Today I disassembled, and with the help of Miss Thursday, moved, a big unwieldy heavy awful desk. I sustained an injury. Did I sustain this injury in taking the thing into bits? In hoisting it to carrying height? In taking it downstairs? In shoving it into a vehicle? In getting it out again and wedging it awkwardly through a door just slightly too small? No, my injury was not so sustained (tho’ if it turns out that I’ve damaged Miss Thursday by squishing her between a desk and a huge monitor, it did happen during the furniture-moving and I apologize.)

I twisted my ankle pretty badly — worse than I’ve ever done it before, at least — by going downstairs too energetically. I AM THE QUEEN OF THE KLUTZES! ALL LESSER KLUTZES WILL BOW BEFORE ME!

You showed polite interest at the intentions. You tutted and soothed at the neuroses. Now, thrill to the fantabulous conclusion!

Today I received an acceptance letter from the young yet happening MFA program at Pacific University! WHOOOOOO! If I were any more visibly bouncing, Qubit would pounce on me, sure I was a cat toy purchased for her amusement. This school was my first choice, and I’m incredibly happy that they accepted me, and relieved to have the wait for news cut so unaccountably short! Huzzah!

And to celebrate, I’ll go work on some fiction for ye. Can you believe it? I am in! I am a grad student! (or will be in mid-June, at any rate!)

I think I’ll blame Disney for this. Disney has made millions of dollars by parlaying successful films and characters into ‘experiences’, and the musical versions of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast are essentially Disney experiences that range around the country instead of staying in one place exerting gravitational pull on children and wallets.

But The Lord of the Rings needed a musical? Good God in Heaven. Only incredible composition makes Les Misérables work as a musical (and it barely does, if you’ve read the book), and it, at least, has a deeply personal story at its core, with epic elements draped around it. All seven volumes of The Lord of the Rings in one play? And they’re surprised it’s getting bad reviews?

Sheesh, people. If you crave epic Ring musicals that much, get your Wagner on.

Some time ago I reviewed Batman: The Killing Joke. It was not a positive review. This, my first experience with Alan Moore, left me unwilling to sample his work again; even when I heard that Joss Whedon adored one of his series, Promethea. (Usually, if Joss Whedon advocated jumping off a cliff, I would assume there was a really fun trampoline at the bottom or a dimensional portal into fairyland on the way down and act accordingly.)

My views on The Killing Joke do not seem to hold wide sway in the Fanverse. My negative review on Amazon is one of the only sour pickles in a sweet barrel, and more than a few fanboys have told me how wrong I am in some comic book store or other. So imagine my glee when I heard, a few months back, several very trenchant quotes from a well-known comics writer about TKJ, along the very same lines as my diatribe. That writer? Alan Moore. Oh my. Apparently he rather hates TKJ himself, even as legions of his devoted worship it as one of the fewmets of the Great Dragon.

This, along with the praise of my own Great Dragon Whedon, put me in a more positive frame of mind towards Mr. Moore, and so when I found myself in a comic book store with a gift certificate in my hot little hand and the colorful cover of Promethea before me, I gave it a try.

‘Oh my’ is right. Promethea, at least the two volumes I have thus far read, is a stirringly wondrous story about the power of myth and the imagination, set in a drolly imagined [Well, parallel timeline with more advanced technology, and scienceheroes, and magic. Whatever!|text|near-future], and fashioned with great care and love. It’s beautiful, funny, intelligent, and resonant. On top of that, the art actually lives up to the idea (not always the case in comics/graphic novels) and even the color adds to the wonder, mystery, and eldritch loveliness (again, not always the case. Sandman, I am looking ATCHOO!)

I am unsure how much to reveal of the plot, because I went into it blind and hugely enjoyed the journey. Let us just say, it’s about stories; the ones we create and the ones that have dwelt for long centuries in the cauldron of our mythologies; their power over us and our power over them. It’s an empowering story for bookworms :)

So far, if I had to name a fault in Promethea, it would be that the stories and mythology, the history of the mystical and physical worlds, are rather occidentocentric, and not just in areas where it would reflect the characters’ bias. I’m hoping this changes in later volumes; for the moment, it puts a strange regional cap on concepts and themes that otherwise seem to stretch majestically on into the infinite and universal.

Bottom line: If you love myths and playing with them; Mage: the Ascension or even Sandman, you owe this story a try. And especially, oh especially, if you’re an English major and want to be told how important that is. grin

A few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje, recorded on tapes. The reader was Alan Cummings, and he was perfect; I loved listening to the story, time-jumping and lyrical, as it trickled out of my boombox in his quiet, precise voice. By the second-to-last cassette, however, that voice had acquired an unnatural sing-song quality. Loud, soft, loud, soft, in a pattern my father says is caused by demagnetization of just one side of the cassette. I struggled through that tape, rewinding to catch every word. The last tape, however, was hopeless.

Today, I went to the library to get the book on paper, and finish that last sixth of the work. What should I find, however? They have several audio copies of it! In looking for the CD copy, I found tapes. I paid my overdue fines, checked out my treasure, and rushed out to my car. I listened to almost half of the second-to-last tape over again, getting my bearings in the stream of words. I put in the last tape.

“She left him eventually, in the Una Palma Motel room in Bottega Springs. Left nothing of herself for him to hold onto.

sob

The Grey City I
The Grey City II
The Grey City III
The Grey City IV
The Grey City V
The Grey City VI
The Grey City VII
The Grey City VIII
The Grey City IX
The Grey City X
The Grey City XI

People were coming and going on the street ahead of them — they seemed furtive, as those in the street they had just left did, but these were all men. On the corner, Carys saw another boy. This one was dressed not in stenciled sackcloth, but in a bedraggled velvet suit, one that might once have belonged to a little lord in an old painting, spilling long curls over a now-vanished ruff. The back of his bowler, now towards the sisters, was enlivened by the tops of two peacock plumes, staring.

As they came closer, Carys saw that the curious figure was leaning on an umbrella, not a broom as he had supposed. “I beg your pardon,” said she, and was surprised to see a wrinkled face turn to her. The old man was tiny, his entire person, toe to plumes, stretching only a foot higher than Carys did herself.

“Yeeeeesh?” he said, with a grin clearly wood-grained.

Carys stuttered, but Eirian stepped in. “Sir, we were hoping you might be able to help us find our way.”

“Way? Mishter Shneadle findsh many thingsh for many people, little duchesshesh.” Far from being ashamed of his false teeth and the resultant whistling in his speech, he seemed to flaunt it. “But he requiresh shpeshificationsh.”

“Well, I had a full address, but it’s lost now,” said Carys. “Hardock Street?”

“Ah! In the Shouthdownsh. What’sh your businessh there?”

Carys was discomfited, but Eirian answered — she rather liked the funny little man. “We’ve an aunt and uncle waiting for us. Or, at least, they would be waiting for us had the letter been sent before Mother died. But we’ve an aunt and an uncle, at any rate.”

“Have you really?” said Shneadle, or Sneadle, his voice half insinuating and half wistful. His eyes, blue in their swaddling of wrinkles, watered slightly. Carys twitched her sister’s little hand in annoyance, and nodded to the little man, trying to force certainty into her gaze.

Just then, a woman came out from the flaking gilt doorway nearest to Sneadle’s, or Shneadle’s, corner. She was sturdy and quite tall, with black hair and more than a bit of painted color — purple above her stern eyes, red on her cheeks and lips, and a swath of white across her broad bosom, above tight ruffles of lurid magenta. “Wotchoo got there, Sneadle?” she called.

“Nothing, ma’am, nothing at all. Leashtwaysh, jusht shome little girlsh ashking directionsh.”

“Little girls?” said the giantess with interest, peering appraisingly down at the two. They squirmed closer together.

“Yesh,” he responded, and threw a quick glance at Carys, his eyes rolling like a cornered animal’s. “But…they’re messhengersh! Losht their way, dontcha know, but urgently exshpected at both endsh.”

A sooty brow shot up, but the homunculus held his wooden smile taut. The woman snorted. “Send them on their way, then, Shneadle, and stop wasting your time and our money.” She turned away.

Something relaxed in the very air, and Shneadle’s (or Sneadle’s) grin suddenly seemed genuine, for all its wood grain.

“Right, my prinshesshesh. Run Shouth along thish shtreet, which ish Threadneedle — no, better head Wesht first. Wesht to Button Shtreet, and avoid Threadneedle all together.” He looked over his shoulder at the gilt door. “Turn left on Button, there, then walk for almosht a mile, turn right on Orchard, left on Brew’ry, left at Posht Alley, and Hardock will, ash they shay, preshent itshelf.”

The girls nodded solemnly, and backed away from Threadneedle and the strange little man, who winked at them furiously for as long as they could tell, before a man in a long coat slunk up to him, also, it seemed, for directions; and the girls turned onto Button Street, disappearing from his sight.

The Grey City XIII

I promise I am workin’ on some fiction for y’all. In the meantime, a sampling of wonderings from my brain.

Are there people who are something like mexican-fast-food hipsters? Instead of looking for the newest and most obscure indie rock band, they look for the newest taco truck or tiny taco restaurant in a two room shack by the side of the road. They go there obsessively and eat until either the business dies, in which case they go on and on about it to their friends for years; or it starts being successful, at which point they move on in disgust, looking for a more indie taco to consume?

In the last few days I have seen Qubit consume or try to consume a rubber band, and packing tape. I wonder, does she actually think these things taste good? Or is there an office supply store in her stomach she is trying to stock?

When it’s slow at the pet supply store, do the employees kill time by guessing which section — cat, dog, ‘small animal’, et cetera — each entering patron will head for? I would. I wonder if I look like a Cat Section visitor.

Here! Big chunky chunks of it! The latest I EVER remember it snowing here was in February, on my birthday, when I was little.

It turned into rain, eventually, but what a beautiful moment! Ryan SMSed me to look, and there it was. Big, fluffy clumps of flakes wafting down from the sky, flying casual, as if there was nothing to get excited about at all….

So, I have many, many opinions on Oscar fashions, but I couldn’t think of an excuse to unleash them on my poor, unsuspecting readers until this moment. So here it is. Take cover if you were expecting fiction.

They really aren’t kidding about beauty and the eye of the beholder. I am a woman of strong opinions, and, okay, I’ll admit it, I tend to think they’re right. Especially my aesthetic opinions (for instance, Whisker of Evil, by Rita Mae Brown ‘and Sneakie Pie Brown’ her cat, is a terrible, twee, badly-constructed and facile book; I can support this with quotes from the text, or could if I hadn’t already sold it back.) But the hazy hivemind of the fashion-conscious Internet often seems to tiptoe its way to hypotheses that I find completely mystifying. I’m not sure whether it’s just that they’re all so frightened of appearing wrong that the first time someone shows a shimmer of opinion, they all jump on and magnify that into the accepted fact; or whether they have all made their decisions about people long ago and continue to say, “Ah yes, she’s a brilliant fashionista” no matter WHAT she turns up wearing.

So, for instance, everyone agrees that Naomi Watts should have worn something with more color and less ripping (tho’ no one used my brilliant line that apparently she has very energetic cats and lets them nest in her wardrobe), but her lopsided hair, which seemed to underline the chaos of her gown, was apparently ‘best hair’. So much for my opinion.

Still on hair, apparently we are all impressed by Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel hair (with straggly frizzies. Dude, new wax would fix that.) Umm, when Diane Keaton wore a tux to the Oscars a few years ago, everyone said, “Umm, you already DID Annie Hall,” but we’re supposed to admire Aniston’s reruns? Hmm. Also, I thought she looked like she’d been up all night and caked makeup and a fake smile over the top, but apparently she was ‘radiant’ and ‘glamorous’. Hmm. Man, I keep striking out! (I’m probably just an anti-tanning fuddy-duddy.)

I’ve been told Salma Hayek’s outfit was ‘risky’ and ‘bold’. Umm. It was structurally sound, and if you MEAN the color, of COURSE you mere mortals cannot wear that color, but that’s an advantage as far as Salma, goddess of beauty, is concerned. There is no risk for HER! I thought Keira Knightley was the best-dressed mortal there, and I have been told her necklace didn’t match her dress, and she was ‘vampy’, and ‘overdone’. I thought Sandra Bullock looked a bit like the Corpse Bride from the bust up, and apparently she’s ‘fetching’. At least we all agree on the real Corpse Bride, Helena Bonham Carter.

The struggle continues. I think Nicole Kidman is STILL campaigning to steal the part of the White Witch from Tilda Swinton, or at least Magical White Witch Barbie, and apparently she’s ‘classic’ and ‘gorgeous’. I think Michelle Williams MIGHT have pulled that color off if she hadn’t worn bright red lipstick…and apparently she looked great. I think Uma Thurman has finally made up for years of wacky red carpet antics with a superb gown, and no one even comments.

So, in short, world, we do not agree. Therefore, I must conclude that I am right.

I apologize to my readers for this descent into fluff and falderal. Your normally scheduled strange fiction, musings and anecdotes will soon recommence.

Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov
Discovered: Christmas present from Mum
About it: A murder mystery set at the American Bookseller’s Association conference of 1975, and told from the point of view of a small, insecure, misanthropic author. It is clever and entertaining, as you’d expect from an Asimov mystery, and it’s fascinating to see even an outdated look inside the publishing industry; but the book gets an added fillip of the surreal from the inclusion of Isaac Asimov as comic relief, and he and his protagonist taking potshots at each other in the footnotes.
If it were food: Hors-d’oeuvres stolen from a private meeting. They taste better because they’re sneaked.
Quote: “And [Asimov]’ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people’s books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile — except that he signed: ‘Harlan Ellison.’”

No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz by Victoria Bruce
Read aloud by: Suzanne Toren
Discovered: In the Recorded Books catalog
About it: This is three different stories, interwoven because that’s how the world is; the mismanaged volcanic crisis at Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz in 1985, the totally avoidable deaths (largely of scientists) at the Colombian volcano Galeras in 1993, and finally the fallout in the scientific community. While the stories are fascinating and sad in their own right, prepare to be very, very angry; first at the bickering, political maneuvering and poverty that cost lives; and secondly, at the face-saving, credit-stealing, and corpse-climbing that can occur in science. This book made me glad all over again that I got out of science. Competently written (the author is a geologist and a journalist.)
Warning: There are a few very disturbing descriptions in this book, of things volcanoes and mudflows do to human bodies. You can tell they’re coming if you’re squeamish, though.
About the reading: While otherwise adequate, the reader’s enthusiastic tone gives a ghoulish note to some of the passages, as if she’s quite happy to be able to read this exciting stuff and doesn’t remember those are real people dying.
If it were food: It would be a ‘healthy’ bag-lunch that gives you heartburn.

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Discovered: Heard mentioned occasionally for years; received for Christmas from the inimitable mfc.
About it: A fascinating, almost operatic book set in a fantastic world where nothing is supposed to change: the huge, decaying, ultimately unknowable castle of Gormenghast. There, the traditions of the House of Groan are worshipfully followed by a cast of characters whose minds and desires are quite human, even though their bodies, exaggeratedly expressive, often verge on the grotesque. A beautiful tale of the fight between great, statuesque Stasis and the small, clever hobgoblin of Change.
If it were food: It would be a strange, exotic feast, perfectly laid out on a huge, venerable table, gleaming superbly in the candlelight…with one dish, somewhere in the richness, poisoned.
Quote: “This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”

The Murder Room by P.D. James
Read aloud by: Charles Keating
Discovered: I had mentioned to my mom that I was curious about P.D. James, and she gave me this for my birthday.
About it: P.D. James is hailed as the current queen of the murder mystery, and as an excellent writer as well as plotter; based on this book, the plaudits are justified. The characters are complex and intriguing; the mystery satisfyingly difficult; and the hero, Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, appealing, in his quiet way. I’d say its chief fault was leaving a bit of the motive unspoken at the end, implied but not delineated in a way that was artful but not satisfying. It is worth noting that twice, in this book, the author created body-discovery moments of such beautiful, taut horror that I shut the tape off to savor them.
About the reading: Beautiful; good acting, marvelous accents, and very distinct characters, including believable women’s voices (cross-gender reading is sometimes an issue in audiobooks.) I wish the audiobook company hadn’t felt compelled to put a minute or two of cheesy soundtrack music at the beginning and end of the book, but it’s only a few minutes; I can hack it.
If it were food: Courtesy tea and biscuits for the very unwelcome police — goodies with a side of tension.