"Living out our second-hand clichés."

[greygirlbeast]

1. Sirenia Digest #51 went out last night, so if you're a subscriber, you ought to have it by now. I've already gotten some nice comments on "The Eighth Veil."

2. All of yesterday was spent pulling #51 together, all the tedious stuff I always save for the last minute. So, not much to report, workwise. I could, of course, describe it in minute detail, but it would only amount to a pornography of banality.

3. Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying Caprica? Well, I am. It's just exactly the sort of "prequel" I think BSG needed, the "How did it come to this?" thing, and not just another round of space opera. I think anyone who's spent far too much of his or her life in an MMORPG or, more especially, Second Life, will be especially appreciative of what the show's doing.

4. The insomnia continues. I was up until sometime after five, then pretty much awake by nine or nine thirty ayem. I lay in bed last night (which was really this morning), waiting for the Ambien to take effect, writing in my pencil-and-paper journal. There were dreams I know better than to try and recall. It's bad enough recalling how they felt, without remembering the specifics.

5. Here are the last few pictures I'm going to post from Monday's trip to Conanicut Island. These were all taken from Fort Wetherill and West Cove:





View from West Cove, looking out across the East Passage of Narragansett Bay, towards Aquidneck Island and Newport (view to the east). Note ruins of Fort Wetherill at center right.



Ruins of the eastern portion of Fort Wetherill (1798-1946), as seen from West Cove (view to the east).



On a hill west of West Cove, looking out across the East Passage towards Aquidneck Island (view to the east).

All photographs Copyright © 2010 by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Comments

[docbrite.livejournal.com]

Except for the fact that Ambien no longer works at all for me (though Xanax usually does), I could pretty much copypaste #4 to describe my night. I'm sorry yours sucked too.

insomnia

[myownpetard.livejournal.com]

can you/do you (poppy or CRK) ever take klonapin for insomnia? it works well for me.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Ruins to me usually feel smaller than I expect them to be. "Wait, people worked and lived in this small of a space?" (Though then I remember that people in the past supposedly tended to be smaller than they are now, so it probably didn't seem as small to them.) There's a disconnect in my mind between what's left and what was there long before. Maybe it's a failure of my imagination.

Any ruins you're particularly fond of? That you'd revisit if you could?

[sovay]

I've already gotten some nice comments on "The Eighth Veil."

You're going to have to do another science-fiction collection. "The Eighth Veil" and "Hydrarguros" and "Paleozoic Annunciation" deserve print.

[lady-theadora.livejournal.com]

I agree completely.

[from-ashes.livejournal.com]

I have never seen a single episode of Battlestar Galactica and yet I completely love Caprica. It's such a high quality show and definitely not something I expected on SyFy(ilis). I now think that I might have missed something good by not watching BSG. I guess it's time to go rent some DVD's.

[aoniedesade.livejournal.com]

Sirenia #51 was a great thing to see in my inbox this morning.

A pleasant surprise on purchasing Tales of Pain and Wonder

[missmonsta.livejournal.com]

Hi!
I've had the deluxe hardcover edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder on layby at my local SF store for months. It was shrink-wrapped so I picked it up based on your name on the cover alone. Finally paid it off this week, and was happy to find a Deacon story as the first inclusion in the anthology... and pleasantly surprised to see it was a signed edition! Thank you for going to the trouble of producing limited editions like these, it was a nice thing to discover.

[catconley.livejournal.com]

I just finished this month's Sirenia and I really enjoyed it. I loved what you did with the language in "The Eighth Veil," and the line "I burden now with then" is perfect. It's a very succinct way of describing a whole host of thoughts and feelings. Awesome :)

On a side note, I re-read "The Red Tree" a couple of weeks ago and I liked it even more the second time around.

On yet another side note, have you and Spooky visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum? I went this weekend and it was really excellent. There are a decent number of benches and places to sit in the exhibit rooms. I thought there was a nice mix of exhibits - paintings, whale skeletons, items from the ships, multimedia stuff, etc.