"Quell the rage that deeply seethes, the extremes of these devotions."

[greygirlbeast]

1. No idea why I'm using the cute Bjork icon the morning. I just couldn't seem to help myself.

2. Still happy about The Red Tree, A is for Alien, and "Galápagos" having all three landed on Locus Magazine's 2009 Recommended Reading List. It's always nice to know someone has noticed.

3. This morning, I awoke to a dusting of snow here in Providence. Maybe half an inch. We've had much less snow this winter than last.

4. Last night, Spooky and I celebrated her release from jury prison by binging on movies. First we watched Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, which I found completely delightful. It's the sort of film that leaves me with nothing at all to complain about. And then we watched Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys again. It's a favorite, but both of us had only seen it twice ("Fuck the bozos!"). And speaking of movies, Geoffrey read me the Oscar nominations yesterday and I was...baffled. It's a baffling, and, at times, ridiculous list. But I am glad see Tarantino and Inglorious Basterds getting the attention it deserves, and I'm also rooting for Avatar, Up in the Air, A Simple Man, and a few others. And yeah, I did like District 9. I liked it a lot. But it's presence on the Oscar list still leaves me a bit perplexed.

5. Today, I finish pulling Sirenia Digest #50 together, and tonight, barring any unforeseen cataclysms, it will go out to subscribers.

6. There are few surer signs that's I'm not firing on all cylinders than discovering I've failed to get a set of revisions to an editor on time. Last night, I got an email from S.T. Joshi, wondering about my line edits to "Pickman's Other Model" (which will be appearing in Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror from PS Publishing). And I thought, "I sent those." But no, I'd not. I made the edits, back on December 16th, but I never actually typed them up and emailed them to Joshi. It is likely now too late. Fortunately, it was all very minor stuff. But it is a warning from me to me, to get back on the ball.

7. Back on Sunday, Spooky bought a new coffee maker (I've not had a coffee maker since 2005). It has a single glowing blue eye, and I call it Hal (yes, even though the eye is blue). She also got a pillow, two pairs of pajama pants for me, and a new bath mat. Combine this with the gifts from her mom, and it's been an odd (but needed) shower of domesticity around here.

8. Remember how much I loathe the cover of The Red Tree? I first saw this video devoted to the evolution of the "tramp stamp" urban-fantasy cover a year or so ago, but Spooky came across it again last night, and I thought I'd share. It would be funny, if not for the damage this sort of drek has done my own books (or at least done my nerves and aesthetic sensibilities):

Comments

[amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

I personally don't get the idea of a tramp stamp tattoo in the first place. For me, tattoos are highly spiritual. I got mine to mark something and to (symbolically) write the memory into my skin. To me, having them where I can't see them without being a contortionist or involving mirrors reduces the impact.

(I only have 2 tattoos and am probably not going to get another one. I can't see a need that strong popping up again.)

I've heard that rib tattoos are becoming the new tramp stamp, though.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I personally don't get the idea of a tramp stamp tattoo in the first place.

I honestly don't believe this is the sort of thing anyone put a great deal of thought into. Tattoo = edgy, if you're the sort of person who would never do anything more edgy than read a crappy paranormal romance with a tramp-stamp cover. Marketing finds one image they believe to effective in selling books (that it actually is effective can never be proven), and then they grind out multitudinous permutations of it.

As to why the ink usually appears on the woman's back, my theory would be that marketing understands most of its customers are female, and hopes female books buyers interpret the covers as a weird sort of faux-empowerment message. If you show the front, on the other hand, there's the danger of frightening off women who might feel that buying a book with frontal female semi-nudity could cause them to be perceived as lesbians...

[catconley.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! Lesbians! Better put a big shirtless man with ripply abs on the cover, too! Oi :)

I just read "Galapagos" last night in Eclipse Three. Really, really well done! The whole anthology has been great.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Really, really well done!

Thank you!

[amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

See, tattoos aren't edgy to me at all. I have a family full of Navy and Army people. We spent a good part of the day during the week or so we were up in Maine for my grandmother's funeral chatting and telling stories about our individual tattoos. It was pretty hilarious. (Even my mom has more tattoos than I have. She has like.. 6 or so, last I remember.)

I think it's probably more that the marketing company is hoping that the female buyers will put themselves into the book too. The tramp stamp indicates a life that's a helluva lot more interesting than the crappy lives that people who read those books are escaping.

(I can't really hold myself up as holier than thou when comparing myself to them, though. I don't exactly engage in the heaviest of reading all the time. I end up reading a lot of YA fantasy, since that's about all my brain can process on a regular basis. Yay, fibro.)

[amethyst-clan.livejournal.com]

We spent a good part of the day

Er.. A good part of a day.

I'll learn to make sense some day, I swear.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

You may not see them as edgy (I don't either), but the average B&N/Wal-Mart shopper does, especially in a given context and combined with crossbows and whatnot.

And yes, the marketers are certainly hoping that the readers will want to live vicariously through literary figures perceived to be far more interesting than themselves.