greygirlbeast: (walter3)
[personal profile] greygirlbeast
Here in Providence, the days have turned oddly cool, dry, sunny. There's rain on the way tomorrow, and still cooler temperatures. Summer seems to have been waylaid.

I can tell, already, this is going to be a meandersome entry, so please bear with me. I've a meandersome mind lately.

Only a little writing yesterday. On Sunday, I discovered a book I very much need to read before I begin "The Maltese Unicorn" (Polly Adler's A House is Not a Home, 1953), but we're having to get it through interlibrary loan, which will take a week or so. And I decided to make the best of the delay by writing something for Sirenia Digest #54. Monday was spent looking for that vignette, which I found partway through the day. I made a hesitant beginning to "Eurotophobia" (don't ask; that's why Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented Google). Then, last night, after my Frank Frazetta post, someone suggested I might write a vignette based upon one of Frazetta's paintings. I will admit, the idea appeals to me. I'd already planned to dedicated the issue to him. So, I'm thinking that I may shelve "Eurotophobia," and, while I'm waiting for the Polly Adler book, write a vignette based on this painting:



Frazetta titled it "Tempest Witch," but I can find no date, so I don't know when it was painted. It seems no one does. Likely, I will simply name the vignette "Tempest Witch."

There are new auctions underway, including some stuff we've not offered in a while, and of which we only have a few copies remaining.

---

There are birthdays coming up. On May 26th, I'll be -6, which is truly more than I care to consider. I've asked Spooky for a quiet day at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge and dinner with friends. And that's all I'm asking for. However, on June 24th, Spooky will be turning the big -0. And I'd like to get her a PS3, which she's only been wanting since 2006. But funds are low right now, between this, that, the other, and my new meds. So, I have devised a plan. I'm going to write a new poem, the first I've written since February 2007. I will be printing fifteen copies of it (on a nice high-grade paper), which I will sign and number. Each person who donates $25 towards the Spooky Birthday Present Fund will receive a copy of the poem, which will probably never see publication in my lifetime. That's a fair trade, yeah, and for a good cause. So, if you'd like to help out, here's the PayPal button:

Button removed by CRK


The signed copies of the poem will go out to donors at the end of June, and Spooky will be very, very grateful. That I will be grateful goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Thanks.

---

Last night, in memory of Frazetta, we spent three hours doing battlefields in WoW. Well, Alterac Valley over and over and over...and over...again. Not sure whether or not Frazetta would have approved, but there was blood, swords, barbarians, mammoths, black magic, dinosaurs, and warrior women, so it seemed fitting to me. Later, we read more of Patti Smith's Just Kids. We're almost finished with the book, which is far too short. That's not a criticism. More like praise. I wish there were more of it.

Smith notes how Cocteau once said of a Jean Genet poem, "His obscenity is never obscene." It struck a nerve. Since Frog Toes and Tentacles and the beginning of Sirenia Digest so much of my work has been one or another flavour of obscene. I'm imagination's whore. I'd like to think my obscenities are never obscene, but I honestly do not know. Spooky says I'm never lewd. I don't have that sort of perspective. I see a line so fine as to be all but invisible, and I lose myself in semantics.

Date: 2010-05-11 04:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] robyn-ma.livejournal.com
'Polly Adler's A House is Not a Home, 1953'

Damn, we don't have that at our library either. If we did I could've checked it out to myself and overnighted it to you.

Date: 2010-05-11 04:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

Damn, we don't have that at our library either. If we did I could've checked it out to myself and overnighted it to you.

Thank you, regardless.

Date: 2010-05-11 05:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nullmode.livejournal.com
Ugh..payday..Friday..what happens if there are 15 donors before then? Games for the PS3 are expensive. Perhaps additional donors can fund a few games and a second controller so they can get a copy as well?

Date: 2010-05-11 09:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

Ugh..payday..Friday..what happens if there are 15 donors before then? Games for the PS3 are expensive. Perhaps additional donors can fund a few games and a second controller so they can get a copy as well?

If it looks like the demand's there, I'll go to twenty. But not higher, because a) I don't want to look greedy, and b) I don't want those who have already donated to feel like they're not getting something as limited as they were promised it be. Regardless, thank you!

Date: 2010-05-11 05:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mizliz13.livejournal.com
Obscenity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think you've ever been lewd, either.

Money donated. I fully support the playing of video games.

Date: 2010-05-11 05:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xjenavivex.livejournal.com
That sounds like a perfect birthday outing. I think Mr. Frazetta might have liked that tribute. That is a beautiful painting. I imagine you will do it wonders. How did you sleep? It is cloudy here today.

Date: 2010-05-11 09:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

How did you sleep?

I'm sleeping well, nightmares not withstanding. Better than I've slept in years.

Date: 2010-05-11 11:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xjenavivex.livejournal.com
Awesome. I am so happy to hear this.

Date: 2010-05-12 03:37 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] readingthedark.livejournal.com
Good to know about the sleeping. I pretend sleep's optional, but it's not. And PS3...very cool. Happy Birthday, Kathryn!

(If the demand's insane, there's probably another way your adoring patrons could take it out of your hide.)

Date: 2010-05-11 06:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] txtriffidranch.livejournal.com
July 24? Guess who's buying you both an early birthday dinner when I get into Boston for Readercon?

Date: 2010-05-11 09:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

June 24th, but thank you!

Date: 2010-05-11 11:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] txtriffidranch.livejournal.com
Why did I read that as "July"? I swear, I'm more tired than I thought.

Date: 2010-05-11 06:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaz-mahoney.livejournal.com
Would you be willing to send overseas? I could pay extra for postage...

Date: 2010-05-11 09:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] greygirlbeast.livejournal.com

Overseas is not a problem.

Date: 2010-05-11 09:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaz-mahoney.livejournal.com
:)

*runs to paypal*

Date: 2010-05-11 07:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stsisyphus.livejournal.com
However, on June 24th, Spooky will be turning the big -0. And I'd like to get her a PS3...

I thought she was supposed to get a mount when she hits -0.

*stifles need to make lewd comment*

I'll send something between then and now. Can't be much, but I'd feel bad that the occasion passed without doing something.

Date: 2010-05-11 08:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com
Your birthday is the day before mine! Happy early May birthday. I am going to be thirty, which I hear is better than twenty.

As a relatively new PS3 owner, I highly recommend Dragon Age as a fun game.

Date: 2010-05-11 09:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] catconley.livejournal.com
The weather's been exceptionally odd the past few days. It sort of feels like fall with the cold winds and all the leaves they've brought down. I've been a little temporally confused.

Date: 2010-05-11 10:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ulffriend.livejournal.com
Spooky and I are only one day apart. I hope that her -0's are as wonderful as mine have been. Many happy returns!

This works out beautifully: When I ordered the poem I gave a birthday present to both of us.

Frank Frazetta

Date: 2010-05-12 12:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jessamyg.livejournal.com
Yes, we have lost one of the great fantasy artists but there will be millions of us out here with the memories of his covers and paintings. The E.R.B. covers are as much part of the books as the actual prose inside of them, at least to me, and they are certainly a part of my memories of the seventies. Thank you for reminding me of how good Frank Frazetta is. I'll go to sleep now and, hopefully, dream of barbarians and princesses and the red sands of Mars.

Peter H

Date: 2010-05-12 12:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gargirl.livejournal.com
Donated! ^_^ I am so happy to help you give Spooky a great present. We love video games and competition for screen time is fierce around here. I hope the PS3 will be all she hopes it will.



Date: 2010-05-12 06:29 am (UTC)
ext_4772: (Scorpio)
From: [identity profile] chris-walsh.livejournal.com
It's good when you commit poetry. This is worthy for multiple reasons. :-)

Date: 2010-05-13 05:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alumiere.livejournal.com
Tempest Witch is beautiful; as much of a fan as I am of Frazetta's work, I'm fairly sure I hadn't seen that before, so many thanks!

Date: 2010-05-13 08:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jadakath.livejournal.com
PS3? Why not a Wii?
I'm sorry to have missed out on the poem, but I have my own surreptitious birthday plans, of course.

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Caitlín R. Kiernan

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