greygirlbeast | Entries tagged with nar'eth

A day off, but I'm making an entry. Putting behind me a long sleep with all its uneasy, unwelcome dreams. Spooky's making me coffee, which cannot arrive soon enough. Hubero's hiding beneath the bed. Micheal's singing in my ears.

Because I would like to order a number of books from Amazon, I'm going to offer one of the Gauntlet hardbacks of Silk on eBay. Not today, but soon. But here's the thing. This copy is not in mint condition. The dustjacket has some wrinkles, maybe a small tear. It's the copy Spooky read along in while we were doing this latest edit. It's a PC from the numbered limited, of which only 450 copies were printed, long ago sold out. Art by Clive Barker. Signed by me and Poppy (

docbrite). But here's the other thing. I'm going to go through with a red pen and make all the changes to this copy that were made in the Great Revision of March 2007. This is a daunting prospect and will likely require the better part of one day soon. Anyway, this is advance warning. It will be a unique item.

Late last night, I got the initial sketch for "In View of Nothing" from Vince. Subscribers should look for Sirenia Digest #16 sometime in the next week or so. Those who have not subscribed should do so. Subscribe, that is.

Another reminder that Nebari.net is coming down next week. Only the costuming page shall be spared. Look now, or don't.

Oh, and Spooky is obsessed with the godless $1 coins. You know, the recent frell-up that left "In God We Trust" off a whole bunch of US dollars, and then they went into circulation before anyone noticed. She has three she got from the stamp machine at the P.O. She intends to have more. Beware.

A few more comments from readers, regarding Silk, characters, "A Season of Broken Dolls," etc., but I'm putting them behind a cut so as not to dominate people's friends lists.

( Thoughts and Ruminations )

These are all good and thoughtful thoughts, and I cherish them, and I thank each of the authors in question for taking the time to speak. Now, I must go and not work. Somehow.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Phlegra Montes
Current Music: R.E.M., "Find the River"

So, I'd not even gotten around to congratulating The Crüxshadows on landing a spot on the Billboard charts with "Sophia" (off Dreamcypher) when I hear that they've been invited to play in frelling China. Amazing. This calls for a previously unrevealed photo, in which Nar'eth politely requests that Rogue never again talk in his Scoopy-Doo voice (behind the cut, mais oui):

( asking nicely )

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: Agassiz Crater
Current Music: David Bowie, "Thru These Architect's Eyes"

Just saw Thom Yorke perform "Cymbal Rush" on The Henry Rollins Show. Nice. The Eraser is really such a very, very good album.

It is a night of sirens here in Atlanta. Soon, we'll be lost in deepest, darkest Rhode Island, and the nights will be quiet, and I'll no doubt miss the annoying wail of sirens and kids shouting on the street and the blare of motorcycles and so forth.

Way back on Wednesday night, depressed and trying to cheer myself up, I dragged out some of Nar'eth's old things to see how they've been holding up, packed away for the last two years. But I didn't feel like getting into the boots, so I just put those big, heavy-ass leg shields on over my Eeyore slippers. The result was this bit of silliness:

I got three e-mails today, asking if it's okay to message me from my MySpace page or ask to be added to my friends list. And of course it is. That's why it's there. Well, that and the fact that I have this bizarre love of filling out blank forms.

Current Mood: tired, but in a good way
Current Location: Becquerel Crater
Current Music: Spooky playing DragonQuest VIII

I've been sitting here this afternoon thinking about all the different places that Nar'eth came from (besides the obvious), and about the sort of story I might want to do for my next Subterranean Press sf novella (which I'm supposed to write this summer), and this got me thinking about the music video that Garbage did for "Special." I only saw it once on TV, and I don't think I'd even seen the whole thing, but I recalled clearly that I very much liked it. Anyway, I went looking for the video online and ended up at YouTube. You can see video here.

This isn't the complete video. According to Wikipedia, there's an opening that tells us:

In the year 3030, Queen Astarte has taken to the skies to defend her once peaceful homeland from the evil lords of Garbania who seek to rule the universe. She has but one last chance to thwart their wicked plan........

If anyone out there could lay their paws on a higher quality copy and e-mail it my way, or just point me to it, I'd be very appreciative. greygirlbeast(at)gmail(dot)com.

Postscript: I know Y-music has videos, but they don't presently support Mac OS (the fools).

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: Oberon
Current Music: Garbage, "Special"

I might have gotten four and a half hours sleep last night. Possibly. Possibly less. Maybe I'm fighting some unnatural bit of personal evolution. Maybe Nebari sleep a whole lot less than humans. Maybe it's an elvish thing. Maybe I've entirely lost my silly, sleep-deprived mind.

All yesterday was spent preparing for our Ostara ritual, which I thought came off wonderfully. I'm not sure what if anything I should say about it here. I sincerely don't want to become one of those tiresome gits who drones on and on and on about spirituality in her journal. But it was beautiful. We'd decorated our altar with acorns and dogwood and all sorts of wildflowers. Spooky baked honey cakes with flax and molasses, and I dyed brown eggs red. We bathed in hyssop and jasmine. A thunderstorm hit just before we began. During the ritual, after the invocation of the goddess, we planted basil seeds in soil into which I'd used my athame to stir the ashes of resolutions we'd each written down and then burned. Before we dismissed the Watchtowers and before the taking up of the circle, we ate the honey cakes with fresh strawberries and ale. I think next year I'll fix a proper feast for the occasion. Later today, we're taking one of the cakes and a strawberry, the eggs and and some ale out to the two oaks in Freedom Park (see my dream of 3/08/06); it seems right. Oh, while gathering acorns and flowers yesterday, we spotted a Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata), which was a new bird for both of us. And now it's spring, and I've survived another winter.

It doesn't look or feel much like spring out there today, not if you're going by the temp or the cast of the sky, which are both leaning back towards February, but the trees are all going green. That grand pale green of early spring. Warmer weather's on its way.

I'm listening to Moby's "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die," which has been stuck in my head since Sunday night, and the lyrics are making me think of Deacon in the epilogue of Low Red Moon.

I've heard more reports that the hardbacks of The Merewife and False Starts are nice. I haven't seen them yet, but Bill at subpress says there are copies on their way to me now. Today, I shall read "pas-en-arrière, " aloud to Spooky and make any corrections/changes that seem necessary. Then I may begin a new vignette (or that may not happen until tomorrow). There's reading I need to do. There's always reading I need to do. Also, "Night," which had been planned as a subpress chapbook will now be appearing instead in a forthcoming issue of Subterranean magazine. I don't know which one yet, but yes, the art I'm doing for the story will still appear with it. I much prefer this to the chapbook plan, as the magazine will get a larger readership for the story than the chapbook would have gotten.

setsuled, the way things have been going on Wikipedia, I think you're going to have to do a new pin-up: Nar'eth, Barbarian Queen of the Ankylosaurs.

Please note that only 22 hours and 41 minutes remain on the "choose your own letter" Frog Toes and Tentacles auction. You snooze, you lose. Also, please have a look at the other auctions. The platypus will be grateful, as will I. And there's a bunch of stuff about gender polarity and Wicca (

morganxpage, I'm looking at you) that I want to put down, that I need to write out here, but it's going to have to wait until a later entry. The day's not getting any younger.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Moby, "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die"

It a very chilly 38F (33F when you factor in windchill) here in Atlanta, and right now I'm wishing that I were somewhere winter never touches. It's that blue sky, more than anything. No clouds, no haze. Just that abominable shade of blue that goes on and on forever. Anyway...

Not a lot to be said for yesterday. Mostly, it went pretty much as I expected it to go. Today will likely be more difficult. As I've said, I'm not a reductionist, at least not as a writer, so this whole thing's like pulling teeth. There was a little more weirdness than I'd expected, though, as I ended up spending much of the afternoon researching the Bohemian Grove, bouncing from one conspiracy website to another, trying to divide fact for fantasy, evidence from paranoia, and also trying not the think about flabby old Republican men running about buck naked in the woods of Sonoma County, California, worshiping Molech, pissing on redwoods, and having sex with nubile young boys. Blegh. If only I could scrub my brain with Brillo pads. Burning Man for the tyrants of the New World Order. It frells with the mind. As the day wore on, I found the whole thing harder and harder to simply dismiss out of hand.

Copies of Frog Toes and Tentacles were just deposited on my front porch. What a beautiful, beautiful book. I'm so very happy that I took this project on. This may be the prettiest book I've ever done, thanks largely to the patient talent of Vince Locke. If you pre-ordered, you should be getting your copy very soon.

Last night, we watched Cosmos, one of my favourite episodes, "Encyclopedia Galactica." The Rosetta Stone, The Drake/Greenbank Equation, SETI, etc.

My thanks to Leh'agvoi, for sending me a marvelous pirate Nar'eth pin-up for Nebari.net. Hopefully, I can get it uploaded this evening.

That's probably it for now. Time to remake the batter which might someday become doughnuts. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. Thanks.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: Jethro Tull, "Life's a Long Song"

This morning my head is too full of things I don't want to talk about.

Yesterday, I proofed/edited/whatever chapters Three and Four ("Deacon" and "Sadie," respectively) of Threshold. It's sort of a shock, reading me as I was writing in 1998. Indeed, my voice has changed. And the challenge, working on Threshold now, is to understand and appreciate and not judge too harshly the me of seven years ago. I don't write in that voice anymore. I've found it necessary to move on to new incarnations, but that doesn't actually invalidate the earlier incarnation. I think my instinct is to tear all this older stuff down, in some desperate effort to validate the new voice. I think a lot of authors who find it necessary to reinvent themselves from time to time (and I am certainly one of that sort) have a knee-jerk instinct to tear down what has come before. But it seems wrongheaded. Threshold is still as valid as it ever was (or wasn't). The character's are still as real to me, the events still as vital, even if the language is something rather different from what I find myself using these days.

I was more brash and impulsive and distant back then. I see that in Deacon and Sadie. I was much more unhappy. I see that in Chance. I was more lost. I see that in Dancy. It's a snapshot of a former me. But as the past is only a previous present, or, for that matter, a previous future, all I will ever write are snapshots of myself at some earlier time. As soon as I speak or type a word, it's past. Anyway, it's a strange, strange thing, reading Threshold again after so many years, after so many other books and stories.

And I see why I'm still writing, all these years later. I mean, besides having to pay the bills and eat and all that inconvenient stuff. I'm still writing because I still haven't said whatever it is I'm trying to say. I doubt I ever shall. I doubt, ultimately, that any writer ever does. You just keep trying.

I finally got back to Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head last night. It took me that long to forgive him his silly daliance with Jeremy Narby's perversions of biology. I thought about playing more Call of Cthulhu, but watched South Park instead. This game and I, I just don't know how it's gonna turn out. Sometimes the whole first-person thing gives me motion sickness. I don't know if this happens to lots of people or if it has something to do with my being blind in one eye. Anyway, at the moment, I'm stuck in the Gilman Hotel with a bunch of Innsmouth townsfolk knocking down my door. I've died about twenty times, trying to escape. It's truly a frelling terrifying scene, and it makes me nauseaous everytime I try to get through it. On the one hand, that adds a nice touch of realism. On the other, it makes me somewhat reluctant to play. We shall see.

The first issue of Sirenia Digest is almost ready to be e-mailed out to our 90 current subscribers. Remember, this issue contains the original draft of Chapter Three of Daughter of Hounds, before it was radically rewritten. The erotica content begins with the December issue. If you're interested in subscribing, but still haven't, just click here. Indeed, Friday is a good day to subscribe to Sirenia Digest. Trust me.

There's a new Boschen and Nesuko online, which makes me wish I had time to work on Nebari.net. I do have time to post a few more Nar'eth photos, since they did make me feel a tiny bit less glum yesterday. And besides, I got an e-mail asking why no one's ever seen photos of Nar'eth's back (photo's behind the cut, for those what ain't in the mood for Nebari backs):

( Nar'eth got back )

This also made me feel a little better. I love poetic justice.

Okay. Tonight, I get Harry Potter. Right now, it's time to do that thing that I do.

Current Mood: still recovering from DoH dash
Current Music: Shriekback, "Nemisis" (extended mix)

Winter has reached Atlanta. On Tuesday, we had highs in the low 80s, a low of about 60F. Last night, low 30s. Tonight, lows are forecast in the frelling 20s. Oh, but this is the year I've sworn to make peace with the cold. Yes, I have sworn it. It's here on the list, right after spin straw into gold...

But, even with all the shivering, I managed to have a fairly productive day yesterday. We did Chapter Two of Threshold, the very first time I wrote Dancy Flammarion. The scene in the Birmingham Public Library. I discovered a huge continuity error between Threshold and the Dancy short stories, which was annoying, but I think I've already forumlated a logical explanation. Also, I've pretty much finished the first Sirenia PDF; just waiting on one more thing before I send the text to be formatted. And I answered the first round of questions for a new interview.Yay me. Also also, we're running a little slow with getting the last bunch of eBay purchases in the mail, but they'll be coming soon, promise.

I've learned from Bill Schafer that twenty copies of the limited edition of Frog Toes and Tentacles have become available again. So, it's not quite sold out after all, so if you've been lamenting having missed out on the limited (which is leatherbound and includes one more vignette than the trade edition), now's your chance.

Urgh. Sorry. I'm feeling rather incredibly and profoundly glum this morning. I don't want to go back to bed, but under the bed might just do the trick. Maybe one smallish Nar'eth photo will help...

Actually, it might take a second, larger one. This pic's from the October 5th, 2002 "Save Farscape" benefit at The (now deceased) Chamber. Don't ask me what Chiana and Nar'eth (pre-leg shields) are doing in a broom closet, 'cause I can't remember (but my thanks to the

lomer for this photo, and yes that was a lot of parentheticals):

Well...no. I still feel pretty glum. Anyway, time to make the doughnuts. Ena sn'ial, as they say...

Current Mood: cold and morose
Current Music: Madonna, "Frozen" (no, really)

I began Chapter Ten of Daughter of Hounds yesterday, even though I only got 837 words into it. And I've realized that Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon has had a certain influence on the narrative structure of this novel, which might be readily apparent and which might not. We shall see. Anyway, I have the day off. I have to go to the market, and then I have to cook. We're having dinner with friends tonight, and I'm bringing the main course.

There was another pirate dream last night, though, unfortunately, it wasn't the fun sort of dream I had the night before. I was sitting in bed this morning, being a little weirded out at two consecutive nights of pirate dreams, until I realized a possible trigger. For two nights now, I've fallen asleep with Alien: Resurrection in Spooky's iBook. Both nights, I've made it as far as the part where Elgyn (Michael Wincott) is talking with Gen. Martin Perez (Dan Hedaya) and describes Call (Winona Ryder) as "a little girl playing pirates." So, maybe that's doing it. Or maybe Nar'eth found a wormhole and is screwing around with time. Either way, last night I was on an immense sailing ship (well, Nar'eth was on a ship). It was night, and I was up on the foredeck alone, looking at the stars, which were brilliant in the warm night. The air smelled like salt and damp wood, and there was a school of dolphins just in front of the ship. I could hear the sails billowing in the wind. And then I wasn't alone anymore. There was a man sitting on a wooden crate, smoking a pipe. He was a very tall, thin man, sort of Ichabod Crane. I sat down near him, and he started talking to me about whaling and ambergris. He asked if there were whales where I came from, and I said "No, not exactly." And that's as much of it as I clearly remember. Later, there was something else about whales, but I'm not sure what. But I think it's time for Leh'agvoi to do a "pirate Nar'eth" pin-up.

Speaking of nautical things, I got an e-mail from Stephen Jones this morning informing me that Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth has shipped. The story I wrote for it, "From Cabinet 34, Drawer Six," was the catalyst for my preface in To Charles Fort, With Love, though that story doesn't actually appear in the book. I'm very much looking forward to this anthology (from Fedogan and Bremer). It's been a very long time coming. I wrote "From Cabinet 34, Drawer Six" in October and November 2001, and when Steve told me he was doing another Innsmouth anthology, I promised the story to him. Here's one of four illustrations that Les Edwards did for the volume (behind the cut):

( Aground )

If you should have a clear sky tonight, look for Mars. This weekend the planet is closer to Earth than it will be again until 2018.

Spooky and I are ignoring the time change again this year, remaining on Daylight Savings Time. It worked very well for us last year. Not only did we keep an hour of afternoon most everyone else lost, but I was never late for anything.

We're beginning to puzzle out how the erotic vignette subscription service will work, how we'll be handling payment, etc. There will eventually be a webpage where you can register at www.caitlinrkiernan.com/polymorph, but not yet. Meanwhile, I'm still watching the poll...

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Antony and the Johnsons, "Bad Girl"

Yesterday was consumed by the busyness of writing, and I had to admit that it had been fairly wonderful, having spent five consecutive days consumed with the act of writing. I signed the signature sheets for The Merewife. I plowed through a bunch of e-mail. Ted Naifeh and I talked about doing an Alabaster panel at Dragon*Con 2006. I lamented not being in a position, financially, to go to the World Fantasy Convention in Madison this year. Truthfully, I don't know how so many writers can afford to do three or four or five cons a year. I do not know the secret. Anyway, what I didn't do was spend the day lying on a blanket in the park, half asleep, recovering from the end of Chapter Nine of Daughter of Hounds and preparing for the start of Chapter Ten, which was all I'd wanted to do. Nonetheless, I will do my best to begin Chapter Ten today. The beginning of the end. The beginning of THE END. I was telling Spooky last night that this ms. feels like a great unedited film, like I'm almost done with primary shooting and now I have months of post-production work ahead of me, and I've never had a novel ms. feel that way before. It's not a good feeling.

I've come to expect almost anything from my dreams, but I really don't expect them to be fun. Yet, last night, it would seem that I had a fun dream. I can't recall striking my head against any hard surfaces yesterday. Anyway, I was at a pirate party. That is, it was a party, and almost everyone there was a pirate of one sort of another, except for the mermaids and a bunch of Japanese girls dressed as cyborgs. And I was Nar'eth, and I was playing a game that was almost chess, but a little like shooting craps, with Mary Read and Anne Bonny. We were smoking opium from long-stemmed pipes carved from the teeth of sperm whales. Somewhere in the noisy, smoky room, there were crossdressing Thai boy whores, and a woman having sex with a very large horse. And nothing in particular happened. It went on that way for quite some time. We played several games of the chess/craps game, drank rum from hollowed-out pineapples (I don't like rum, but Nar'eth probably would), and regaled each other with tales of sea monsters and buried treasure. If I could dream like this every night, I'd never want to be awake.

Here in the "real" world, last night Spooky and I were determined to find just the right films for Halloween Kindernacht, films that, even if they weren't good, would at least be enjoyable. We started out with Roger Corman's Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), which is sort of like The Creature from the Black Lagoon, only with hayseeds instead of marine biologists and geologists. Spooky observed that the monsters looked like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants, only with tentacles, and I was hard pressed to disagree. We followed this with a film neither of us had seen — Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973; also known as Lady Dracula, Lemora, the Lady Dracula, and The Legendary Curse of Lemora, directed and written by Richard Blackburn, the guy who went on to write Eaiting Raoul). It more than made up for all the rubber-suited foolishness of the mutant leeches. Truly, this is a brilliantly weird film. I know now that Dame Darcy is capable of time travel, because she is clearly the true inspiration for the film, along with The Shadow Over Innsmouth and In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers. If you have not seen this bizarre wonder (and I think most people haven't), track it down at once. If the Coen Bros. could be persuaded to remake this film, it would be the draddest thing imaginable. Afterwards, Spooky fell asleep, and I watched Rope (1948) on TCM.

More of the new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology yesterday — "The nature of Mauisaurus hassti Hector, 1874 (Reptilia; Plesiosauria)." Oh, and on a somewhat related note, word of a new CBS poll reminding us that, though they are entirely reliant upon science for their way of life, most Americans are still living in the frelling Middle Ages when it comes to actually understanding the most fundamental scientific principles: "Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved." This isn't exactly news, but it's still damned depressing, and it makes me wonder how many of the poll's participants would also give a thumbs-up to the Easter Bunny, a flat earth, gay Republicans, and El Chupacabra.

And speaking of polls, the poll to guage interest in me doing a $10/per month weird erotic vignette by subscription service is still being watched. As of right now, 80 people have asked to be included. Spooky and I have begun laying out exactly how the service will be operated, and I'll post the details as they're worked out. I'm very excited about the project and hope more people will decide to participate. Remember, if you can't vote in the poll but want to be included, drop me an e-mail (at lowredmail@mac.com) or chime in on the "Vignette Subscription" thread on the phorum. Thanks. Now, Chapter Ten ahoy!

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Ladytron, "Destroy Everything You Touch"

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Caitlín R. Kiernan

February 2012

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