"Stranded starfish have no place to hide..."

[greygirlbeast]

The insomnia came back last night. I was still wide awake at 4 a.m., when I finally gave up and took Ambien. I think I slept about six hours. I function far better on nine.

Yesterday, when I wasn't busy slamming New Moon, Mormons, and Americans who are more comfortable with a 1.9 trillion dollar war bill for our occupation of Iraq than a 1 trillion dollar bill for health care overhaul...when I wasn't doing all that...mouthing off, so to speak...I was writing. I managed 1,003 words on "Sanderlings" (formerly "Teratophobia").

Roger Ebert's review of New Moon is actually rather priceless. He gives it one star out of four. I was pleased to see that the film currently has only a 4.4 rating at imbd, and that it's not fairing so well over at Rotten Tomatoes, either. Of course, this is mere criticism. The film broke all box office records on Friday, and is likely to break the opening weekend record. So, lots of happy studio execs and queer-hating Mormons getting the last laugh. Tiddley pom.

Truthfully, I think I need to go back to feigning indifference and keeping my social and political ruminations to myself. Because, face it. Yes, I am a fatalist and a pessimist. There's nothing I can do to make much of anything better, and on those rare occasions when I try, I usually only manage to make things worse for myself. For example, yesterday I probably managed to do very little but piss a few people off and discover that an enormous number of folks on Twitter no longer know (or never knew) the definition of irony. The second bit upsets me far more than the former. Anyway, yeah. Less politics and critique. This is your world. I leave you to it. I'll write about my writing, and comment on movies I've seen and books I've read, and post pretty photographs of Rhode Island. The rest I leave to others.

It's cold here in Providence. Truthfully, I wish the snows would come. The cold is less depressing when there's snow. The snow takes away all the sharp edges.

We've begun a new mini-round of eBay auctions. Please have a look, and thank you. Also, a reminder that Subterranean Press has begun taking pre-orders for The Ammonite Violin & Others.

Last night, we suffered through the third extremely dull episode of the reamke of V (it really isn't getting any better), and then watched Adam Green and Joel Moore's Spiral (2007), a surprisingly good little thriller. Frankly, I miss flipping channels. Now, instead of flipping channels looking for something worth watching, we flip through the streamable (new word, I suppose) films at Netflix. Last night, we searched through them for almost an hour before finding Spiral.

And now, more photos from Green Hill. Today is documentation of the "starfish apocalypse." Actually, I was annoyed to discover that by the time we reached that part of the beach most blanketed in dead starfish, we'd evidently tired of photographing them. But this gives you some impression. We must have seen hundreds, which means there were probably thousands. I was thinking about this yesterday, and it occurred to me that we likely were not seeing starfish that had died in a single stranding, but the effects of multiple strandings, maybe many days' worth. After all, it's probable that a portion of the starfish that perish during any given low tide would not be washed out to sea on the next high tide, that, over time, an accumulation would occur. Anyway, yes, photos:















All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.

Comments

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh, what'd you get up to on the Twitter? *looks*

You will not be understood in your own time.

[blackestdarkness]

What do you feel when you see all those stranded starfish?

[realta-dubh.livejournal.com]

I actually like your tweets. Makes me feel like I am not alone in the universe.

[derekcfpegritz.livejournal.com]

The Deep Ones are sending a message. Or trying to arrange some kind of trade pact.

[gargirl.livejournal.com]

Lovely starfish!

My husband surprised me by pre-ordering the special edition of The Ammonite Violin for our anniversary. ^_^ I could not be more pleased about it. June seems so far away now... heh.

I finished reading Lovecraft Unbound. It was a very good anthology. I am happy to say I enjoyed the majority of the stories and not just yours, though I would have bought it anyway.

I hope you and spooky and the cats will have a lovely Thanksgiving.

[mellawyrden.livejournal.com]

What happens to them after they've died? There's one in the last picture, all by itself, that has only four arms.

[jackal-lies.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link, Ebert really does write brilliant reviews. I wish I'd taken a copy yesterday to the movies with me so I could have silently handed it to the girls at the top of the horribly long line to see New Moon. But I would have had to run as soon as they read it, missing out on the movie I came to see. Teenage Twilight fangirls in large packs are terrifying.

[ardiril.livejournal.com]

If mouthing off on Twitter gets 1000 words out of you, I would say that is a fairly good return on investment. Would you have still got those words written if you had instead stared out the window and kept all those distracting thoughts boxed inside? Isn't it better to be pissed off at other people than at yourself had you written nothing?

You have your opinions and you vented. Maybe you were going a little overboard on Twilight, then again maybe you weren't. I highly doubt the intersection of your fan base and Twilight's is very large, so no real sales lost, eh? As for those war idiots, just mentally dump them in that special hell that we non-christians reserve for such lunatics. After all, they aren't buying your books.

Also, are you sure you were pissing people off and not just getting a little irony tossed back to you? Hell, even Neil's retort finished with more than a wee bit of hyperbole.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

If it helps in the slightest, I felt exactly the same way about Tim Burton's Batman twenty years ago as you feel about New Moon. I couldn't believe anyone could watch such a contrived and flat-out bad film, much less multiple times. Well, we saw what those twenty years did, and I figure that you'll see an entire generation of Twilight fanatics dumping their DVDs and books in another five years, the same way Bee Gees fans abandoned their former heroes by about 1981. Garbage like this comes and goes, but the material with talent behind it endures.

[sovay]

Roger Ebert's review of New Moon is actually rather priceless.

That may be the snarkiest review I've seen from him in years. I approve.

We must have seen hundreds, which means there were probably thousands.

That seems as good a manifestation of Panthalassa as any.