Stuff That Happened Yesterday®

[greygirlbeast]

Winter seems to have come to Providence last night. A low below freezing, frost warnings. I'm sure it'll warm up a little again, but...can't pretend it's "late summer" any longer. Cloudy and foul looking out there today.

Which is why Spooky made me get out of the house yesterday. We both knew no writing would be getting done, so there was no point in hanging about here. I'll go "back to work" tomorrow, after we spend today cleaning the place a bit. We've both been so busy, the clutter has gone wild. But yeah, tomorrow is all interviews: The South County Independent and the Brown University bookstore's newsletter. Then, on Saturday, I need to get started on Sirenia Digest #47. I am truly in no mood for interviews, but there you go.

Anyway...yesterday.

Actually, not so much to tell. I'm still trying to get untired, so it was a low-impact day out. I just wanted to see some autumnal trees. Spooky suggested Wickford. As we were leaving Providence, we saw the most remarkable sky. I took photos (below), but they fail to capture the weirdness of that sky. It was all about color and contrast and a peculiar flatness. It was a videogame sort of sky. Some trick of sunlight and clouds and high-altitude ice crystals, I suspect. In Wickford, there weren't many interesting trees. I think we'll have to head out towards Conancut Island for that, or north towards Woonsocket. But we walked about the harbor and window shopped. We visited the worst witchcraft shop in New England. Truthfully, it's not a witchcraft shop, and I shouldn't dignify it with that label. This is the place that had never heard of athames. Just a big ol' New Age place. Lots of Buddha pop, crystals, chakra crap, chicken soup for the fluffy bunnies. They do "aura" photography and interpretation. That sort of nonesense. I mostly only go in there because it seems to make the employees nervous, ever since I explained athames to them. Anyway, yeah...we walked around and looked through dusty shop windows and at antiques and old houses and boats on the water. Wickford turned three hundred years old this year. The tide was coming in. The sky went from sunny with clouds to flat and leaden. I visited my favorite Wickford boat (again, photos below). That was about it. We were home before six p.m.

Last night, after Night Three of Spooky's patented four-night soup, we watched David Lynch's Inland Empire, which I'd been avoiding because I knew it would do a number on my head. And it did. A stunning, brilliant film. Mother and I are still collating. Also, I read the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer trade paperback collection (the comic), Predators and Prey (Vol. 5). Other than Lovecraft Unound, I've been working my way through the September '09 Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and, over the last few days, I've read: "A New Species of Apateodus (Teleostei: Aulopiformes) from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Chalk of Western Kansas, U.S.A.," "The Anatomy and Systematics of Colepiocephale lambei (Dinosauria: Pachycephalosauridae)," "Diprotodontid Footprints from the Pliocene of Central Australia," "Cranial Mechanics and Functional Interpretation of the Horned Carnivorous Dinosaur Carnotaurus sastrei," and "A New Beaked Whale (Odontoceti, Ziphiidae) from the Middle Miocene of Peru." We got in some WoW after David Lynch. We both needed something familiar and mindless, and WoW fills that bill. Our Draenei characters made Level 49.

And that was yesterday (and etc.).

Now I'm going to go help Spooky unclutter the house. Here are some photos:





The uncanny sky above I-95 South, Providence.



More sky.



I would like to retire and live on this tiny boat.



Room for just me and Spooky and the cats, as long as we didn't move about much.



I think this dingy comes with.

All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Dallas used to have a store just like that, in the Exposition Park area. I had the same sort of discussion, only on tektites (the store had a big one, about the size of an egg, long before Haitian tektites started flooding the rock shop market), and was asked to leave because I actually knew their origins instead of accepting that they were "Atlantean sacrifice stones".

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

and was asked to leave because I actually knew their origins instead of accepting that they were "Atlantean sacrifice stones".

I will be laughing about that all day; thank you.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service. As a chaser, I'd like to note that I received my copy of The Red Tree last Saturday. I haven't been able to read it, because the Czarina flipped through a couple of pages when my back was turned and refused to let it go. I try to take it back, and she snarls at me. I think I've created a new fan.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I think I've created a new fan.

How wicked of you.

[seph-ski.livejournal.com]

was asked to leave because I actually knew their origins instead of accepting that they were "Atlantean sacrifice stones".

I just laughed so hard over that, I wound up with having asthma attack.

It was worth it.

Thank you!

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Oh, and here's an extra. The store in question made a big deal about Tarot readings done in the back of the shop, and I had several people tell me about their incredible accuracy. They were so accurate, in fact, that they didn't predict the store's locks being changed due to nonpayment of rent about a year after I was banned. From what I understood, the owner was in such a case of denial that she tried to break in and start up business as usual. That would have ended well, I think.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

From what I understood, the owner was in such a case of denial that she tried to break in and start up business as usual.

Wow.

[pisceanblue.livejournal.com]

The sky, in your photographs, makes me think of wallpaper. I am now wondering what would be behind it if it was torn away.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I am now wondering what would be behind it if it was torn away.

Nice thought.

[sovay]

It was all about color and contrast and a peculiar flatness. It was a videogame sort of sky. Some trick of sunlight and clouds and high-altitude ice crystals, I suspect.

We had the same sky—it's the kind that always looks to me as though it's been painted. You can almost feel the diorama's walls curving down to the ground around you.

That is a very beautiful boat.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

it's the kind that always looks to me as though it's been painted.

That's almost exactly what Spooky said.

[seph-ski.livejournal.com]

I mostly only go in there because it seems to make the employees nervous, ever since I explained athames to them.

This delights me far more than I should probably let it.

Then txtriffidranch just about killed me with delight.

That makes this blog entry the best thing I've read since ...well, since I finished reading Low Red Moon earlier this week, honestly.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

This delights me far more than I should probably let it.

Nah. Any place that advertises itself as carrying "witchcraft supplies," then has no idea what an athame is has it coming.

That makes this blog entry the best thing I've read since ...well, since I finished reading Low Red Moon earlier this week, honestly.

Then I must be doing my job well.

[blackestdarkness]

Wow, the sky really does look like something from a video game. Amazing.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And the photos just don't do it justice.

[odditie.livejournal.com]

The sky reminds me of a Renee Magritte painting...minus the bowler hats.

[capnskusting.livejournal.com]

Firstly, that boat is fabulous! secondly, I was suprised to see The Tower tarot today. I recently did a drawing which I called "the tower", not really thinking of the tarot, but it seems to fit.

Lastly, "I mostly only go in there because it seems to make the employees nervous".
That's just priceless!

Inland Empire

[spank-an-elf.livejournal.com]

Always remember that film for the massive argument it provoked. My partner stormed off to bed 15 minutes before the ending claiming she hated the film.

Of course we spend more than 15 minutes discussing why she hated it enough not to watch the last damned 15 minutes.

We watched those last minutes for breakfast but still, odd and disjointed.

Kudos for Lynch for provoking such violent emotions.

Lynch and Sky fotos

[bleedingtom.livejournal.com]

Lynch has nothing better to do than to pull emotions out through a visual langauge that bounces past your language center, leaving a dent in every word you've ever learned. I suppose, that is an art. A mysterious art similar to Lovecraft. Giving you just enough that the only possible vocal response is at best, a meek unsettling whine. All the while your head is screaming a billion connections, a billion bloody possibilities that can't be spoken.
Priest Lynch of that which can't be vocalized only felt. (Plus hyphens)

The clouds looked like islands. Which worries me, because islanders make great warriors. I wonder if the sky island people have a word for "paratrooper"?

[alvyarin.livejournal.com]

it looks like the sky from the mario bros. games, with very deliberately placed, fluffy coulds.

you could let the cats have the dingy - then you and spooky would have a bit more room!

[alvyarin.livejournal.com]

also known as "clouds"....

[karendammit.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely sky but I don't know about that tiny boat. It is quite small. I love when the two of you go out and take photos and share them with us. I love to go on photo excursions with my boyfriend. He then comes home and paints/draws what we find out and about. Presently, he's doing a blue heron with charcoal. His neck looks so fragile and graceful. We always tend to find ourselves near water.