http://www.sff.net/people/lucy-snyder/brain/2008/07/new-gary-braunbeck-novella.html

Horror World is hosting a brand-new serialized novella by Gary Braunbeck. The first installment of this estimated 18,000-word tale is up now ... subsequent installments are scheduled to go up on or about the 11th and the 18th of the month.

You can read the first part of "In Seeing: A Story of Cedar Hill" here:

http://www.horrorworld.org/fiction.htm

All three parts of the novella will be

I slept in bed last night, mainly to give Mac some peace and privacy. At the vet, she refused to eat until everyone had gone home, and she obviously wants as much privacy as possible. I bought her a soft bed that fits perfectly in the back of the crate next to the litter box, so she now has a choice of 2 hammocks and a bed. (She's been sleeping in the bed all day.)

Mac's already managed to get the safety collar off, by the way. Well, she managed to get it down to her waist, and I managed to get it the rest of the way off. And she made it abundantly clear that I was NOT, at least at that moment, going to get it back on. She seems to be resting comfortably, and ate the antibiotic-laced gooshyfood (the good stuff Gleep & Magdot ate) after I went to bed last night.

So on Friday night, the last night with everyone at home, Cleopatra joined everyone in my chair at bedtime. She let me pet her several times, and hung out for quite a while. Last night, she joined us in bed and again let me pet her. She didn't stay as long, but she let me pet her at breakfasttime. She is giving me so much hope these days, and her brother continues to blow me away with his transformation from Mr Passive Please Don't Kill Me to Mr Happy Loving Affectionate Cat.

Young Lady II (2007, 80 x 120cm, lacquer on wood) by Nguyen Lam


When Janet and I were in Phuket several weeks ago, I picked up a guide to local art galleries and shops in the area. On one of the very first pages was an advert for D Gallery in the Royal Phuket Marina. Which, unfortunately was all the way on the other side of the island from where we were. Unfortunate because at the top of the advert was the above painting by Vietnamese artist Nguyen Lam, which was so striking that both Janet and I were overcome by Me-Wantee Syndrome.

But neither of us felt like taking a taxi all the way east just on the off chance that they might still have the painting we wanted, and we also had no idea how to get it back to Singapore without it costing a bundle (we certainly couldn't have carried it on the plane, and shipping would have been pretty nasty). So we'll just have to covet from afar.

Pity.

The artist has three other painting at the D Gallery site as well, very similar in execution and theme; the site is completely in Flash, so there are no permalinks, but from the homepage you click "Artists," then "Vietnamese Artists," then "Nguyen Lam."

Today His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama turns 73 years old. Happy birthday!

A good way to celebrate is to pick up The Open Road by Pico Iyer.



An incredible look into the life of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and the current political and religious situation in both Tibet and Dharamsala. Through Iyer's 30-year relationship with the Buddhist monk, and his insightful and considered observations, the reader is provided with both the public and private sides of the Dalai Lama, and of the continuing insistence on using compassion, patience, and nonviolence in dealing with China and the rest of the world. Fascinating reading.

"That night in Max's room a forest grew," says Where The Wild Things Are, but for me, it's black raspberries:

Beware, though, in this fruitful forest, strange creatures also feast. ( cut for the squeamish )

Sawyer got adopted! (SOB!) (And also yay!)

He got adopted by an older Russian couple who just fell in love with him. He's going to be a gigantic love-hungry lapcat when he grows up, so it just sounds perfect. The adoption counselors were all very enthusiastic about the adoption.

I'm ok. I cried buckets after dropping them off this morning, and I'm rather dismayed that only one got adopted, but I'm ok. All I want is for him to be happy and have a wonderful life in which he is adored every day. May the cat goddess watch over him.

Your humble narrator...

• 18:21 @templesmith Dude! You're in Singapore? I live here! Where the hell are you? Any chance to meet? #
• 18:21 can't believe the douche nozzles that stole laptops from some participants at Clarion West. #
• 18:24 just got some excellent writing time in at Pacific Coffee while Janet has been painting portraits for MAAD July at the Red Dot Museum. #
• 18:33 admits that he is now full in love with BooksActually. New favorite local indie bookstore: achieved! #

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About 85% of my friends-list has posted this news already, but I'll also pass it along, just in case you haven't yet heard. My friend Maggie Lance (whom I published in Scattered, Covered, Smothered) is currently attending Clarion West in Seattle. Like the original Clarion that I attended at Michigan State University in East Lansing (and which can now be found in San Diego), Clarion West is an intensive six-week writing workshop, where pretty much all you do is write, read, critique, eat, and sleep, mostly in that order of priority. A lot of people try to write a brand new story each week, so that you can have the chance to get at least one piece of fiction critiqued by each instructor (the instructors are professionals in the sf field, writers and editors who know an incredible amount about writing).

As you can imagine, this entails a lot of time spent writing.

Yesterday morning, some complete asshole decided that it would be a good idea to sneak into the sorority house where the Clarion West attendees are staying, and steal a bunch of stuff. This included four laptops (one black Dell Inspiron 1520, one silver colored Sager with a 17" screen, one silver/red Dell XPSm1710, and one Sony Vaio Sz780), some bags, clothing, and possibly other items. Maggie and the other participants are okay, but she emailed me to let me know what had happened, and asked if I would pass it along in case people want to help.

It's not cheap or easy to go to Clarion. Hard enough to even get accepted (it sounds like the competition was pretty fierce this year), but to be able to take six weeks out of your life is a non-trivial undertaking. That's time spent not working, and therefore not earning money. It's time spent away from your loved ones. More than a few people quit their jobs so that they can go (it's what I did). But there's also the expense of the workshop itself, and housing, and food. All told, it's a significant drain on anyone's financial resources.

And so, the people whose laptops were stolen are very likely not going to be able to pop over to the nearest electronics store and spring for a new one. Plus, they've just lost any writing that they may have been working on, and anything not backed up. Apparently, they've been given loaner computers for the short-term, but it doesn't look like that'll work for the whole six weeks.

If you think you can help, please contact Leslie or Neile, via info@clarionwest.org. If you want to contribute a money donation, cmpriest has the skinny:

Money donations can be made directly here, through the Clarion West website. If you’d like to contribute, please do so through that paypal button and mark it for Computer Replacement, or something like that — so the recipients know it isn’t part of their regular drive. All donations are tax deductible; Clarion West is classified as a non-profit educational organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal EIN 91-1352168).

Clarion can be a life-changing experience; please help make it a positive experience for the affected writers at West. And also, please pass this along to anyone you might think would be interested.

Cleopatra is in my lap! Tatters is at my feet, then Cleo, then Lilah and Eko, then Sawyer on my throat and Juliet by my head.

It's like a war zone out there. Bombs bursting in air. Wonder how many PTSD veterans are under their kitchen tables right now spitting curses. This stuff makes me nervous. I don't like explosions or sudden, loud noises. I grew up in a pretty violent environment and I like quietude and bombs put me on edge. Can't we have a dignified celebration of our country? If we were a tad less insecure maybe we would rely less on braggadoccio.

Bombs went off all last night. Some kids got hold of a box of M80s. An explosion. Another explosion. Another explosion. And so on, for hours. The same repetition of detonation, as entertaining each time as if witnessed anew. These must be the same sorts of people who like NASCAR, in which the same cars go round and round in the same circle over and over yet the crowd greets each passing car with a delighted cry every time.

Red currants, last strawberries, first black raspberries, and first red raspberries of the season, we are the Borg. We will incorporate your uniqueness into

BORG JAM



RESISTANCE IS FUTILE



How about this basket, which the healing angel found--ah, his corvine genes showing through... though really, that trait passes down equally from both his parents. Anyway, isn't it the perfect berry-gathering basket?

Here's my budget and plan for the new computer:

AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core 9850 -- the latest AMD CPU costs only $235. I'll stay with the stock heatsink/fan unit for now. I put a Tuniq tower on top of my current Intel CPU and it's like a Malaysian skyscraper. Plus, with the AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core 9850, I can get the BLACK EDITION. Because, you know, you gotta have the BLACK EDITION.

M3A32-MVP Deluxe -- Mature board. Good reviews. I've come to rely on ASUS quality. I could do one of their commercials. Has latest AMD 790FX chipset and South Bridge SB600. Supports Crossfire, up to four graphics boards, which I won't do, but, dang that's neat. I'll do two boards mainly b/c I have never done that before and it will be a fun experiment. DEFINATELY. Socket AM2+. And it supports DDR2, which I already have in abundance (4GB Mushkin). I'm getting the version without WiFi. $189.00

Radeon 4870 Graphics Card -- this is the big expense. These run $309.00 each. I want two. I'm gonna do Crossfire. But which manufacturer should I support? Even Diamond has gotten back into the graphics game! I used to use Diamond cards often, back in the day. I've also used VisionTek before, and they were fine. Must research. The 4870 runs relatively cool, supports DirectX 10.1, and it's got that spiffy GDDR5 memory. Zoom! I'm going to crank up Bioshock, the beautiful art deco game, in all its DirectX 10.1 glory.

However, the fanbois are buying up 4870s like they were cake. NewEgg is out of stock. I'll have to wait a few weeks. I should wait a few weeks anyway when I'll have more time to build a computer and enjoy myself.

Windows Vista Ultimate -- Sadly, if I am going to use DirectX 10.1, I have to migrate to Vista. This is going to play havoc with all kinds of things. At least I waited till Service pack 1. How many of my programs are not gonna run on Vista? How many problems am I going to incur? This could really affect my business and livelihood. And do I really need all of that bling? $169.00

Total so far:
CPU $235
Mainboard: $189
Radeons: $618 (ouch!)
Vista: $169

Total: $1,211.00

for a bitchin' computer that will last 18 months.

If anybody has thoughts or advice about this rash purchase I'm grateful to hear them.

I'm going to use the extra parts from old computers to cobble together a "new" computer for my sis whose Macintosh is dying.

Your humble narrator...

• 07:58 could not believe that the temp. in Singapore was only 24C this morning. Cool! #
• 08:00 is reminded of just how much he really misses Autumn. #
• 13:52 wishes all his USian peeps a Happy Independence Day! #
• 18:53 sez, "W00t! Three-day weekend! Bring on the floppy underpants!" #
• 19:22 forgot what a hawesome bouncy song "The Safety Dance" is, and is now playing it full-blast. Yay Friday! #
• 21:54 wishes there was a pill you could take that would secrete an odor or pheromone out your pores and keep mosquitoes away. Weaponized citrosum. #
• 22:21 thinks it's weird to have a 3-day weekend, and not because of the 4th of July. Monday in S'pore is Youth Day, and teachers get a day off. #
• 23:34 is going down to bed, to read from Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen before nodding off to sleep. #

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I just want to pass along a brief history lesson to commemorate the holiday.

After John Adams was president alongside the Alien and Sedition Acts, which very much became law because of external threats from France, and (among other things) meant you could go to jail for criticizing the government, he was voted out of office and replaced by the pro-common man Thomas Jefferson. The Acts were thrown away.

Through the War of 1812 people were calling for the Constitution to be suspended because of the threat from England. President James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, refused to do so at a time when this fragile nation was in far worse of a position to defend itself against threats of any sort than we are today--and still refused even as the British army marched on American soil and was busy burning the White House, the Capitol, and much of Washington D.C. to the ground.

The American presidents are elected leaders we have thanks to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We owe our freedom to both of those documents, and the president is sworn upon taking office to uphold the Constitution.

It would do us well to remember that every July 4th.

Happy Independence Day!

Back in May, I blogged about the cool donation system that Cory Doctorow had set up (with help from musician Olga Nunes) so that you could donate copies of Little Brother to schools and libraries all over the world. I also mentioned that I'd put down my school, Hwa Chong, on the list, in the hopes that someone would be generous enough to send a copy our way.*

In the comments to that blog entry, Farah Mendelsohn (aka fjm) offered to bypass the donation page and just send me a few copies of the book. I was naturally floored, and extremely appreciative, especially as the novel is still in hardcover, and therefore ain't cheap.

Last week, the first week of the new school term, a large cardboard box encased in one of those Tyvek-ish mailing bags (like what they use(d) for M-bags in the US) was sitting on my desk as I arrived one morning. I opened it up, and inside were not just "a few" copies of Little Brother ("a few" meaning, to me at least, two or three), but FIVE copies. I mean, dude; most titles in the school library are available in only one or two copies. I couldn't stop smiling all day, and the school librarian was just as shocked, surprised, and grateful.

I actually owe Farah for quite a bit. My first time at ICFA, after I presented my paper on Neil Gaiman's use of character reversal (a presentation that was frightfully well-attended), Farah was one of the first people to challenge some of the remarks I'd made in the paper, and force me to defend both my word choices and my academic integrity. A couple of years later, at my second ICFA, after listening to me present a paper on "Embedded Narrative in the Fiction of Kelly Link," she asked me to turn it from a conference paper into a proper academic article and submit it to her at Foundation. I did, and after several back-and-forth edits, she published the article in issue 99, her last issue as editor.

And now I owe her once again.

If you read fjm, or have happened across a book that she has edited or written (the latest being Rhetorics of Fantasy), you will already know her to be deeply thoughtful and erudite in the examination of literature of the fantastic. But, as is evident through her actions, she is also an extremely kind and generous person, and a good one to have in your corner.

I know I've already said this in email, but I want to publicly express my gratitude here as well. A hundred thousand thanks, Farah, from both me and my students. I bow down before your awesomeness.


* A very nice anonymous person from Belgium, called only FoAM, was nice enough to answer the call, and I thanked him/her here.

Twitter has become doubly addictive now that I use LoudTwitter to squirt all of the day's tweets to the ol' blog once a day (usually in the middle of the night, when I'm asleep). This makes it look like I'm blogging even when I'm not; yay for faux productivity!

Bonehead me has kept forgetting to pass along the message that wheatland_press is having an awesome summer sale: "From now until Monday July 7 (at midnight Pacific Time), if you buy any two Wheatland Press titles at the regular price, you'll get one copy of any volume of Polyphony free. Just order as usual using Paypal and in the comment box of the order form for the second title, indicate which volume of Polyphony you would like to receive." [Psst! Order Volume 7!]

Check out Project Indigo by Jesse van Dijk (via Enter the Octopus). It's fascinating architectural imaginations like this that make me want to create an entire world in words around them. Some serious worldbuilding potential there. I'd love to commission van Dijk to illustrate a limited edition of the Tower novel (though before that it would need to sell to a publisher, and before that I would need to finish it).

I was going to post a picture to represent my last week, but that would involve finding my camera, reactivating my defunct flickr account and working out how to link to it, so instead you'll get a thousand words.  Imagine a pile of packets of medication: nurofen, nurofen plus, mersyndol, mersyndol plus, dolased (i.e. cheapo mersyndol), panadeine forte, valium and, to top it off a used syringe.  Next to it is a lot of empty tablet foils.  That should give you a good idea.

On Saturday afternoon I went with friend M. on a quick trip to Canberra for K's 50th birthday.  A good time was had by all until, standing in the hallway drinking wine at about 2 am, my back started to hurt.  I hadn't done anything to it, and it wasn't hurting too badly at that point.  I stopped drinking and sat down, but it kept hurting.  By the time we arrived at P&M's where we were staying it was hurting significantly, but I could still move.  I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.  In the morning I couldn't move and it hurt like hell.  I needed help to get out of bed, which took me about an hour.  I then spent the next couple of hours hanging on to the dining table and making noises like I was giving birth, and sweating with the pain.  I was particularly upset as my little goddaughter was obviously being traumatised by it, but there was nothing much I could do.  M and P fetched mersyndol and M drove me back to Sydney - which was not a particularly pleasant experience, but I coped. 

On Monday, however, I couldn't walk.  As in really couldn't walk.  It took me an hour to get out of bed, and I managed a trip to the bathroom in excruciating agony only by holding myself on to things all the way, and nearly passing out with the pain.  I called my doctor's surgery to ask for an emergency call out, and was told they were only available after 6 pm, but to take double doses of nurofen and mersyndol until then.  I called friend T. who was available, and who came round to help me get in and out of bed, and who went and bought more drugs and food, and to sit with me, which was good because I was panicking by that stage.  I rang the call out doctor at 6 and was told it would be around 2 hours.  He eventually arrived at 11 pm, by which time I was worried since T had had to go and had left my door key in the front door so the doctor could get in.  I got a limited supply of valium and codeine and a muscle relaxant injection into my hip.  He confidently told me that I'd get a good night's sleep out of it, but 3 hours later I was adding more nurofen to the mix and hoping I wasn't going to end up like Heath Ledger.  

On Tuesday things were a little better, and the lovely

chrisbarnes came round to feet the cat etc. and washed up!  I managed to frighten myself by talking to a nurse friend who suggested I had probably done disc or nerve damage and needed to be in hospital.  On Wednesday, friend Y from the Mountains came to take to me to the doctor, which was a painful exercise, but I received the good news that it's probably not disc or nerve damage, just muscle spasms.  More valium, more nurofen, more mersyndol forte and more bed rest should solve the problem.  

I am indeed improving and can now walk round the house a bit, although I still can't sit.  I'm still fairly zoned out - too zoned out to really worry about the fact that it was the worst possible week to be away from work, and it's going to be hell when I go back.  I'm also worried about why this has happened, hard on the heels of the trismus - also a muscle spasm, but for the moment, I'll go back to re-reading trashy novels and watching daytime tv from the warmth of my bed.  

Thanks to all the friends who helped - really appreciated, particularly as the being sick and alone thing really pushes my buttons.  Hopefully there will be no repeat performances.  I'm planning to take up yoga and/or belly dancing, although I promise never to do the latter at an SCA event.

directly from New Yorker, 30 June 2008
Re: Carrie
A letter in response to Anthony Lane’s article (June 9th & 16, 2008)

"Sex and the City" has always been, first and foremost, a story about the primacy of female friendships in women's lives. We seek love and companionship with men (and sometimes with women), but in the end it is our female friends who help us know ourselves, realize our paths, and fulfill our destinies. Lane refers to the heartbreaks in this film as a "serious threat" to the "characters' contentment." Yes, the events in the film would be a threat to anyone's contentment. But this film deals in forgiveness. And, while we are on the topic, forgive a girl for getting teary during a scene in which a woman comes into possession of her very first Louis Vuitton handbag. These things matter, too.

Carrie Murphy
Milwaukee, Wis.

---

Honey I'll make you a handbag. I'll make you a handbag out of love. Yow! Hey go'geous honey I just made you a handbag. Come on over here and get yo handbag what I made for you outta love ... sweet love.

*boogies*

That's right this handbag here it made from love. You caint see it. Only thing you can do with it is put yo heart in it. But this handbag, it's right here, and you better hold on to it and don't let it go. As long as you got a safe place for yo heart you got no worries bout anything else you know what I'm sayin?

That'll be $1,200.00 please, for the smaller size. Sorry, cash or Paypal only.


French Opera singer Marie Delna, notably sans love handbag, which is why she looks so unhappy.


A wanna-be. You caint put yo love in here girl.

(one of the LJ posts I told tithenai I wanted to make)

Oh Tyler Rodriguez, why did you discard your school ID cards in the woods? Did you not realize that on the brown leafy path through the woods, little rectangles of white plastic stand out like extraterrestrials? Did you fail to foresee that crows or other scavengers might pick these things up?

Well, you have only just finished seventh grade, so I guess this lapse in judgment is understandable and forgivable. It was interesting to see that you discarded two IDs, from two separate schools. From this I deduce that you moved during the school year. Who wrote the school mission statement on the back of one ID in sharpie? I hate mission statements, myself, but looking at this one, I wonder, did the principal make you guys all write it down? But the handwriting looks too feminine to belong to a boy named Tyler, so did a school administrator write it? Or maybe your sister or your mom?

I tell you what: I will not work any malicious magic on you (other than this entry), despite being in possession of these cards. In fact, I will lose them for you much more effectively than you yourself were able.

I hope you have a good year in eighth grade, whatever school you happen to be in.