Caitlín R. Kiernan

On this day, sixty-five years ago, the dismembered body of Elizabeth Short was found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles.

Bitterly cold (but no snow) here in Providence. We had single digits last night, and the temperature Outside is currently 15˚F.

Here's a link to the full text of the starred (!) Publishers Weekly review of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Also, my thanks to Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) for the very kind things she said about the novel a couple of days ago.

Yesterday, I realized that I'd done a very peculiar thing Friday while working on Albaster #4. I'd written pages five, six, and seven. But...this is going to sound so stupid...with seven I'd jumped ahead to a spot very near to the end of the book, only a few pages from the end. It was strange, yeah. I always write from "beginning" to "end," in a straight line, so it was a very odd thing for me to have done. Anyway, yesterday, I set that seventh page aside (I'll use it at the appropriate time), and wrote a new page seven, along with eight, nine, and ten (manuscript pages 14-19, 1,403 words). I stopped in the year 1864 – November, to be precise. I'll resume there today. Oh, it'll all make sense, trust me.

After the writing, I used the iPad to stream a rather dubious documentary about the Snowball Earth hypothesis. I don't mean to say that the hypothesis itself, though still somewhat controversial, is dubious. It's just that the Discovery Channel (I can't believe they haven't shortened the station's title to Disco) seems incapable of making coherent, accurate documentaries that don't drag everything down to the level of "Bat Boy" and the Weekly World News (By the way, you know you're old when you remember the days when the Weekly World News took itself seriously.). The documentary almost managed to reduce a respectable (and very likely) scientific model to nothing more than the latest Roland Emmerich blockbuster.

Later, we played SW:toR, forgoing RP in favor of leveling. We both reached Level 28. And then we watched Craig Gillespie's remake of Fright Night (2011). Now, given the fact that I'm an admirer of the original (1988) and the fact that I hate 3D, I will admit I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder going in. But I was quickly won over. Yeah, the 3D is gimmicky as fuck, and annoyingly intrusive at times (Oh! Look! Blood spurting at the film! Scream!). But the film is both a lot of fun and filled with genuine menace. Most of the casting is superb – Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell (I never would have believed it), Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and (drum roll) David Fucking Tennant. The show really belonged to Tenant and Farrell. I do wish a little more care had been taken casting female roles. Imogen Poots? That was supposed to be an in joke, right? And Toni Collette....well, we know she can act, but I guess the fact that she's comatose for the second half of this film meant she didn't have much incentive to try during the first half. I was disappointed that we didn't get some of the wonderful creature effects from the original – the werewolf and the amazingly creepy bat thing – but still, very good and highly recommended. Even with the annoying 3D shots trying to jump out into you lap. Oh, it also scored points for mentioning Farscape.

After the movie, I read Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Silence of the Asonu" (1998), a fine bit of SF anthropology (also collected in Lightspeed: Year One). And then I finally slept.

Because, you know, you can only write "yesterday I didn't write anything" so many times. It gets old. But yesterday I did write, 1,332 words on a piece called "Scene in the Museum (1896)" for Sirenia Digest #21. It did about 300 words the day before. I'm getting back in the saddle, as they say. I am striving, presently, to write an erotic tale that has neither fantasy nor sf elements (though it has a murder-ballad edge); we shall see how that goes.

The heat continues, though we did get a brief respite yesterday, and it won't be too terrible today — only 90F right now, with a heat index of 98F, high forecast at 96F. But if the meteorologists are to be trusted, the worst of August will arrive later this week. I went five days without leaving the house. Last night, Spooky pushed me out the front door and we had a good and bat-haunted walk. Then, later, we went out again to try to catch a glimpse of this year's Perseid shower, but between the inescapable light pollution of Atlanta and the humidity (which was making a glowing haze of the former), little could be glimpsed of the sky, and no meteors were seen. I think it was about 2:45 a.m. when we came in from not seeing meteors.

Nothing much to say about the last couple of unblogged days. Besides the writing. We're working our way through the Matrix trilogy again: The Matrix on Saturday (nine years already?), then The Matrix Reloaded last night. They hold up well, and the second film is, I think, far better than I gave it credit for being at the time of its original release. I'm still reading bits and pieces of Anaïs Nin, and yesterday Spooky picked up a copy of Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (1998), a sort of modern Victorian erotic novel. We seem to be swaying in that direction these days. Well, that and wooden legs with secret compartments for the stowing of Derringers. I've been getting by on absinthe, iced coffee, Red Bull, pink lemonade, and as little food as possible. Byron came around on Friday night for Dr. Who and didn't leave until sometime after one a.m. It's official: David Tennant has grown on me. Now Byron's in Chicago for a week of job training, so we shall be even more reclusive than usual. On Friday, I guess it was, I read all of Mike Mignola's Jenny Finn, which I'd been meaning to get to for forever. We've had quite a bit of Second Life, though I closed the Palaeozoic Museum until August 17th, while I prepare the cephalopod exhibit. And really, those are the highlights.

This week, I have to decide on the cover artist (likely to be a photographer) for the forthcoming subpress edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder.

I've been pointed towards the blogs of various members of Abney Park: robert_from_ap, abneyangel, nathan_fhtagn, and magdaleneveen. My thanks to ellyssian and chenderson for those links!

Though I think I have made this announcement already, I'll make it again, to avoid confusion: No, I will not be at Dragon*Con this year. I'm too busy, too far behind on deadlines, and, at any rate, I think the days of conventions are behind me.

Okay. It's 12:39, and I must get back to the writing. I'd still love to see more comments on Sirenia Diigest #20!