I Can See in the Dark

mostly away

2008-07-03T17:47:32Z

I won't be around for seven or eight days.

Please be careful and stay safe, especially if evil monsters are afoot.

Email might be checked and if it's dire please call

(# = five zero eight high-phen six AREA 51 hyphen NO WHAMMIES zero five six eight

and leave a message using the word "emergency" at least twice).

Guess who manages to survive without a cell phone!

Love,
ghg

dear self

2008-06-20T00:50:35Z

Just because Scalzi had a picture of the book doesn't mean that you have to have it this second or you're going to perish.

The book not officially coming out for two weeks doesn't mean that you should buy it on eBay for twice as much from a place that got their shipment early.

Asking the author to email it to you might work but it's rude and obnoxious. Even if they like you, it's still rude and obnoxious.

You work for a giant bookstore and get a discount and most publishers will give you books for free if you bother to ask because you're also a journalist.

Frantically trying to get your greedy paws on too many books is why your entire life and every thought is buried in tomes and you have multiple copies of your favorites, sometimes three copies of the exact same edition.

Someday, I hope I won't need to buy several books a week to feel whole.

(In truth, I've toned down a bunch in the last six months and this little note is to remind me to keep on the path of recovery from book-hoardingism. Buying books is fine if I'll have the time to actually read them but my obsessive bookaholism has turned into a progressively dangerous illness. I also collect rare books, but I'd rather get an expensive one I really want than fritter it away on whatever looks shiny at the moment.)

writing things

2008-06-11T23:13:26Z

Let's see:

Sent out five short stories within the last ten days, three for their first times ever.

Sent out an essay on Elvis and pastry.

And I'm working on an interview with David J. Schwartz aka snurri whose SuperPowers came out yesterday. And a few other interviews and articles are starting to go.

And, coolest of all ineffable coolness, I'm now the officially-sanctioned art columnist for the utterly magical Sirenia Digest, edited by writer extraordinaire aka Caitlin R. Kiernan, greygirlbeast which makes me giddy. She and Spooky are expanding Sirenia, adding a short discussion with an erotic visual artist to every issue.

You can subscribe here:
http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com/subscribe.html

Seriously, I'm as giddy as a teenage goth girl with low blood sugar who just found an unmelted and unexpired box of Robert Smith-flavored pocky!

Advert During Top Chef Rerun

2008-06-05T00:35:12Z

Am I the only one who has realized that the Free Credit Report (dot) Com guy singing in the ads doesn't actually speak English?

I'm serious.

I wondered if it was a band I should recognize (like how They Might Be Giants or Stephen Merrit do wonderful commercial jingles) and found out that he's lip-synching phonetically and doesn't speak English.

(I don't think people need to speak English, by the way. I just find it so fun to watch now that I can see that he doesn't know what he's saying and is just trying to wiggle his lips right.)

Bo Knows Death

2008-06-02T17:47:52Z

Bo Diddley...

We had the same birthday and I thought that made me cooler.

Your CDs were the first reissues I bought. You were the classic that I wanted to hear with better clarity.

I loved your guitar but the time in the late 80s and early 90s when you switched to piano was sweeter because you didn't change a thing except for where you put your hands. That same stomp a-stomp a bomp-domp worked on either instrument.

My mom always told the story of how she and some teenybopper friends saw you in a fancy car at a stoplight and climbed out to say hi. You made it clear that it was so early in your career that having white fans freaked you out.

You might've been a pop culture icon but you did it with style. BB King had to do diabetes ads but you shilled for Nike. You opened for the Clash and jammed with the Grateful Dead.

All week, in your honor, in the middle of conversation, I'm just going to turn to whoever I'm talking to and shout, in my best grunt, "I spell M..."

d. biddle

2008-05-26T14:27:39Z

Ooh, new d. biddle...

Rabbit and the Moon

Officially, it comes out June 13th.

In the upcoming edition of the yearbook of my life, Duncan is now "Most Likely to Be Roky Erickson." Anyone who knows me well knows that there's hardly any higher praise I could possibly bestow. To earn this title, he'll have to stop doing earnest and heartfelt redneck post-posi-punk with a glammy and proggy feel and sing about monsters and aliens all the time, but stranger things have happened. Sometimes, I forget that Duncan is a musical genius. Then he reminds me by putting out an album.

And an excerpt from an interview at Punk Horror.
http://www.punkhorror.com/html/duncan_barlow.html

PH: If Neurosis was playing on the same night as a Clive Barker signing which one would you go to?

DB: I’d have to say Neurosis because Steve’s my friend and I always put my friends before strangers. Not to mention, I still listen to Neurosis and I don’t really follow Mr. Barker any longer.

Duncan's bizarro novel is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Super-Cell-Anemia-duncan-barlow/dp/1933929162

Save Dollhouse! (pre-emptive strike)

2008-05-25T13:29:38Z

Like many, I'm quite frustrated by how greedy execs cancel literate and groundbreaking SF television before it can reach its audience.

And I'm one of those people who thinks that Joss Whedon is consistently interesting no matter what he does. Except Roseanne.

So, I encourage everyone who agrees to band together in a campaign to save his new show, Dollhouse, from cancellation.

A place where we can start is in this LJ community:

http://community.livejournal.com/save_dollhouse/

What? Wait a minute.

Dollhouse hasn't aired yet and doesn't come on my TV until next year?

Never mind.

I guess I'm just PTSD and battle-fatigued / war-fogged from the previous campaigns...

one hand clapping?

2008-05-17T13:06:21Z

Just so you know, Marcel Marceau really did put out a record.

I'd always heard that he had -- which confused me because he was, you know, a mime -- but I finally bothered to look it up and it's a spoken word album where he talks about the history of mime in an interview.

It originally came out in 1971 and was reissued in 2000.

As an inveterately geeky collector and occasional dealer, I was hoping it sounded like John Cage's "4'33" or, even better, was vinyl without grooves on it, unpressed with just a sticker added.

And, of course, there's always this, an originally self-published book that is completely blank on the inside:

quote

2008-05-17T02:18:34Z

“Look, Mrs. Wheeler, I’m trying to be nice here.”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t be nice.”

“But why?”

“Because the world is not nice. It is complicated and it is messy. It is overflowing with arrogance and greed and uncertainty. It’s a lot of heinous shit. It’s a world where bad wins out every single time. Now maybe you’re too naïve to believe that, or too stupid to learn it, but if you believe in the good and mercy of others, you will always lose, you will always be the victim, and then you’ll learn, intern, you’ll learn.”

Clea Duvall, as Laura, in How To Make A Monster

(script by the director, George Huang)

story that doesn't go anywhere

2008-05-04T16:56:54Z

This morning, a gentleman told me that, ten years ago, he had to give up Chinese food because they put too much LSD in it.

I haz frickin' story (guess who quit smoking?)

2008-05-02T00:04:57Z

There are a slew of things I mean to write about but the TOC of Phantom has been revealed and (alas, currently without my middle initial H. which makes me feel less like Brite or Kiernan than I like to feel) my story "Jonquils Bloom" will be in it...

There are many amazing writers whose work I love to read. And me.

I've read the Mamatas and the Cisco and they make the book worth buying.

http://pgtremblay.livejournal.com/279276.html?view=2054124#t2054124

decadent linkage

2008-04-23T04:19:14Z

Rather than describe my day-long adventure of seeing old friends in Providence, I'm resorting to linking to nihilistic_kid's account.

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1094919.html?view=14432775#t14432775

And here was an earlier visit...

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/861790.html

detritus

2008-04-12T22:51:51Z

"From the cosmic point of view, to have opinions or preferences at all is to be ill."

Lawrence Durrell

"All middle-class novels are about the trials of three, all upper-class novels about mass fornication, all revolutionary novels about a bad man turned good by a tractor."

Christina Stead

Fun recent email header, except I'm veggie: "Who's up for dried mice?"

Spasticities

2008-04-09T03:50:06Z

Quote overheard in a bookstore:

"Why would anyone drink hot chocolate when they can have lots of single malt scotch?"

happy birthday, chip!

2008-04-02T00:40:13Z

I don't pay attention to birthdays. I expect people to remind me a few weeks in advance every year. It's mostly because I barely know what day it is. But, because April 1 jumps out and he's one of the most daring and innovative authors alive...

Happy Birthday Samuel R. "Chip" Delany!

Your workshop in grad school was one of the coolest things ever.

he can have my title

2008-03-24T23:39:46Z

The book I'm working on will almost certainly have sequels.

And I wanted the next one, the one after this current one that is taking forever, to be called Consumed, as a nod to the Plastikman album that I used to be really, really into...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumed_(album)

But this debut novelist, who is better known for other things, has always claimed that, "At a certain formative time I read Nabokov and William Burroughs. The modernists especially Beckett. In fact, my ambition was to be an obscure novelist."

So, fabulous film genius who has inspired me for decades, you can call your novel Consumed and I'll come up with something else. It's okay. I'll probably be obscure with or without the title and I owe you for warping my braincells so wonderfully:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/master-of-body-horror-films-writes-his-first-novel-796257.html

happy birthday to lawrence ferlinghetti

2008-03-24T10:22:20Z

Happpy Birthday to a living legend of poetry, bookselling, publishing and more.

(I normally don't know birthdays without checking, but this was in Publisher's Weekly and it jumped out. I've seen him read twice and I'd love to see him read again.)

readingthedark @ 2008-03-22T18:51:00

2008-03-22T23:01:32Z

Wow. Today feels interesting. I've dealt with 48 emails and made some progress on writing projects.

I'm tired and trying to figure out what to have for dinner. Then I'll call my parents and watch Southland Tales, No Country for Old Men or The TV Set or maybe some Hammer Horror. I'm trying to be good with my media purchasing, but I caved and bought a used box set.

I also picked up T. A. Pratt's Poison Sleep.

And I'm so excited for X-Files 2 that it's silly.

readingthedark @ 2008-03-21T14:47:00

2008-03-21T18:56:51Z

The more books you read, the more those books become connected to every other book ever written.

Eventually, it's more like one really, really big book whose pages keep falling in and out of order.

blacksun festival saturday

2008-03-13T13:54:39Z

Statistically, I don't think that anyone on my f-list will be going to the Blacksun Festival in New Haven, CT. Years in industrialdom and gothdom, I won't be shocked to bump into people I know, but (even though it's unlikely) I figured I should post that I'll be there Saturday, March 15.

I'll probably show up around three pm or sooner. Zombie Girl and Assemblage 23 are playing, among others, and I'll be taking notes, maybe photos, for an article in a lovely national magazine.

So, if you know me or looking to give a journalist your random take on the weirdness or countercultiness of the Blacksun Festival, please give a comment.

Further details of the fest are here:
http://www.blacksun-festival.com/schedule.html

death to jack (because everyone else is doing it)

2008-03-07T23:04:28Z

Jack Haringa, mssrcrankypants, I like you but your time has come to kiss it all goodbye...

(inspired by http://www.hailsaten.blogspot.com/ and all the other entries)

“How’ve you been, man? We’ve only met four times so I don’t exactly know you well enough to worry about you in any terrified or nailbiting fashion, but I know you’ve been through enough health issues and loss that I care about your well-being in a way that I don’t for most mere acquaintances who I happen to like and whose blogs I read.”

“Geoffrey, you’re socially awkward.”

“Yeah. Congrats on everyone loving your story in Bandersnatch.”

“Um, yeah. Thanks.”

“I always feel weird because when we first met we hit it off really well because we’d read and liked so many of the same books but then I promised to write you an essay on Jack Ketchum and then I didn’t write it because nonfiction suddenly became impossible. I tend to be a person of my words. I don’t leave my apartment lately because the world is crumbling and fragmenting, but my own words -- not the big ones that spin out of my mouth when I’ve tried to talk to you about literary theory and you've so disagreed -- have always seemed reasonably solid. Meaning, form and content, those are malleable, but words themselves...”

“You’re odd and you prattle. You vanish into ethers because ethers are all you know and all you deserve. You talk at people like you’re hosting a public access tv show. It’s not even real conversation. You might be way into the Decadents and Ligotti but you make no sense when you prattle. I picked up on that early on…”

“I really like Dead Reckonings too but I can’t offer to review stuff for it because I’m just not doing the nonfiction thing with any success. It confuses me. I can’t seem to get stories off the ground unless I get to make parts up. And reviews always get in the way of knowing people. It’s so hard to have a long conversation with a writer when you start by telling them that you’ve never liked their writing and that the reason that they’re a hack is because everything they’ve ever believed in should be eviscerated.”

“Do you always go on and on about how everything leaves you confused and that you’re obsessed with destruction and death?”

“Pretty much, Jack. It’s all I have to offer the world. That and book recommendations. The kinship I feel with you is that you’re bright and well-read, and also into horror. Back when Shocklines was worth checking three times a day, I figured you and I did a smidge of good by educating the meatheads about the literature that’s not aimed toward their lowest common denominators.”

“Seems like you waste a lot of energy carrying on and on about things you can't control. What else have you been up to?”

“I still drink way too much coffee and spend hours glaring at strangers. The bookstore takes up most of the time that I should be spending writing. And I surf the Net too much. I get dragged into creating weird silly wordplay things when I should be working on actual writing. By the way, the new Nine Inch Nails album, Ghosts I-IV, is the best album in years for wandering around and glaring at strangers.”

“I teach high school near Worcester.”

“Oh, I know. Teaching struck me as a real job, so I fled after one semester. A kid called the bookstore about a month ago and needed Nick Mamatas’ Under My Roof and Nick told me it was for your class and I thought of you. Didn’t get in touch or anything, you know, just thought of you inside my head and hoped you were well.”

“We should get together, go out for nachos or something. Maybe at ReaderCon.”

“Totally. I always go to ReaderCon. Necon scares me too much. I don’t know where my life goes. Why doesn’t everyone read good books? Books that communicate more than wish-fulfillment and escape?”

“You’re boring me. I have to go do things and other stuff.”

“No, I’m sorry, Jack. There’s a point, pardon the pun, to all of this and we’ve had enough fun. I have to poke you in the eye with this large knitting needle now. It’s not something that makes sense; it just has to be done. It’s not personal. It’s, um, the opposite of that Fergie song – even though I’m thrusting a thin metal rod into your face, aiming for nonexpendable areas of your brain tissue, it’s all rather detached. I’m blameless on this whole shindig and I’m not a big girl now.”

“Argh! Ah. This pain is unmappable.”

“Bye, Jack. I hope your death is either really quick or slow enough that you get to hang around for years but this whole ‘knitting needle into your eye thing’ wasn’t my idea. I mean, I’m the one who decided to pop you in the cornea with a semi-sharp metal tube, but please blame all the other people who've killed you today. Everybody’s doing it and we're all going to feel strangely guilty if you actually die today. It’s not my fault that the world is a horrible place. I promise to live in shallows, regrets and could’ve beens… I’m not a bad person. I’ve always been a pacifist.”

“Uguh, agaah. Tell my wife I love her.”

readingthedark @ 2008-03-01T12:17:00

2008-03-01T17:20:31Z

a bookly request

2008-03-01T17:16:37Z

"Do you have any books by or about Jake Hererra? You know, the guy with the hat?"

*makes hand gesture that looks like handstyling a pompadour*

(At first, I wondered if he was a professional athlete. I'm often stumped by the sports questions...)

Answer in a moment.

hello world, thank you for the madness

2008-02-09T20:33:00Z

For a parsec, I'm seeing a confluence of clarity in the world. Why does everything only make sense to me when Mercury is in retrograde?

Yesterday, I noticed a gentleman chortling to himself and pointing at a magazine. He was like Burgess Meredith playing a Batman villian, engaging in multiple punchlines, tapping at the page and laughing to himself, ignoring anyone who was watching.

It was the new Consumer Reports, the one with SUVs on the cover. Ten minutes later, he was doing the same thing to a Boston Road Atlas. Whoever put him in the suit did a good job of dressing him.

greygirlbeast is overwhelmed by support as her fans and netizens pour in financial support and well-wishes for medical issues:

greygirlbeast is one of my favorite writers and all around creative people. Here's a letter about her books that someone wrote to her that says just about everything I would've said, if I'd written it *snicker*: http://www.caitlinrkiernan.com/2004/06/headache-headache-headache.html

And she's sold a new SFnal story collection!

lagringa is partway to that amazing thing that she so richly deserves as she finally gets to be a literary agent:

And last night, buymeaclue, nihilistic_kid and I had dessert, then with infinitehotel, we had Chinese food and dessert a second time.

nihilistic_kid made me laugh so hard that spicy sesame noodles shot out of my nose and sold me a copy of dgk goldberg's new short story collection http://www.dgkgoldberg.com/ ,
infinitehotel gave me an ARC (from way back when) of Craig Clevenger's The Contortionist's Handbook (http://www.welcometothevelvet.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15)
and buymeaclue reminded me that there was a point years ago where I was a gym rat.

And today is a day off. I guess it's okay that I'm not getting much done.

"If I had a life, I probably wouldn't notice...
If I had a mind, I wouldn't let it choose for me..."
Dismantled, Had A Life

last friday at the middle east

2008-01-27T14:58:34Z

The Birthday Massacre was very lovely live.