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Stumbled across this online today, and I thought I'd share...
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May. 23rd, 2011 12:42 pmAnd the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they'd made.
And the sign flashed out it's warning,
In the words that it was forming...
---
I am so very not awake. Still, it would be a decent enough day to entertain comments, so please feel free. To comment. I'll be here all day. Anyway, I took all the proper pills, but was still awake until almost five ayem. Sometimes, the old neurochemistry insists on having it's way, pills or no. Which is actually oddly comforting. The triumph of Nature over Pharmacy, even if it's annoying Nature. Then again, if I lived a more natural life, in a more natural world, I might not be suckling at the teat of the Pharmacy.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,790 words on Chapter Two of Blood Oranges. Yesterday, someone asked me of the novel, "Is there any tongue-in-cheek left?" Thinking on that question, and having talked it over with Spooky, I think the answer is yes. But it's not really a spoof or a satire. It's simplest to point to Tarantino's films. Is Kill Bill a spoof or a satire? No, not really. It's keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. But it also has an undeniable reverence for and fascination with that source material. Ergo, more homage, less satire. This goes back to the danger of setting out to do...well, anything. I really do hate ParaRom (which, by the way, I'm told by reliable sources is quickly waning in sales and popularity). But I also really do love the sources it draws upon. Also, I can only manage comedy for short bursts. I could never write a book that's funny page-to-page. Blood Oranges is keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. It frequently rolls its eyes. I've never written anything so forthrightly concerned with pop culture (in this case, what pop culture would have us believe about monsters).
Sometimes, we set out to make fun of a thing, then discover it's not really worth making fun of...well, not at tiresome length. Comedy can quickly become dull. Instead, we discover this other thing that's a lot more interesting. The "werepire" novel began as a joke; any joke that tries to go on for a hundred thousand words is doomed from the start.
---
We have a new round of eBay auctions. And here were are, my 47th birthday imminent. I have a wishlist at Amazon, and yeah, it's a little late, but ain't nothin' wrong with late gifts, right?
Yesterday, I read "A partial skeleton of the Late Cretaceous lamniform shark, Archaeolamna kopingensis, the Pierre Shale of western Kansas, U.S.A," in the January JVP.
Last night, we watched David Slade's adaptation of 30 Days of Night again. And it's actually a much better film than I remembered it being. There are big problems (pacing, for example), but it still delivers, and few films in recent memory have had such memorable vampires. Alien, gleefully vicious, sexy despite their repulsiveness...all the things vampires ought to be.
And then we played Rift. And then we read Kathe Koja. Then...well, back where this entry began.
And that's my cue to get to work.
Blearily,
Aunt Beast
To the neon god they'd made.
And the sign flashed out it's warning,
In the words that it was forming...
---
I am so very not awake. Still, it would be a decent enough day to entertain comments, so please feel free. To comment. I'll be here all day. Anyway, I took all the proper pills, but was still awake until almost five ayem. Sometimes, the old neurochemistry insists on having it's way, pills or no. Which is actually oddly comforting. The triumph of Nature over Pharmacy, even if it's annoying Nature. Then again, if I lived a more natural life, in a more natural world, I might not be suckling at the teat of the Pharmacy.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,790 words on Chapter Two of Blood Oranges. Yesterday, someone asked me of the novel, "Is there any tongue-in-cheek left?" Thinking on that question, and having talked it over with Spooky, I think the answer is yes. But it's not really a spoof or a satire. It's simplest to point to Tarantino's films. Is Kill Bill a spoof or a satire? No, not really. It's keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. But it also has an undeniable reverence for and fascination with that source material. Ergo, more homage, less satire. This goes back to the danger of setting out to do...well, anything. I really do hate ParaRom (which, by the way, I'm told by reliable sources is quickly waning in sales and popularity). But I also really do love the sources it draws upon. Also, I can only manage comedy for short bursts. I could never write a book that's funny page-to-page. Blood Oranges is keenly aware of the layers of homage within it, and it often pokes fun at itself and the source material. It frequently rolls its eyes. I've never written anything so forthrightly concerned with pop culture (in this case, what pop culture would have us believe about monsters).
Sometimes, we set out to make fun of a thing, then discover it's not really worth making fun of...well, not at tiresome length. Comedy can quickly become dull. Instead, we discover this other thing that's a lot more interesting. The "werepire" novel began as a joke; any joke that tries to go on for a hundred thousand words is doomed from the start.
---
We have a new round of eBay auctions. And here were are, my 47th birthday imminent. I have a wishlist at Amazon, and yeah, it's a little late, but ain't nothin' wrong with late gifts, right?
Yesterday, I read "A partial skeleton of the Late Cretaceous lamniform shark, Archaeolamna kopingensis, the Pierre Shale of western Kansas, U.S.A," in the January JVP.
Last night, we watched David Slade's adaptation of 30 Days of Night again. And it's actually a much better film than I remembered it being. There are big problems (pacing, for example), but it still delivers, and few films in recent memory have had such memorable vampires. Alien, gleefully vicious, sexy despite their repulsiveness...all the things vampires ought to be.
And then we played Rift. And then we read Kathe Koja. Then...well, back where this entry began.
And that's my cue to get to work.
Blearily,
Aunt Beast
'Cause it is in the sky, of course.
May. 19th, 2008 10:31 amHow bad can a day possibly be, when it begins by finding a note you left to yourself five years ago, so that you would once again discover the mind-shredding joy that is the Spongmonkeys? And I love that the dorks over at the Modern Humorist deemed the Spongmonkeys "what you see before you die." Indeed. Yippie ki yay, motherfuckers.
Which is to say, yesterday — despite my great empty office — I did an exceptional 1,751 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree and found THE END of the chapter. I think I stopped writing about six pm, but then I went back a little after nine and worked on the chapter's seven footnotes until almost eleven. I think the footnotes work. Of course, what sucks walruses through drinking straws is that now that I am in that space the story occupies, now that I have found the character, I have to set it all aside until after I reach Providence a couple of weeks from now. I should be horsewhipped. But there you go. The packing must be done, and I'll just have to get back into The Red Tree ASAP once we've moved.
Not much to last night. A fairly bad seizure yesterday. More packing. More Millennium ("The Pest House," "Owls," and "Roosters."). Half the day, my stomach was a roiling cramp fest, thank you doxycycline, thank you Miss Tick. Really, I just don't handle antibiotics very well. My digestive system's enough of a mess to start with. And my frelling face still hurts, even though the dentist couldn't find anything (admittedly, she didn't actually open the Bad Tooth). But these are, of course, small, small pains. Did I mention the Spongmonkeys? Oh. Okay. Well, anyway, no Second Life last night. Nary a single moment spent in the metaverse. Late, after Millennium, Spooky read to me from House of Leaves — much of Chapter XVII, which not only deals with the three psychological models seeking to explain why Navidson returned to the house on Ash Tree Lane (the Kellog-Antwerk Claim, the Bister-Frieden Criteria, and the Haven-Slocum Theory), but also includes the letter he wrote to Karen prior to Exploration #5, so much of which goes into Poe's song, "Haunted."
Don't cry,
There's always a way,
Here in November in this house of leaves
We'll pray.
Please, I know it's hard to believe,
To see a perfect forest
Through so many splintered trees.
You and me,
And these shadows keep on changing
I think I'm trying very hard not to think about the impending move. I do not fear it, and I know we'll be ready, but the anticipation is getting to me. Counting today (midnight on the 19th to midnight on the 28th, which is in no way actually accurate), we have only ten days remaining, 240 hours, 14,400 minutes, or 864,000 (or so) seconds. Time approximate, at best. I do dread the long drive (well, I don't drive, so the long ride), with Hubero, who is most emphatically not fond of cars or trucks. I think Spooky is much more nervous than am I, and for her, this is simply going home.
I've not listed the books in print in a while, the ones I need to sell well (new copies, not the "used" copies Amazon gets kick-backs on), in order to remain a publishing author. So, here goes. Please, if you haven't, pick them up. Thank you.
Daughter of Hounds
Silk
Threshold
Low Red Moon
Murder of Angels
Tales of Pain and Wonder
Now, platypus. Where the frak's my coffee?
Which is to say, yesterday — despite my great empty office — I did an exceptional 1,751 words on Chapter One of The Red Tree and found THE END of the chapter. I think I stopped writing about six pm, but then I went back a little after nine and worked on the chapter's seven footnotes until almost eleven. I think the footnotes work. Of course, what sucks walruses through drinking straws is that now that I am in that space the story occupies, now that I have found the character, I have to set it all aside until after I reach Providence a couple of weeks from now. I should be horsewhipped. But there you go. The packing must be done, and I'll just have to get back into The Red Tree ASAP once we've moved.
Not much to last night. A fairly bad seizure yesterday. More packing. More Millennium ("The Pest House," "Owls," and "Roosters."). Half the day, my stomach was a roiling cramp fest, thank you doxycycline, thank you Miss Tick. Really, I just don't handle antibiotics very well. My digestive system's enough of a mess to start with. And my frelling face still hurts, even though the dentist couldn't find anything (admittedly, she didn't actually open the Bad Tooth). But these are, of course, small, small pains. Did I mention the Spongmonkeys? Oh. Okay. Well, anyway, no Second Life last night. Nary a single moment spent in the metaverse. Late, after Millennium, Spooky read to me from House of Leaves — much of Chapter XVII, which not only deals with the three psychological models seeking to explain why Navidson returned to the house on Ash Tree Lane (the Kellog-Antwerk Claim, the Bister-Frieden Criteria, and the Haven-Slocum Theory), but also includes the letter he wrote to Karen prior to Exploration #5, so much of which goes into Poe's song, "Haunted."
Don't cry,
There's always a way,
Here in November in this house of leaves
We'll pray.
Please, I know it's hard to believe,
To see a perfect forest
Through so many splintered trees.
You and me,
And these shadows keep on changing
I think I'm trying very hard not to think about the impending move. I do not fear it, and I know we'll be ready, but the anticipation is getting to me. Counting today (midnight on the 19th to midnight on the 28th, which is in no way actually accurate), we have only ten days remaining, 240 hours, 14,400 minutes, or 864,000 (or so) seconds. Time approximate, at best. I do dread the long drive (well, I don't drive, so the long ride), with Hubero, who is most emphatically not fond of cars or trucks. I think Spooky is much more nervous than am I, and for her, this is simply going home.
I've not listed the books in print in a while, the ones I need to sell well (new copies, not the "used" copies Amazon gets kick-backs on), in order to remain a publishing author. So, here goes. Please, if you haven't, pick them up. Thank you.
Daughter of Hounds
Silk
Threshold
Low Red Moon
Murder of Angels
Tales of Pain and Wonder
Now, platypus. Where the frak's my coffee?
Tags:
- doh,
- funny,
- house of leaves,
- lrm,
- moa,
- moving,
- silk,
- the red tree,
- threshold,
- topaw
funny ha-ha
Nov. 18th, 2007 05:04 pmSo, this quiz thingy, via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
humglum, via setsuled, via robyn_ma. The results hardly surprise me at all...
( My Humour Style )
humglum, via setsuled, via robyn_ma. The results hardly surprise me at all...
