the equation that I add up to, And all of the things I thought I knew

[greygirlbeast]

Does it seem to anyone else that LJ has been kind of quiet lately? I've noticed it mainly in fewer comments to my entries. I hope this isn't a sign of some great exodus to MySpace. Right now, I'm mirroring the blog over there, but I'd truly hate to think it's actually The Shape of Things to Come. Between the seizure-inducing adverts and the general meat-market atmosphere, I can't imagine it ever becoming the main site for this journal. I just don't think I could make that switch. Anyway...for those reading this from Blogger or MySpace, here's a link to the elf pr0n photos I posted last night. I was entirely too tired to mirror the entry. Comments welcome. I mean, I do read them. Often, I reply. Some days, they even help me keep my head above the rising water.

Though this latest issue of Sirenia Digest was especially difficult to get out, it also seems to have had the fewest difficulties on the distribution end of things compared to past issues. By the way, next month — well, actually, this month — Sirenia Digest 12 (which may also be counted as issue #11 or #13, depending how one chooses to count these things) will include one solo piece by me and a new collaboration with Sonya Taaffe (sovay). I very much hope that it will be out by the 21st. By the way, Herr Platypus says that anytime November 2nd should happen to fall on a Thursday, it's very good luck to subscribe to Sirenia Digest.

I had no idea that Ray Bradbury's short story "The Homecoming," long a favorite of mine (and the basis for his 2001 novel, From the Dust Returned), had been released as a hardback illustrated by Dave McKean. I spotted it last night at Borders, and it's frelling gorgeous.

Still working at the second reading of House of Leaves. Chapter IX, in which Danielewski manages to construct a labyrinth from text and footnotes (and the footnotes that some footnotes require).

The weather, which had warmed up a bit, is turning cold again.

Not much to be said for yesterday. I grow tired of posting daily word counts, as I'm sure you've grown weary of reading them. There was a documentary on the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Dinner from the deli at Whole Foods. Too much candy I shouldn't have eaten. Fun with Hubero. A perfectly humdrum sort of day.

If you've not yet pre-ordered Daughter of Hounds, Amazon.com is still offering it bundled with Alabaster for a mere $27.70.

That's it for now. I need more candy...

Comments

[smu.livejournal.com]

God, myspace. I will never go to that site. No matter what. I've been a long time reader of your LJ blog, I just never comment because... well... you're one of my favorite authors and I didn't want to make an ass of myself.

Also? That's my favorite Decemberists song. They're such a guilty pleasure, sandwhiched in between my usual listenings of the Sisters of Mercy.

[mlle-rouge.livejournal.com]

Like the previous comment : I've been reading your LJ for a long time, and enjoying it very much. I love your books and try to contaminate my friends. And still I rarely comment. It's just not something I do.
Anyway, please don't abandon LJ for MySpace! I hate the idea of having to read you there.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Anyway, please don't abandon LJ for MySpace! I hate the idea of having to read you there.

That's not going to happen. I dislike the chaos of MySpace far too much.

I'm all thank-y today.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Nar'eth,

I may or may not have said this before, but since I'm in a mood to thank people right now: thank you for putting this on LJ. I'll keep track of your writings no matter what (ever since Mr. Gaiman steered me your way in September 2002), but it helped encourage me to go over here myself (gobble gobble gobble, one of us, one of us) and start interacting online more. It's led to a nice stable of net-friends (or "e-quaintances," if you don't find that too cutesy), and even chances to edit friends' stories.

MySpace may calm down into a more interesting site eventually (I know it's been good for bands, at least), but LJ is a good place already. Here's to more.

[stardustgirl.livejournal.com]

I've noticed a quieting of LJ, but I'm not sure it's a reflection of an exodus to MySpace. Jeez, I hope not. I have a page up there that I use mostly as an ad, but I don't even bother mirroring my blog there since 1. I doubt anyone cares and 2. it's kludgy to navigate.

I don't get as many comments lately. I've noticed most people on my f-list don't seem to either.

[tydeus.livejournal.com]

I think the whole MySpace thing happens in cycles. People flock to it for awhile and realize it has all the angst/charm of a high school popularity contest. Meanwhile their profile is being monitored by creepy old men. They'll come back or give up blogging altogether.

MySpace = Meat Market

[matt-wallace.livejournal.com]

I think MySpace is a lot like the outside world: It's filled with assholes and is only what you make of it. Livejournal is much more solitary. It allows you to extend your inside world just enough to allow others a glimpse. A controllable glimpse. And I can dig that. But I've enjoyed positive effects from both.

Sirenia was worth the wait. I dug the extra content as much as the stories, particularly the different versions of the ballad. Very interesting anthropologically on top of just being entertaining. And as for the stories, I may've been influenced by your prolegomena, but "The Ammonite Violin" didn't feel quite finished to me. More like an elaborate, beautifully-drawn blueprint. The idea may require a fuller expression. The Collector is all there as a character, though. It was cool of you to include "Lafayette" for those of us who still haven't picked up Tales of Pain and Wonder, too.

I find I miss the Alabaster pimpage at the end of the digest. That really is an amazing cover.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

It was cool of you to include "Lafayette" for those of us who still haven't picked up Tales of Pain and Wonder, too.

I'm glad. It's always risky inclduing the older stories, because I can't know what percentage of Sirenia Digest readers will have already read them. I keep hoping I'll get a chnace to release a new and revised edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, if only because Meisha Merlin made such an awful mess of the tpb.

I find I miss the Alabaster pimpage at the end of the digest. That really is an amazing cover.

Next issue, I start pimping DoH...

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would ever get a MySpace account. Most of the non-band pages I've seen are too headache-inducing to even try to look at.

I like to think that LJ is for the more literate parts of humanity, but occassionally I'm proved wrong. ;)

I comment when I have something to say, and I assume you do the same for me. I haven't had that much interesting stuff to post about, so I expect the quietness.

[laudre.livejournal.com]

I've got one or two people on my own flist who seem to be migrating to MySpace; many of the RL friends I keep in touch with by way of the Intarweb use MySpace exclusively despite having LJ accounts. I'm hoping that this isn't a sign of some sort of mass migration over to MySpace, akin to a mass migration from ICQ to AIM that happened a few years ago. I think I'd just about disappear from the Internet at that point, as MySpace is hideous, obtuse, and an offense against all good web design principles; never mind the, as you say, meat market atmosphere. I sigh every time I get notice of a message at my MySpace account, because it means I have to subject myself to that... that... that. Eugh.

[tactileson.livejournal.com]

It's always risky inclduing the older stories, because I can't know what percentage of Sirenia Digest readers will have already read them. I keep hoping I'll get a chnace to release a new and revised edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, if only because Meisha Merlin made such an awful mess of the tpb.

I have both hardback and tpb editions of Tales, though the paperback was the first one I found and read, and I still think it may be my all time favorite collection of stories, especially if read in the alternate table of contents you provide in the back of the book. I should go back and re-read them in the original hardcover edition since you say the publisher of the tpb messed them up so much.

Oh, and let me be another who says just for good measure that MySpace is just icky. I do not think I could ever follow this journal across that damned abyss that MySpace is. I recently had to sigh that Amanda Palmer mentioned that she's moving her blog over to her MySpace for good soon. It's a shame that so many people are moving a good traditional blog over to such a damnable, poorly designed, asshole infested, corporate piece of dren such as MySpace.. Perhaps that's too harsh, 'eh, maybe not.

[edwarddain.livejournal.com]

Yes, it has been more quiet lately. That being said I've actually picked up just shy of a dozen new readers recently which was a bit of a surprise.

[styggian.livejournal.com]

I think LJ and myspace both have their places.
I have met a lot of interesting people through both sites myself.
Maybe it doesn't bother me because I just learned to ignore that things that might otherwise annoy me years ago.
Advantage I geuss, from being whom I am and having a baptist family...lol

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Maybe it doesn't bother me because I just learned to ignore that things that might otherwise annoy me years ago.

I'm just finding it hard to imagine how anyone could ignore those flashing ads.

[styggian.livejournal.com]

First of all, I must have been absent of my grammatical and spellinig senses when I posted this.
Aside from that, I guess I just learned to ignore them on other sites first so I just ignore them on myspace too.
Although, I am on dial up right now, it does get annoying when the page takes forever to load because the banners screw it up.

I am, btw, going to have a friend of mine read your Samhain post so he will understand how I felt about it when he gave me the odd look after asking me if I was ok the other night when I just walked outside at midnight.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Many have noticed the slow down, and i'm pretty sure it's just one of the LJ cycles. I rarely get the kind of responses I'd like, anayway, so it's... odd.

This is actually reminding me of something i wrote yesterday: I shudder to think that someday even the persona; e-mail will be a marginalised form of communication... All comments and forum posts, which aren't bad, but aren't personal, in the slightest...

Plus... MySpace. *shudder*

November is always a good time to re-read .

[sovay]

Does it seem to anyone else that LJ has been kind of quiet lately? I've noticed it mainly in fewer comments to my entries. I hope this isn't a sign of some great exodus to MySpace.

Hm. Myself, I haven't posted much lately, but this is a combination of laziness, tiredness, and other things taking up my time—which at least I can later post about, if the first two components don't take them out. There is no way I would change to MySpace. Even the layout makes my head hurt.

had been released as a hardback illustrated by Dave McKean. I spotted it last night at Borders, and it's frelling gorgeous.

*wants*

Have you seen Farewell Summer? I similarly sighted it at Barnes & Noble, but have not yet read.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Farewell Summer? I similarly sighted it at Barnes & Noble, but have not yet read.

I have, but sadly have not yet had the time to read it.

[abbadie.livejournal.com]

Seems like your threat with the dread MySpace has brought several of us out from silence. I do have a MySpace account, but I loathe it so much that I left it blank and merely put up links to my lj and even my yahoo 360, which I've started to use just because it's manageable, and because I can use it for writing in English, since my lj is mostly (but not always) in spanish and somehow all of my actual contacts are English-speakers, LOL!

Believe it, here we are reading, and if it takes voicing our opinions to fuel you up, I'm sure many will be ready to comply!

In the meantime, I still have to get up from the floor... first I nearly fainted in horror at the thought of losing your musings to MySpace, then -still dizzy- I find out about that Dave McKean-illustrated version of one of the best chapters in the book I was enjoying for the hundredth time only ten minutes ago! Ohhhh the Gods are good to us! Now if only they could chain McKean to his drawing board and get him to illustrate the entire expanded novel...

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Seems like your threat with the dread MySpace has brought several of us out from silence.

Indeed. :-)

[kambriel.livejournal.com]

I had a Myspace account for about two minutes (literally!), and decided it was just not for me. Besides my computer rebels any time I've tried to go over there, so I'll just take it as a sign ;)

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

My computer behaves, but otherwise that's exactly my experience of Myspace.

(I'm not going into the subject of DoH pimpage. The list of books I want that are actually out in Australian bookshops is long enough as it is...)

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

I'd truly hate to think it's actually The Shape of Things to Come

Oddly enough, I came over to LJ after already having an MySpace page. I've actually met two pretty interesting people solely from myspace; on the other hand, I've had to sift through countless webcam girls, crappy bands, business ventures, and such. Yes, it is a very ugly interface; but I think the prevalence of the site is lending weight to its business utility as a marketing and advertising tool. Howl to the uncaring heavens all you want, I think we've probably got at least three to five more years of MySpace. Will it make it to the twenty-teens? Probably not, but Corporate America would have come up with something even more gaudy in the meantime.

Incidentally, I have RL friends who have scored more ass off MySpace in the last year than in the last ten combined. Meat Market sometimes not so bad.

I keep hoping I'll get a chnace to release a new and revised edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, if only because Meisha Merlin made such an awful mess of the tpb

Well, I was about to order at least some version of ToP&W offa Amazon (along with DOH & Soul Kitchen and a few other things) - what were the problems with this edition?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I have RL friends who have scored more ass off MySpace in the last year than in the last ten combined. Meat Market sometimes not so bad.

This may well be. Meat markets have their place. But that doesn't make them compatible with the fundamentally solitary act of blogging/keeping online journals. And that's one of the gripes I have with the "place." It's the ineviatble Wal-Mart of internet interaction (that's three ins). It means to be all things to all people, and make a lot of money in the process (though, I am aware that MySpace has yet to make very much money for anyone). In the process, I fear it will undo many sites, such as Blogger and LJ, which were already doing some of those things far better.

And I hate the sense I get that people are flocking to MySpace because it's hip. It's not, of course. It's merely popular, and the popularity is mainly due to its accessibility to people who likely never would have considered blogging otherwise. I suppose it all makes sense. MySpace may be succeeding because it so resembles the deafening, gaudy media overload that confronts almost everyone on a day-to-day basis. That hideous interface is familiar. Here's an internet as cluttered as the thoughts of any teenager or college student, the web for ADD and AADD and whatever else a short-attention span is being called these days.

Okay. I'm ranting. Sorry. Sometimes the momentum just gets the better of me...

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

what were the problems with this edition?

Had I not been so busy gibbering about MySpace, I'd have remembered to answer this before. Here's the thing: there were problems with the Gauntlet hardback. My main goal, other than keeping the book in print and finding more readers, with the MM edition was to fix those errors. A great deal of energy was spent on proofreading. Then, for some reason I've never been able to discover, the corrections were ignored. Worse still, many new errors somehow crept into the text. I think the MM edition is actually described as the "preffered text" or "corrected edition" or some such, but it's not. Add to this the garish, artless cover and you have an edition I wish had never happened.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

Further junking up your LJ, I thought Ms. Howard Hughes might want to note today's historic relevance:

Howard Hughes flew Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever built, on its maiden flight in Long Beach, California. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Goose)

[corucia.livejournal.com]

Fall = teaching, so I've been essentially absent; sorry!

I dropped something in the mail for you today...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Jeff Vandermeer gets to on stage in your behalf tonight at the IHG ceremony...

Regards, David

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I dropped something in the mail for you today...

Drad.

[corucia.livejournal.com]

And Jeff did get to go up on stage! Time to re-read 'La Peau Verte' again!

http://www.ihgonline.org/

[shadowmeursault.livejournal.com]

merely an echo of what others have already said. commenting usually makes me feel like a creepy ass, but sometimes i can't help myself. to wit, i thought i'd done good keeping my prurience to myself with the elf pr0n, but now you asked for it. beautiful and hot and sweet at once. the third shot is going in my screensaver. because i'm a creepy ass. :)

[kiaduran.livejournal.com]

I often wish to comment on things or ask a question, but I get all nervous about sounding like a stalker or an idiot or both and so I end up flooping into a fetal position on the floor and quietly gibber to myself.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

...but you're past that block now! See how easy it is? (Trust me, Ms. Kiernan's gentle. She's no John Byrne. Ask away. Join the conversation. You'll like eet...)

-- Chris, Fan and Enabler

[kiaduran.livejournal.com]

and I only peed on myself just a little...

[jacobluest.livejournal.com]

It's been awhile, but I wanted to make sure you knew we're all going to die:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?ex=1162616400&en=dd97d0b211afc608&ei=5070

Elephants and fish, elephants and fish...

~Jacob

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

It's been awhile, but I wanted to make sure you knew we're all going to die:

Bring on the big space rock.

SD 11

[shadowmeursault.livejournal.com]

i haven't read through all of it just yet, but i felt the deep need to thank you for the inclusion of the photo of Lafayette No. 1. without whys and wherefors, suffice to say that i needed that picture. you just made my night.
thank you.

[sleepycyan.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading the Ammonite Violin, and it's absolutely beautiful. I was taken by the piece from the very beginning, but when Ellen started playing Paganini on that dark and beautiful violin, it became a perfect fusion between your writing and the music.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading the Ammonite Violin, and it's absolutely beautiful.

Thank you very much for saying so.

[reverendcrofoot.livejournal.com]

Will there be pictures of Jack-o-laterns from this year?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Will there be pictures of Jack-o-laterns from this year?

Spooky just posted some in her LJ, I believe. humglum

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

Does it seem to anyone else that LJ has been kind of quiet lately?

Speaking for myself, I've been sulking for various reasons, and just concentrating on my comic. And reading--Something Wicked This Way Comes really is an excellent book.

Anyway...for those reading this from Blogger or MySpace, here's a link to the elf pr0n photos I posted last night.

That is a very nice look for you. Spooky looks great, too. Maybe next year you could both wear horns and pointy ears?

latest issue of Sirenia Digest

I haven't read the new version of "Lafayette" yet, but I loved "The Ammonite Violin". I loved the characters--it seems like the vignettes are getting progressively more about you creating characters. It seemed like the earlier ones were more about the perspective of the narrator and the narrator's sensations, while here I'm impressed more by the assembled character attributes. You tied those characters well to "The Twa Sisters", and imagery is great, especially the titular violin.

[http://users.livejournal.com/__hecate__/]

Congratulations on the award!

And I see that you've stopped smiling in photos :-(
For us that don't know you, smiling Cait looks like
a different person that we don't see enough of (or maybe it's just me).