whoa.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/map/RPXX0017?name=index_large_animated&from=LAPmaps&day=1

Click-by link dropping

just clicking-by to link to Ms Maddy interviewing Mr Neil:

http://www.iamplify.com/

(it's in the top ten downloads list, but you'll need to make an account if you haven't got one, or sign in if you do. neither of which is as bad as it sounds, really. and it's free.)

Unmasked: Update, with a few non-updates

here, i just learned, is what the lovely Ms Lala Gallardo, who illustrated the awesomely bizarrely The Sad, Mad, Incredible but True Adventures of Hika Girl for the Neil Gaiman contesty thingie a while back:



this 'flyer/poster' can be traced back to Turn, Turn, Turn, who call Ms Gallardo their 'favorite painter'.

if yer in the area, check it out.

googling reveals she was also part of The Coaster Project some of you may remember from a while back:

As part of a public outreach program with the Fuller Museum of Art, in the spirit of artistic independence and good will, between March 9 and May 19, 2002, TransCultural Exchange has organized this current “The Coaster Project, Destination: The World” in which 99 artists, working together, have transcended geographic, political and cultural boundaries to stage 99 trans-global exhibitions, culminating in over 10,000 art works freely given away around the globe. The aim of the effort is to create an international, public forum through these exhibitions and related events where people from all parts of the world can realize that not only can positive things happen when people work together, but that art can act as a reflection of the common denominator that unites us all—the basic human desire to express ourselves through images.

see if you can pick out Ms Gallardo's coaster on this page:


http://www.transculturalexchange.org/coasterproject/artistpages/index.htm


finally, am not sure if i'd mentioned this before, but my reviews of Hika Girl and one or two other entries to the comics category (i remember Splat being such a victim) was sadly unjustly and just plain wrongly influenced by being unintentionally, mistakenly and just as wrongly abridged during the conversion to .pdf. the versions posted during the thing, Unmasking, made it all right.

except for Mike Co's story coming out in Dean Alfar's Spec Fic Anthology, i have no idea how anyone else is doing. though it would be interesting to find out, hint hint. (apparently, Google does have its limitations. particularly if yer a lazy bum.)

right. too early. said too much already. be getting back to me tabs now. and just realized i forgot to put Mr Waits on...

Got behind the Mule...

...but taking a break because i love Tom Waits, have recently re-buried myself back in 1999's Mule Variations and think you should too and found this over on youtube:



(here.)

Tom Waits' 'What's He Building?' from Mule Variations.

right. time to get back behind the mule...

Double O

saw the new Bond flick. honestly, the campness of the whole series had me quite turned off--it was entertaining, sure, but tiresomely redundant, and when they tried to move it away from the camp (just a tad) with the Brosnan incarnation, it just didn't work for me...then they re-boot the whole darn thing with this.

i'm not quite sure i'm comfortable seeing Daniel Craig do the romantic scenes; his acting somehow feels clunky to me, particularly when he delivers the cheesiest lines of the entire film...still, elsewhere, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that he pulls it off.

also, seeing Sebastien Foucan pull a wallclimber makes me think Spiderman a fag.

er, i don't mean that in the good way i usually do.

and aintitcoolnews finally pull off a review, courtesy of Harry, that to my mind is just about spot on my own opinions:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30746

this film still needs you to accomodate cinema-logic in quite a few places, but as it's a Bond movie, i found the concessions rather easy to make. and, in the harsh black light of the rest of the film, pulling the focus back on Mr Bond's License to Kill, a lot of fun as well.

oh yes, and Chris Cornell's song works surprisingly well with the uber-cool kaleidoscopic Bond-in-Wonderland gambler-psychedelic opening titles.

and here it is, thanks to the pirating skills of youtubers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_cLe1TQ0MU

(as i doubt it's anywhere near legal--see the camera-in-my-shoe-or-the-popcorn-as-i-sit-with-the-audience or maybe just-snuck-in-the-projection-booth quality of the video--and may be pulled from the web anytime leaving a gaping black hole in me blog, i've decided against embedding the video, and post the link instead. search for it or maybe better copies off youtube.)

and yes, Paul, Eva Green was off-the-scale HOT. good job they got her instead of, say, Angelina Jolie, who is hot herself, but i doubt would've been anywhere near as right as Ms Green as Vesper Lynd.

Irene

i've been meaning to post this, but somehow kept forgetting:

http://threelogyvideo.com/blog/?p=93

i've known Irene significantly more than ten years now, got to know her in high school, got to know her even better after. everyone seems to know her as Apple these days, though to be fair, she's always had that nickname--i just somehow never picked-up on it.

she got married on October 28, 2006. (yes, i know how late this is. my apologies, i have no excuse for it.)

i hate going to weddings, but 'Val & Apple' certainly set a new standard for wedding receptions in my mind. theirs was arguably the most entertaining (yet still heartfelt and sweet and all that with just a hint of cinnamony goodness) wedding i've ever been to.

and yes, theirs *was* the greatest First Dance i've ever seen as well. though you won't see it in these videos. i'll try to see if i can weasel a copy from Irene to put up here once they've got a full viddy of the wedding.

right. Best Wishes, Irene and Val.

Kiwi

here, from youtube, or:

http://www.donysanimation.com/

http://www.isfat.com/happyjunk/kiwi.php

woohoos at 19 East; the Eye

Mabel and i spent the evening at 19 East with the bubbly Monique Rae and Bamboo.

Mabel called Monique Rae (woohoo--er, you had to be there) an uber girlie-girl (i added the uber in case you couldn't tell) early on, just as Monique took the stage, and she proved Mabel right in my mind by filling her set with 'chick-rock' things.

Bamboo were tighter and yet also more organic than the last time i saw them onstage. (i'm pretty sure i posted about that here, but google can't seem to find the post. go figure. maybe it was on me old blog. or maybe i imagined the whole thing. oh well.)

also funnier. and plain funner.

was only mildly disappointed that the one song they played from their upcoming album was a cover (Paul Simon's 50 Ways...which you can learn more about here, things like how the song was preceded by the Ohio Players' Love Rollercoaster and succeeded by Rhythm Heritage's Theme from S.W.A.T. as the number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. or ignore that altogether and find out who 'shot' the uber cool Muse video i put up yesterday instead).

it was, after all, a really cool cover, and the band's arrangement brought to bear all the best things about their signature sound, imho. from that point, they just kept amping up the wattage of the whole place until, in typical Bamboo manner, they pretty much just stopped playing, ending with Masaya and its soulful bass solo by Nathan. no encores.

a note on that bass solo--just when i was starting to think Nathan could get real soulful on the bass after all, focusing on the play of his fingers over the fret board and even bowing his head and closing his eyes, someone from the audience makes some incoherent comment. his eyes immediately pop open, turn and fix on said audience member, and he says: Ha?--all without skipping a beat on his solo.

did i mention this band is brilliant?

loads of fun had. also chicken livers wrapped in bacon and cheesesticks. and three beers. great music all night. and some kid named Noel sitting right in front of us got real lucky. wonder what he'll grow up to be now? one suspects this may have been one of those nights that alters the course of one life for all eternity.

or not.

*

i've been searching on and off for a copy of Chrissie Hynde's version of I Wish You Love, which i first heard playing over the end credits of Stephan Elliot's film adaptation of Marc Behm's Eye of the Beholder. (ultimately flawed, most people hate it, but me, i love it. the book is surprisingly good as well. didn't even bother me that a car blows up for no apparent reason at the end of it.)

i used to have it on mp3, when Napster was still legally free. now i just browse blogger or surf the net for downloads that don't need a dedicated file sharing program.

at last, i found this site:

http://blog.sina.com.tw/8472/article.php?pbgid=8472&entryid=9921

i have absolutely no idea what's being said on that site, but now, hearing the audio tracks that automatically play when you visit the site, am starting to feel vague and sappy.

also, it has this link:

http://home.hanmir.com/~opart2/track/EyeoftheBeholder_IWish.rm

by which you can download a real media version of the song. enjoy.

nostalgia

a week or so ago, i kept catching Eurotrip on HBO, and i totally dig Michelle Trachtenberg (yeah, yeah, whatever), so that got me thinking of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, which i totally dug watching (reruns and all, possibly proving the two-season/reruns theory those idjit corp analysts used as an excuse to save cash and have the show cancelled) when all two seasons were on regular rotation on Nickelodeon...

details on the show can be found here:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~jfrens/pete-and-pete/

to be honest, at the time, Ms Trachtenberg as Nona was way too much of a kid to catch my fancy, and i was more inclined to oggle over the in-retrospect-rather-plain-and-uninteresting-but-somehow-still-mysteriously-attractive Alison Fanelli's Ellen. so when i saw Eurotrip...well, if you saw that movie, i had the exact same reaction the guys had on the nude beach. even though Ms Trachtenberg was showing more ribs than was probably necessary.

Pete and Pete may have been kiddier (what with that uber dorky but nonetheless endearing Artie), but it was also geekier (ergo, 'cooler') than the commercially successful Wonder Years, complete with off-kilter guests (like Michael Stipe, Juliana Hatfield, and, coolest of them all, the semi-regular Steve Buscemi as Ellen's dad), and a cool indie soundtrack.

here, check out the theme, Hey Sandy by Mike Mulcahy of Polaris:

http://www.one26.com/guts/polaris-hey-sandy/

if anyone can point me to a downloadable audiofile of that i'd be much obliged.

right. so much for trippin' on the past.

and yes, though i wasn't before, i am now aware that Ms Trachtenberg was on Buffy, but am willing to overlook that little oversight, as the hothothot Alyson Hannigan was also on that show.

*

well, what do you know...it wasn't that hard to find after all. download a couple Polaris tracks, including Hey Sandy, from here:

http://just-pretend.blogspot.com/2006/10/song-of-day-10106.html

as i become confronted with more 'adult' concerns, am finding it harder not to empathize with romanticists who insist on the past as a 'better time'...

what have i gotten into now?

Sing for Absolution!

i'm posting for no other reason than to put this up:



possibly one of the coolest videos *ever*, picked-up here, from youtube, but also viewable at the official Muse site:

http://www.muse.mu/index.php

yeah, yeah, it's old, but i've only just discovered it, so sue me.

i miss SF flicks that have this kind of uber-cool visual appeal. it's all the space opera cliches jammed together into one 4+ minute package, i know, but hey, it *resonates*. the Planet of the Apes redux style ending doesn't hurt either.

D'Oh

so the new version of blogger is ready, eh? well, slap me silly and call me 'luddy', but i think i'll wait till i ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO make the shift.

i hear Alan Moore's going to be on the Simpsons. i suppose i'd be more excited if i actually had a TV. ah well, there's always youtube.

who, incidentally, have this in several versions:



(also here, or search youtube.)

the full trailer can now be viewed, in regular Quicktime or HD, at the official site, here:

http://www.thesimpsons.com/

meanwhile, am totally digging The Magnetic Fields. i've heard the Stephen Merrit stuff from the Coraline audiobook, and some bits of things via Lemony Snicket, but i've always avoided actively seeking out samples, afraid of finding a new hole in me wallet. (i remember finding a copy of 69 Love Songs a few years ago, and thought it too expensive a leap to make--particularly for a band i'd only heard mention of in interviews and articles and whatnot with Neil Gaiman, and never actually heard--though probably not, if you really get down to it, for 69 songs.)

well, thanks to blogger and Paul, i finally gave in.

on the spinner: The Magnetic Fields, i.

So you're brilliant gorgeous and
Ampersand after ampersand
You think I just don't understand
But I don't believe you.

absolutely brilliant, gorgeous and ampersand after ampersand stuff.

incidentally, just so you know, and please, everybody, keep it down: i have finally decided to welcome the Spore.

we'll see how it all pans out. eventually.

Things That Get Old

honestly, this whole blogging-thing is getting a bit old for me. and yet, like a big old mindless rock hurtling through space (heavens to murgatroyd, it's bound to hit something eventually and blow itself to teeny tiny bitty smithereen thingies, but until then), i just keep coming back to it.

in fact, oozing disgusting uber-fanboyishness, i literally just now created a livejournal account just so i can post me own 'happy birthday hizzonnah' message over at Mr Gaiman's livejournal feed thingy:

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/

i'm late, i know, but, like i said in my post on that thread: thing. or did i say 'things'? ah well. you see what i mean, i hope.

last week also saw release of Mr M. John Harrison's Nova Swing. however, despite all my best hopes and efforts, i was unable to get my hands on a copy. still, i'm happy enough to have gotten my grubby little paws on a copy of his Things That Never Happen. i've only read the first story and the first bits of the second, but already i'm thinking of calling this my fave short story collection ever.

i've never thought of calling a short story collection one of my 'favorite books' before; this book changes all that.

finally for now, more book loverliness to be had over at Jeff VanderMeer's blog:

http://vanderworld.blogspot.com/2006/11/leena-krohns-tainaron-special-offer.html#comments

bless people like Jeff and Ann for doing things like this. now if only they'd send me free copies of those books for advertising on me blog.

ha. as if.

right. peas out.

Stories; back in...black?

was really honestly dreading it, but i actually had loads of fun working with Kenneth Yu over at Philippine Genre Stories.

of course, it was real *work* for him. sorry bout that, Kenneth.

fingers crossed i don't spread reek on your publication, yeah?

in case you haven't yet heard of them, PGS are a small publication with big ideas for, as the name suggests, 'genre' fiction in the country. as Kenneth puts it:

I have a vision for PGS, and a lot of factors will determine if it succeeds or not. It's clearly an uphill battle, but if it fails I at least will have fun trying.

My vision is that PGS will start as a digest that addresses the genre niche in the RP, providing the readers and writers of that niche with an outlet for their reading and writing needs. From there, maybe other kinds of Digests can be developed, but first this one has to self-sustain, and for that I hope enough people will buy--and read, perhaps even write and contribute-- to it. Better to turn a profit than just self-sustain; that way I can pay my writers more, have better binding, use better plates and film, etc.

right. done my bit for advertising. now maybe all three or four readers of this blog (way too many for me to keep track of) will go out and buy it when it comes out. ha.

*

gah. hadn't realized i was still in pink. hmm. think i'll try something different...

remember, remember, it's frickin' November

if only i had the time or the energy, i would soon be burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, or, being in entirely the wrong geographical location, and if i were a 'teacher, librarian, student, or under 13', i'd join this:

http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/

well, whadd'ya know. you don't have to be a 'teacher, librarian, student, or under 13' after all. my bad. now, if only i had the time or the energy...or a frickin' Guy Fawkes effigy and some matches...

quick one; probably keeping the pink

no Halloween rituals this year, though over the last couple days i *finally* got myself to sit through the entirety of Michael Mann's Manhunter (not bad, just haven't *quite* been in the mood for it until recently), finished a draft for a story which i really ought to force edits on but is stubbornly sticking to its current form and may end up getting sent for the usual round of rejections as it is, saw Christopher Nolan's The Prestige in a theater set to sub-zero temperatures ostensibly to lower brain activity and distract the audience from wondering whether they were being entertained or not and actually deciding whether or not they like the film itself (thankfully, though the theater conditions gave me a headache that would last me for the rest of the night, the film was still good enough for me and got me to dig up me old copy of Christopher Priest's The Prestige), and finally found a copy of Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, which has led me to part with more cash than is good for me pocket, and is making me want to drop writing for a while so i can get back to 'seriously' reading, as i've still got Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire hanging about me head, with The Unconsoled and The End (and now House and The Prestige among countless others) waiting in the wings.

and yes, the pink stays. for now.