a lot (nothing puts things into perspective like the democratic primaries and environmental and economic despair); and now I'll get a good night's sleep and everything will be lovely tomorrow.

"Back to your sunless groove!"

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:08:08 GMT

The New York public schools were off this week, so my parents and I took advantage of my dad's vacation, went out for dinner and a show, and met with smashing success on both fronts. We hit up Mamoun's for dinner because it was a lovely day and we wanted something we could take to the park, but we had enough time afterwards that I convinced them that a Dessert Truck run was in order; and, lo, my second visit and I am officially a groupie, and not at all sure how I ever lived without rosemary caramel. Then we saw Adding Machine (A Musical), which is as good and dark and odd as everyone says: full of gorgeous, visceral performances; graced with one of the strangest, most dissonant, most operatic scores I've ever heard; unexpectedly SFnal; and every moment of it difficult to watch in the best possible way--certainly not for everyone, but emphatically for me.

"There’s no need to panic, but you certainly shouldn’t relax."

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:58:53 GMT

I went home today after working late, which makes three days in a row that I've not had anything scheduled after work, my longest stretch of unplanned weekdays in recent memory. This has reminded me why I tend to schedule myself so compulsively: because I'm terrible at leaving places if I don't have anywhere else I need to be. The combination of late nights, having lost my weekend to a con, and three consecutive 10 a.m. brainstorming meetings seems to have left my brain ill-equipped for anything else, so I'm glad that tomorrow looks like a day to break patterns.

"typ[ing] oneself into being"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:58:03 GMT

Another late day at the office today, largely catching up on the work I wasn't doing during the five hours of meetings we had about community features for the new site. This is actually fascinating stuff, so I don't mind discussing it ad infinitum, but the work I missed during those meetings never exactly goes away. Consequently, my evening was spent writing e-mails, filing expense reports, mailing books, and going over an author's response to his electronic line edit--for publishing is as glamorous as ever it was.

"...written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:27:51 GMT

[It has not escaped my attention that in just a few short weeks I will be expected to fulfill some sort of regular blogging commitment over at tor.com. Last I checked, um, eighty-seven weeks ago, I was an atrocious blogger. I talked about this with Brian Slattery over brunch before his panel at New York Comic Con, and our consensus was that we were both ill-suited for blogging because the journalistic urge is in some ways the antithesis of the editorial urge: while a good blogger must be generative in the face of time constraints and fallowness, an editor is charged with making sure a piece of writing has the exact ingredients it needs to make its case, excising pointless additives and making sure none of the essentials are left out. And it is on these exact standards that I flounder, far too paranoid that I will bore my audience or, worse yet, leave out the precise detail that would win you over to my side.

But this is a balance I will have to figure out, and I'd much rather do it here than there. I think the best way to train myself is to start off in a sprint, trying my damnedest to post one small thing every day. To stave off my descent into the tragic verbosity that is inevitably my downfall, I'm limiting myself to no more than three sentences a day. I am allowing em-dashes, semicolons, links, parentheticals, ellipses, and maybe some artful run-ons, so they may be long sentences (I'm only human!). But I trust that you'll all chastise me appropriately if I stray from my basic goal?

Obviously, this bracketed section is included for administrative purposes only and does not count. Heh. Here we go for real:]

I remarked to thumbelinablues this morning that last Wednesday's KGB felt like it was weeks ago, presumably due to the massive time distortion field generated by NYCC, at which, within the space of about twenty-four hours, I moderated my second comics panel; took an anthropological stroll with one of my favorite writers; gave out several gazillion buttons featuring our rocketship mascot Stubby; acquired several hopeless crushes; attended two panels; ate sushi with an elite cadre of illustrators; had conversations with dozens of creators and publishers who have naught to do with SF, networking wildly in support of my new comics acquisition gig; made myself go to the afterparty by myself and stay there until I'd had a conversation with a stranger; and finally started to feel like my comics cred is slightly less of a sham than I sometimes fear. I also reproduced the absurd trajectory that seems to be my standard MO at conventions dominated by rows of tables, spending the first two days thinking I have all the time in the world, then suddenly realizing that I've actually got two hours left and 80% of the floor to cover, and consequently seeing a depressingly small subsection of the exciting new things everyone had on hand: in fact, the only things I managed to buy were A Journey to the End of Taste (so far, it's like a direct transcription of my internal conflict with mainstream culture, except several times cleverer) and the first two issues of Comic Foundry—which were both, now that I think about it, directly or indirectly Douglas' fault. It was excellent and exhilarating and exhausting, and has invoked the standard post-con bittersweetness at having to go back to my regular life, which currently consists of grapes, carrots, and peanut butter for dinner and a forced march to stay in the office until I've finished just a few more things and set this entry free.

“The party jolted into focus.”

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:33:28 GMT

Oh dear. I’m doing that thing again where I got so busy planning an event that I failed to leave time to actually tell people about it. Luckily, word has gotten around enough that most of you probably already know about it... but you still gotta post about it on LJ, right? Right.

For those of you who aren’t up to speed: last year I edited Jeff VanderMeer's most recent opus Shriek: An Afterword, which I’d think was brilliant even if I hadn’t worked on it. Jeff’s a mega-ambitious and very creative self-promoter, so when he realized that he wouldn’t be in the US for the release of his own book, he decided to commission a short film based on plot elements from the book in order to get people excited about it in his absence. Then he hit on the idea of getting people all over the country—the world, even—to throw parties in their cities to promote the film and get the word out about the book’s release. Although one of Jeff’s New York friends is throwing a private party, I figured that NYC—being the greatest city in the world, and all—needed a really big party. And since I’m a giant dork who loves planning events, I figured I should give it one.

We’re calling it “FROM UNDERGROUND: A night of strange and varied entertainments centered around Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘Shriek: The Movie’,” and with that pretentious title comes an even more pretentious event listing:

In honor of the release of Jeff VanderMeer's groundbreaking, mind-bending novel Shriek: An Afterword... a multidisciplinary event centered around the Brooklyn debut of “Shriek: The Movie,” a short film based on the novel of the same name, directed by Juha Lindroos and with an original soundtrack by legendary art-rock band The Church. Before and after the screening, a full slate of fantastical acts including readings by Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Kushner, and Scott Westerfeld; burlesque by Jo Boobs and Bambi the Mermaid; rap by Schäffer The Darklord; and visual art by Hawk Alfredson. MCed by ¡Jeff! the Clown, with interstitial music by Nick Lesley. August 20, 2006, 7-11 p.m. at Galapagos Art Space [70 North 6th Street between Kent and Wythe, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718 782-5188). Subway: L to Bedford Ave.]. $7.

(More info here.)

As I said when I spammed my friends about it: “If making me smile isn't justification enough, I could also take the guilt approach, which (depending on who you are) goes something like "Hey, guys, it's the first event I’ve planned at a bar in Brooklyn, so please show up so I don't look like a dumbass," or, "Hey, guys, a major art space is letting me do an event centered around science fiction and fantasy, so please show up so we can prove there's an audience for this sort of thing." I think it’s gonna be swell, and I hope you can make it.

And in order to justify not putting this under some kind of friends lock, here are some other contributors to the absurd busy-ness that’s been consuming me lately:

Work is, well, awesome (duh). And while I’m gloating, I may as well mention that both of my books this summer (the other being Dave Duncan’s tremendously fun Children of Chaos) got starred PW reviews. And Shriek is the first Tor book ever to get a Believer review (the secret hipster part of me is thrilled). And I’m walking around with the manuscript of Not Flesh Nor Feathers in my bag. So all in all I’m pretty darn self-satisfied, I’ll tell you what.
Seattle was grand. I only had two-and-a-half days to play around after PNWA , but I think I made a pretty good showing of it, thanks in part to some suggestions from you lovely folks: a brief jaunt to the university district, the Bastille Day Celebration at the Seattle Center, ”Game On” at PacSci, Fêtes de la Nuit (a Charles Mee play) at Re-Bar, the Pike Place Market, Archie McPhee, the underground tour, the Central branch of the Seattle Public Library, the Elliott Bay Book Company (and lunch there with Vlad Verano, who is awesome), Ellen Datlow’s Clarion West Q&A with Eileen Gunn, and quality time with captaincrax0rz, cmpriest, and moriarty6 at Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito Kitchen and Espresso Vivace Roasteria. And. Um. I think that’s it.
Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted when I got home, and promptly exclaimed that I was done traveling for the summer; for as much as I would have liked to be at WorldCon, I like my sanity better, and I’m also don’t like being completely broke. Then pnh realized that Tor needed someone other than senior staff there to run the Tor party, so I’m going after all. But I am not—I repeat, not—there to have fun, so don’t go trying to suck me into any, okay?
And, finally, lest you think it’s all smooth sailing, this month we got evicted, or, at least, were denied the opportunity to re-sign the lease on our dearly beloved apartment in Williamsburg/Greenpoint. It took us nearly a third of the month to find out that what was happening and decipher the mixed messages we were getting from our landlady (who, while we’ve been living there, has gone from sweet and accomodating, to a little bit crazy, to actually crazy and kind of conniving to boot). And if you think looking for an apartment in NYC is fun, try starting your search a week-and-a-half into the month. Luckily, after about five days of hellish, non-stop searching, ecmyers and musetoself and I happened onto a place that we think will be absurdly fabulous. I’m not going to jinx it by talking about it before we’ve moved in, so for now I’ll just say that we’ve somehow preformed the rare feat of getting priced out of Brooklyn and into the East Village. Also, that thing I said about not liking being completely broke? I’m going to need to get over that in a hurry.
Okay, wait, un-finally, because I must add that Pinchbottom’s superhero burlesque was every bit as fabulous as it sounded. Maybe about 3% less perfect than their sci-fi burlesque, but I spent so much of the show laughing until I was crying that you could have fooled me. Megan was entirely when she said I need a shirt that says “My Heart Belongs To Nasty,” but, then again, don’t we all?

Okay... must frantically print out some raffle tickets for the Shriek thing, bring home some party supplies, and then head out to Rubulad with modernache. It’s been real.

“Be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything!”

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 01:04:17 GMT

Another drive-by, for another audience request. Some of you know that I'm going to ReaderCon this coming weekend, which I'm enormously psyched about. What I'm not is particularly ready. Like, I've got a membership (two, actually—damn you, PayPal); and I've got a room; and I know that rambleman is flying into NYC on Thursday afternoon and we’ll be making our way to MA at some point in the next 24-36 hours. Unfortunately, a bunch of the truly useful details are still fuzzy. So I'm going to throw myself to the mercy of the LJ community and ask a pitiful question: since both of us work in publishing and are consequently nigh-broke, is anyone out there interested in reducing costs by joining our room or folding us up into theirs? Also, if—and this is a big “if” at this point—we wound up renting a car for the trip, would anyone be interested in driving with us and helping out with gas bills? I'd mildly prefer people I know (or people who people I know can vouch for), but it’s far too late to be picky at this point. And since we’d need to cancel with the hotel a day or two beforehand, this is obviously a limited-time offer.

Also urgently: suppose I were to do something crazy like organize a Pirates 2 trip on Friday or Sunday afternoon (pirate garb optional but highly recommended). Could any of you be convinced to join me for that? Of course, the alternative is waiting to see it with my awesome Fed friends—who will dress up as pirates—the following Monday or Tuesday, so you’ll have to make a pretty compelling case that it’s worth my effort.

Aside from how absurdly not on top of ReaderCon logistics I am, things are pretty damn good. I feel especially spoiled right now, since the Divine Miss Shay has been bunking up with me for the past week or so. We saw DeVotchka, Seu Jorge, Macbeth (via Shakespeare in the Park), and Orlando Bloom (and Kate Bosworth) fangirling the History Boys; ate Korean, Filipio, Malaysian, mac ‘n’ cheese, Shake Shack shroom burgers, Magnolia baked goods, and wasabi ice cream (OMG so good); cooked brunch and Lebanese eggplant; and, y’know, hung out. I can’t really make myself believe that she’s going away again in mere hours, but at least I can counterbalance that with the delusion that she’ll be back soon, and possibly for a good long while.

In the mostly-too-late-to-be-of-any-use category of theatre reviews, at some point during Shay’s visit I skipped out to see The Busy World Is Hushed, which will be at Playwrights Horizons until July 9th. Keith Bunin is not yet a perfect playwright, but it's almost scary how quickly he's progressing. I'm only a little bit sheepish about admitting that I hit the curtain call crying, but I think it was defensible. For perspective: the last time I cried in the theatre was probably for Albee's The Goat; before that, for Hedwig and the Angry Inch (nope, I’m not a sucker for LGBT themes at all). In the actually-too-late-to-be-of-any-use category is the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Waiting for Godot, which was somehow, stunningly, recast into post-Katrina New Orleans without being obnoxious about it at all. I am almost as notorious for my of dislike of Samuel Beckett as I am for my dismissiveness of Stephen Sondheim, so it is no small feat (even for the continually impressive HCT) to have pulled off a Beckett adaptation so breathtaking that even a rube like myself could appreciate it.

I’d ramble on, and maybe proofread this a few more times, but I have a Harry and the Potters show to run to. Here’s hoping I like the band more than the books.

Oh yeah... I’ll be in Seattle next weekend for PNWA (plus a few days lax), so now might be the time to tell me what other awesome things I should be doing while I’m there.

ETA: Damnit all, Harry and the Potters was sold out. Well, next time, I hope...

"Was there anyone left in New York who wasn’t a cartoonist?"

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:31:01 GMT

Hiya, LiveJournal.

No, wait, don’t get too excited. This isn’t a real entry either. I’m once again doing that boorish thing where I skip in, mutter to you about some event you should attend, and waltz right out again; without bothering to properly acknowledge a single one of you.

But this one’s worth it. I promise.

I’m here to urge anyone with the remotest proximity to New York to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s fifth annual MoCCA Art Festival, which is. Um. Tomorrow. Any remotely sensate comic book fan would be insane to skip this opportunity to rub shoulders with the usual combination of the Big Name Artists, the ones I’m personally desperately enamored with, and the ones I bet I would be if I simply were simply cooler or smarter or better-read. Like:

Gahan Wilson • Adrian Tomine • Sam Brown • Evan Dorkin •Charles Burns • Ryan "Dinosaur Comics" North • Sara Varon • Elizabeth Genco • Leland Purvis • Dame Darcy • Kim Deitch • Denis Kitchen • Raina Telgemeier • Alex Robinson • Ariel Schrag • Brian Wood • oh.my.god.so.many.more.
Did you see how I cleverly managed not to embarrass myself by telling you which name goes in which category?
So, yeah:
The 2006 MoCCA Art Festival
June 10-11, 2006, 11:00am - 6:00pm
@ The Puck Building, 293 Lafayette at Houston, New York City
$8 per day or $10 for a weekend pass
(MAF admission also gets you free admission to the museum itself, which is currently showing a glorious exhibit entitled She Draws Comics: 100 Years of America's Women Cartoonists.)

And what exactly is my agenda in this whole thing? Well, months ago, in my "I love you, MoCCA, but I cannot possibly!" phase, I agreed to coordinate the volunteer after-party; wandered off for a few months; attended another planning meeting (in my defense, it was the week between World Horror and WisCon, so I was probably slightly addled at the time); and somehow found myself agreeing to volunteer coordinate the entire festival.

To give you an idea, the Art Festival weekend probably takes about 1500 man hours (not including prep time) to pull off, with, say, 45 volunteers working at any given time. Right now we’ve got about 45 volunteers total, which means that things will be fine, but that we’ll all be working our butts off most of the time. Thus, I’m going to follow the blatant advertisement above with the plea to follow: you give us 6-24 hours, we’ll give you

Perks for volunteering include:

free admission to the Art Festival for the entire weekend
a limited-edition 2006 MoCCA Art Festival shirt drawn by Charles Burns and designed by Chip Kidd
bagels and a box lunch on the day(s) you are working
access to the volunteer discount list, which includes a bunch of cool merchants who are willing to cut you a price break just because you’re volunteering for the Festival (hint: 50% off at Top Shelf (!))
an invite to the volunteer post-party at the MoCCA gallery, which will include yet more free food, a goodie bag full of swag from some of our fine exhibitors, and a chance to chill out and actually get to know the volunteers you've been working alongside all day

Not too shabby, eh? And it’s pretty much the funnest way ever to trade in your free time for a good cause. If you’re in the area and you’d like to join our team, please drop me a line at (firstinitial)(lastname)(at)moccany.org and I’ll give you the lowdown. ASAP, obviously, since the festival is this weekend.

On the up side, once this is over with, I don’t have to give up any more weekends until ReaderCon. That’s, like, a whole month from now.

"Oh, what a shame that your pockets did bleed on St.Valentine’s..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:38:14 GMT

Don't got plans for Tuesday night? Now you do. Presenting the Third Annual Anti-VD Cookie Swap at the House of Six Giraffes.

Also: new Anti-VD cards. Chill the cockles of your heart right up, they will.

(I know, I know. Real content coming soon.)

"Gwen, I'm sorry, girl, but that ho was me..."

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 02:07:13 GMT

LiveJournal, baby, I've gotta come clean. The rumors are true: I've been cheating on you with VanderWorld. But, hon, I can explain. Y'see, Jeff offered me a the chance of a lifetime, the chance to have my way with allll of his readers at once. You know I couldn't pass that up. So I gave him my "Best Music of 2005" list. I just thought it would be good opportunity for us, y'know, a chance to start our future together on the right track?

Anyway, baby, I'm gonna make it up to you, I swear it. Like, I had to give the VanderMan first dibs on the CDs, but what if I promised you that I'd give you a list for all the other kinds of culture? And what if I did a life recap for you to, y'know, help smoothe over all those times last year when we maybe weren't as close as we should have been. Oh, you'd like that, huh? Yeah, thasright. You can have the moon, baby, if I can get it out of the sky for you.

Okay. I'll be right over, soon's I finish up that, uh, other thing I gotta do. Laterz, baby.

"Feminism isn't a fucking dating service."

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 04:58:46 GMT

Confidential to cataptromancer:

Hey, look who's reading at Barnes & Noble tomorrow night. Here's your big chance! Did you get her on your list yet?

"Did you know that urine is sterile? You can drink it."

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 20:06:46 GMT

A P.S.A.:
Just in case anyone on my flist reads Locus and was curious about that thing in the "People and Publishing" section of the October issue: no, I haven't moved to Roc; yes, the rest of it is (mostly) true. I'll elucidate for the rest of you... um, soon. I've got a bit of a backlog, if you haven't noticed.

About that backlog: it has not escaped my attention that I owe letters and phone calls to a solid two dozen of my friends, or that a gajillion things have happened that I wish I had time to write about here. Slipping into rare "maudlin honesty" mode for a moment: it's not you, it's me. I'm frustratingly slow, perpetually behind, and constantly guilty about it, but—despite knowing full well how freakin' stupid I'm being—I can't get past the idea that work won't wait, but people will. I'm not asking you to like it, but I do hope you'll try not to lose faith in me entirely.

Sigh. Now to play catch-up for a while.

“But really, zombies are not ‘supposed to be metaphors.’ They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies.”

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:04:59 GMT

[I originally posted this early this morning, but that entry seems not to have gone anywhere, so I’m trying again. Apologies if you get this twice.]

A few months ago, I got an e-mail from captaincrax0rz that said:

Subj. its unanimous
so we decided today at CUSFS that you need to blog more often. but that we're also happy that you have a life that keeps you too occupied to blog.

I'm glad that Leo and cohorts recognize how hard it is to be this fabulous. Little does he know that my absence has naught to do with being occupied. The thing is, I've discovered that not updating my journal is the most foolproof plan I've found for developing an instant fandom: namely, since my last real entry in late February, I’ve been friended by over forty people, most of whom I've never met. If I had any idea that going mute was the secret to popularity, I would have just given up speaking in middle school.

(I don’t normally engage in such extreme forms of navel-gazing, let alone advertising it when I do, so I had originally just planned to mention this bizarre flist growth in a bewildered footnote about how I fully expected a solid dozen of you to drop off my friendsof list the very second I committed the egregious crime of—gasp!—posting. And then I noticed that my last two entries, tiny as they were, actually did scare off a handful of people each. Which makes this seem less like a goofy theory and more like a rock-solid phenomenon, don’t it? But as tempting as it is to keep silent and avoid alienating anyone, it’s probably not worth having those of you who actually know me forget who I am.)

As it happens, my flakiness is due less to me not having any time than to that dangerous pattern of thinking, "Man, I should post about that... but first I need to finish these three urgent things, and then update everyone on what’s happened since I last posted... and doing all that will take forever, so I guess I can’t spare the time right now." Which is just dumb. I’ve made myself yet another solemn promise that I will make it a priority to post things as they happen, but that notion didn't quite manage to make it through my thick skull the last few times I tried it, so we'll see. Anyway, although there aren't many better venues for self-obsession than an online journaling community (sitting in a closet with the lights off?), publicly acknowledging all of the above makes me feel vaguely queasy, so I’d best be moving on to actual life events.

In order to make it remotely plausible for me to post something inside of a day or two, I'm going to start by writing first about work-related things, and then fill you in on all the info that has nothing to do with my job the next time I post. I will attempt to curtail my babbling and make this “the good parts version,” but if there’s anything you’d like me to write about in more detail, you can comment on it and, if I’m feeling beneficent, I will expand upon it when next I write.

So, what the hell have I been up to?

For one thing, Tor just launched its Spring/Summer ’06 season. The books that were handed over to me in January were both in this season, so I had my first taste of editing two books at once, with relatively little lead time, while continuing to help out the four other editors I assist. This was not so much a cakewalk for me: I am a deliberate and obsessive editor, in part because I’m still learning how to do it, but mostly because I’m deliberate and obsessive about everything. The first Dave Duncan book was about as painless a process as one can imagine, especially since Dave is more computer-savvy than most authors half his age. The work on Jeff VanderMeer’s "baroque monstrosity" Shriek: An Afterword has been a decidedly more intense experience: a ton of hard work, but educational, invigorating, and fun hard work—with the added twist of attempting to meet deadlines for his British publisher, whose edition of the book comes out seven months earlier than ours does. (Ours will be much, much hotter.)

It occurred to me the other day that it would be make a lot of sense to use my mostly-dormant web space to display some materials from the books I’m working on, but since it will undoubtedly be awhile before I make that happen, you can see Dave’s description of the Dodec books on his homepage and many mentions of Shriek on Jeff’s blog (I’ve posted links to some highlights at footnote [1], for my reference as well as yours). His people have also posted some great new publicity material for the Bantam edition of City of Saints and Madmen, including a charming "How Would You Fare in Ambergris?" quiz. Finally, I've often wanted to call your attention to Jeff’s priceless parody author site, but have been thwarted for months by 404 errors. However, it’s back up now, and I’d highly recommend it even if I wasn't editing him. Even the FAQ is precious:

Q. Why aren't you better known? We don't mean to be unkind but before we came to this website, we had no idea you existed. In fact, the only VanderMeer we'd ever heard of before was Johnny Vandermeer, the baseball star who pitched back-to-back no-hitters back in the Middle Ages.
A. That's a good question. But the fact is that I work very hard to be obscure so I can concentrate on my writing without media types always calling or coming around to the house. It takes a lot of energy to be as talented as I am and yet remain obscure, let me tell you. I work on it every day - deliberately ignoring requests for interviews, almost never submitting to anthology invitations, and sending threatening letters for no reason to anyone who admits to liking my work. Sometimes it seems like a losing battle, but so far I've been pretty successful.

[I think I somehow neglected to mention this here, but a few months ago Jeff wrote my favorite thing that’s yet been posted about me—or perhaps about some alterna-me— on the internet. It’s the second dream at Two Dreams, Sans Interpretation (though the first is very much worth reading as well). Teresa later reposted this on Making Light, and a few of my crueler friends will all-too-gleefully note how this discussion takes a turn for the Whedon-esque.]

Mountains of things have also been happening with cmpriest’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which is finally pubbing in October. The book’s Amazon page has been updated to include cover copy, an excerpt of the text, an image of the gorgeous cover art (by the incomparable John Jude Palencar), and all those blurbs I spent months hounding people for. More recently, Cherie unveiled her official web page, which is pretty damn stunning. I have no idea why I’m opening myself up to derision for the second time in two paragraphs, but some of you afforementioned crueler friends will assuredly get a big kick out of the book’s Publishers Weekly review that's posted there, since—ludicrous though this may be—it's almost as if the reviewer deliberately laced it with my hot-button topics in order to make me look silly.

It probably goes without saying, but if you actually care what’s going on with these authors, you should absolutely be following their firsthand updates (Cherie’s on LJ, of course, and Jeff’s blog is syndicated over here). I could pretend that there’s some chance that I’ll post news items remotely contemporaneously with when they do, but... ha. They're actually good at this blogging thing.

Another reason why I’ve been largely absent these past few months is that a lot of my “leisure” time has gone to conventions, which require not only the time physically spent there, but time to travel; prepare for panels; and recover from the thrilling rush of working a week's worth of normal workdays, then spending two to four days working the convention (the Patrick-ism that comes to mind is, "Anyone who thinks that attending a convention is not work is invited to try it."), and then go back for another full work week. The culprits these past few months were:

• In March, there was Lunacon, which I think I'm kinda getting over. I mean, hanging with blackholly is always a thrill, as was getting to know her friends mroctober and jdparadise (much better 2 a.m. New Jersey high school diner buddies than I could have hoped for had I actually gone to high school in New Jersey) and oracne. I also wound up with one of my favorite convention souvenirs ever, from when I was hanging out with Irene and some of our artists, and Dan Dos Santos started doodling on my schedule grid (a scan of it runs to the right of this entry). And I somehow scored panels with Holly, Gregory Frost, Bob Greenberger, and Michael Swanwick. Okay, so maybe Lunacon isn't all that bad, but given the other conventions I’ve been going to lately, it’s got an awful lot to measure up to.

• April marked the World Horror Convention’s descent upon New York. I know much less about horror than I’d like to, but this con still managed to sell me on it for life. I spent hours talking about publishing and other futile hobbies with the quick-witted, frenetic jlassen, and also had a bunch of lovely conversations with John Picacio, Alison and Chris from Monkeybrain, Diana from Eos, and some of the folks from Borderlands. Two of my weirder con experiences were having dinner with David Hartwell, F. Paul Wilson, and others at the fanciest/closest-to-the-hotel restaurant... which just happened to be the "home of the dancing shrimp" (though it’s hard to mock anyone who does such a good mahi-mahi for their tackiness), and—while most of the World Horror denizens were staggeringly nice—receiving perhaps the creepiest come-on line I’ve ever been subject to.^[2] If anything is capable of making a speculative fiction convention more surreal, it’s having it in one’s home city, a factor which resulted in me leaving early on Thursday night to head into the driving rain and see the Fiery Furnaces play a few blocks from my house; and staying well past five a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday nights, only to log another hour or two at a nearby diner (with the same adorable Russian waitress both times) then take the subway home and do it all over again.

• This year marked my second WisCon out of what I damn well hope will be an eternity of them. The con was generally spectacular, with so many highlights I wouldn’t know where to start listing them. Just because of the high probability that I’ll get myself in some amusing kind of trouble by declaring this, I feel compelled to confess that Jill from Tachyon is hands-down my favorite new person that I met there. Take that, all you other non-favorite new people.

• The weekend immediately after WisCon was BEA. A lot of our publicists and marketing people spent the entire expo working their butts off; but since I’m in editorial and therefore useless at these things, I was just given free reign to spend the day wandering the floor, agog. For BEA is truly a mind-blowing experience, so huge that even after four+ hours of walking the floor—albeit with frequent pauses to bring rambleman a cheesecake; run down to the signing floor and snag books and ARCs from Kelly, Holly, Scott, and Chris; and have awkward conversations with a bunch of people in the comics aisle about how, no, I didn’t know anything about their table status for the following weekend's MoCCA Art Festival—I’d be surprised if I managed to make my way past 50% of the booths there. It was also quite... Total Perspective Vortex?... to visit the booths of all of the genre fiction houses, most of whom I already knew employees from, and realize how truly tiny genre is when compared to the whole shebang of publishing.

• I’ve also been going to KGB much more regularly than I used to. In fact, I’ve now made it to five readings in a row. This is largely because so many of the readers have been awesome, but it would be reckless of me to downplay how influential it is that post-KGB dinners are at Grand Schezuan and Kelly has passed along a mean addiction to their "Cold Soft [green!] Bean Curd."

I think that covers pretty much everything that still seems worth catching you up on after all this time. There’s some exciting news on the horizon as well, but I'm going to hold off on telling you new news until I've brought you up to date on the rest of my recent history. Until then...

[1] Most of these were posted well before the editorial process began, so don’t be surprised to find them subtly or completely changed in the final.
   • on editing (7/22/05)
   • building cities (6/26/05)
   • excerpt (6/25/05)
   • deleted scene (6/25/05)
   • deleted scene (6/19/05)
   • excerpt (5/18/05)
   • manifestations in this world (12/15/04)
   • excerpt (6/15/04)
   • excerpt (6/7/04)
   • excerpt (5/30/04)
   • excerpt (3/25/04)
   • excerpt (4/30/04)
   • excerpt (3/22/04)

[2] It’s totally cruel to repeat this story, and delusional to act like it’s any less cruel because I’ve put it in a footnote—but it's also kind of hysterical, and that trumps everything. So: when I made my way back to the hotel after the aforementioned dinner with F. Paul, a large bald man who was standing by the door with two of his friends stopped me to ask if I would mind “just standing there for a few hours while my friends and I stare at you.” (I believe I responded that I was afraid my time was already spoken for.) The same guy hit on me again the next night, while I was sitting alone eating dinner and reading a manuscript, by telling me that he was mesmerized by me because he’d “never seen gray nail polish before;” and again on Sunday night, by explaining that he’d been offering everyone in the room the chance to drink Absinthe out of a gold-plated bowl made from the top of a human skull, and would I care to finish off the last of it? All in all, three offers that I’m sure I will never get over having turned down.

Tales Too Ticklish to Tell

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:07:46 GMT

Oh, flist. I really do miss all of you in LJ land, and yet I've spent months and months being incurably busy. It's nothing personal, I swear it.

Luckily, my new roommate musetoself just posted about the most exciting thing that's happened to me lately. She argued that this sort of info might call for a NSFW tag, but I will have none of that puritanical nonsense. You must click!

I will keep you posted on the window situation as it develops.