Caitlín R. Kiernan

1) This is the year that you may celebrate the last year of the first decade of the new millennium. Yes, you have my permission. I wouldn't have mentioned it, but I made such a big deal, in last year's New Year's Eve post, about how 2009 wasn't the end of the first decade of the new millennium.

2) Yesterday, I wrote 1,246 words on "—30—", which I should be able to finish tomorrow, for Sirenia Digest #61. I might have written more, but I had to pause to read Michael Drayton's "Nymphidia" over again. Also, yesterday Spooky sent the Dancy Cigar Box off to the winner of the auction, Mr. Steven Lubold.

3) Heads up. The super special sale price for the limited edition of Two Worlds and In Between ends at 5 PM (EST) this evening. At this point, more than 450 of the 600-copy print run of the limited have been reserved (originally a 400-copy print run). So, yeah. Last chance to save $20 on the limited. Take heed.

4) Yesterday I also corralled the best answers to the question I asked last year on the 30th of December, "If you had me alone, locked up in your house, for twenty-four hours and I had to do whatever you wanted me to, what would you have me/you/us do?", and those will also be appearing...belatedly...in Sirenia Digest #61. Also, if you weren't reading the blog last year and would like to get in on this, you can email me a reply today or tonight or tomorrow, to greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com. All answers will be published anonymously, so feel free to feel free. But no answers about how you'd spend all that time reading to me, or how you'd make me take a nap, or how you'd cook for me, force me to go Outside, or help me write, or have long conversations with me about writing and literature and dreams and magick. I'm looking for something spicier here. Although, forcing me to write or talk about writing would certainly rank fairly high on the sadism meter.

5) Two movies last night. I was sort of in a crime/thriller/noir headspace. We began with Richard Shepard's Oxygen (1999), because we're determined to see everything in which Adrien Brody has ever appeared. Not bad, though Brody was by far the best of it. Next, we watched D.J. Caruso's The Salton Sea (2002), which I liked quite a lot, really. Vincent D'Onofrio can always be counted on to add something wonderfully weird to any film in which he appears, and this was no exception. The very ending felt tacked on, though, as if maybe the studio execs got skittish of the bleak ending we almost get before the film unconvincingly tries to fake you out so that Val Kilmer can walk away into the sunset. Also, I find it odd Caruso would make a film titled The Salton Sea, in which horrific events have occurred at the Salton Sea, but fail to take advantage of the surreal landscape surrounding the Salton Sea. Still, I liked it.

6) I'm not gonna bother with any actual "best of" lists this year, if only because the Lamictal has made such a mess of my short-term memory. I strongly suspect I've not yet seen all the best films of 2010, but I'm going to say that the best films of 2010 that I have seen are (in no particular order) Black Swan, Inception, Shutter Island, and The Social Network. I also adored Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland and Kick Ass. Turns out, a lot of my favorite films from 2010 were released in 2009 (Neil Jordan's Ondine comes to mind). My reading habits are too spotty to say much at all about the best books of the year, though I did adore Patti Smith's Just Kids and Kristin Hirsh's Rat Girl. As for music, my listening habits have been even spottier, but, off the top of my head, my favorite album was probably Broken Bells' self-titled release.

7) Most years, I give the whole idea of New Year's resolutions the middle finger (which I was recently amused to hear described as the "Massachusetts State Bird," which is fair, given that the Rhode Island State Bird is the Dunkin' Donuts Cruller). Anyway, this year I actually do have a few resolutions, which I mean not only to make (which is easy), but to keep (which is hard). For starters, unless I'm too sick, I will leave the House at least once every four days. I've also decided to work harder at witchcraft and magick, which is one of the parts of my life that's been sort of lost in the chaos of the last two years. I'm going to read a lot more and game a lot less. And so on and so forth. You get the idea.

8) One of the coolest things I can say about 2010 is that I only got sick once (we're not counting my long list of chronic maladies here, just contagions). Back in January, I caught some sort of hideous bug when I did a reading in Brooklyn, and was down for a few days, but that was it. Garlic and hot, hot peppers, you rule.

And now, it's time to make some Rhode Island state birds....

I haven't seen much point in writing about the inability to write, as that seems, to me, even duller than writing about writing. That's how it's been the last few days. The will is strong, but the words aren't flowing. Today may be different. We shall see. These things happen. Deadlines are irrelevant. The dry spells happen anyway; fortunately, they do not happen very fucking often.

Yesterday, we met Byron for Grindhouse, and while I'll readily admit that I've never been a particular aficionado of grindhouse cinema, I do love what Rodriguez and Tarantino have done here. While Planet of Terror was great, gory fun — and I know it says something awful about us that Spooky and I find a one-legged Rose McGowan even sexier than the bipedal version — I think I actually preferred Deathproof. I'm a sucker for Tarantino's dialogue, and the last half of the film plays out like a wonderfully twisted, frelled-up Powerpuff Girls episode, with Kurt Russell standing in as Mojo JoJo. I will even go so far as to say that Spooky and I found it empowering, and gods how I hate that word in that context. But there you go. Grindhouse kicks ass, and I think it was just exactly the thing I needed yesterday afternoon. Oh, if only Werewolf Women of the SS could be made in it's entirety....with Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu. I would gladly pay twice full price for tickets to such a thing.

Back home, we watched Allen Coulter's Hollywoodland, which I liked a great deal. This is, I think, the sort of film that Brian De Palma's tremendously inferior The Black Dahlia wanted to be. Or maybe not. Regardless, I was impressed with Coulter's first feature film and hope there will be more. Adrien Brody just keeps impressing the hell out of me.

My thanks to the 115 people who took a moment to vote in the podcast poll. 101 yes votes, 3 no, and 11 indifferent. Which means, I suppose, that as soon as I have fully mastered the pertinent software, there will be at least one experimental podcast. I may not like doing them, after all. Also, I reserve the right to wear masks and heavy make-up, the right to wear no make-up at all (and to remove these damned annoying hazel-green contacts), and the right to allow Jean-Pierre the Existentialist Snail to play the part of me.

And really, I think that's it for now. It's time to see which sort of day today means to be.