This morning's haze of slightly carboned toast & melty cheese (well you can't get the cheese properly brown without risking the edges of the bread) enlivened by Delia's dramatic reading of A.O.Scott's NYTimes review of the new Holmes movie. Honest - I thought she was improvising when she said: "It seems that an evil aristocrat, executed for a series of murders, returns from the dead to mobilize an ancient secret society that he may have time-traveled into a Dan Brown novel to learn about. Doesn’t that sound fascinating? I thought not."

You have to admit is sounds like her.

And now, on to music:

sdn's FaceBook query a few weeks back re. people's most loathed Xmas song has had me brooding ever since. I realized I don't so much hate any particular song as hate certain musical styles. --OK, there are certain lyrics I really loathe - but you can also ruin a song I love by giving it an arrangement to match those other lyrics. I mean, I'd say something blanketty like: "I hate all Xmas songs written after 1895" - but in fact, there are a couple Victorian ones I could do without, and anything by Irving Berlin is fine by me - as long as it isn't sung by Frank Sinatra. I'm the wrong generation to enjoy Frank Sinatra. (And Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself: As I say, It's Complicated - and would require a lengthier and more thoughtful explication - with charts & texts & Be Specific, Give Examples - than I have time or inclination for here. And I like "The Little Drummer Boy." It's trad-friendly.) Anyhow, Arrangements: I was delighted to learn, this morning, that the right musical arrangement can redeem even the most abysmal song. This morning's edition of The Takeaway featured an interview with Twisted Sister members Dee Snider & Jay Jay French about their new album, Twisted Christmas.

When they played the opening of the original of "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." I wanted to curl up and die - but when it kicked into Twisted Sister's version, I knew that was the way it was meant to sound! A delightful tune, really. You just have to put some heart & guts into the roasting bit.

So you see, children, there is nothing that cannot be redeemed by art. (They also pointed out that the opening bars of "We're not Gonna Take It" are in fact "Adeste Fideles" - as poor Snider [or was it French?] kept pointing out: "Well, I am a classically trained counter-tenor with 19 years in church choir!" Bless his heart.)

Hilariously weird new KlezNut review up on Show Business Weekly: the reviewer & the entire audience clearly loved the show, but she lambastes it (right at the top, too, so we know she was not seduced by the dancing & the story, no, not she!) for being too "over-thought in a very public-radio way."

Actual content is a crime in children's theatre - who knew? Maybe she just needed a nap.

Чудо, а не книжка.

Как заметила Ф., неисчерпаемый источник заголовков в жж и статусов в гугл-токе. Ну и интересно, к тому же.

ЗЫ цена на сайте (без доставки) - 600 с гаком. У меня на обложке написано 120. Кому верить?

And it even seems to be my own voice, not that of a dirty old man, hurray!

Special thanks go to the givers fo the magic pralines and my sweetie, who spent a week interpreting my whispers and gestures.

- write two tests for two groups of students who have their pass/fail tomorrow
- fix broken laptop (ubuntu crashed - that's a first!)
- iron clothes
- clean camera sensor

what will i do?

- walk dog
- bake cookies
- iron just enough clothes to wear tomorrow

IT"S CHRISTMASTIME :)))))

"In the losing battle that the plot fights with the characters, it often takes a cowardly revenge. Nearly all novels are feeble at the end. This is because the plot requires to be wound up."
-- E. M. Forster

Thank you to L and R. for the real pralines--I had one last night and by this morning, I could speak at about volume 2, and by lunchtime today I could speak a little louder, so I think the pralines actually are making me better. And they are tremendously yummy.

I can't exactly say that *my* voice is coming back, though, as it seems to be the voice of a dirty old man. Christmas dinner could be very entertaining. (I once went to a "Come as you aren't" party as a dirty old man and it was lots of fun.)

What makes these pralines different from the Trader Joe's pralines: Trader Joe pralines are whole nuts covered in brown sugar and heated at a high temperature until the sugar candies, like the honey-roasted nuts one gets from the Mr. Nuts truck in Boston Commons.

Real pralines look kind of like peanut brittle, squares a couple of inches across with chopped nuts in them. The squares are not brittle, though, but gooey and creamy, not quite as dense as fudge.
Here is the place the real pralines came from
http://countrystore.tabasco.com/

I keep forgetting to tell you that I have a new story published, in Jonathan Strahan's magnificent Eclipse Three (Night Shade Books, 10/09). (I'd posted just a little on its progress here.) It's called "Dulce Domum," from the chapter in The Wind in the Willows, bits of which are also woven into my text -- that's the chapter where Mole & Rat find Mole's old home in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve:

Home! The call was clear, the summons was plain.

“Ratty!” Mole called, “hold on! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve just come across the smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I must, I must!”

Home! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken, that day when he first found the river.

The story's about home, and family, and a few other things besides:

He called her late on Christmas Eve. She was home. She said, Come on up, which was good because he was standing at a payphone two blocks away, his cellphone deliberately run down, and it was raining. She was wearing sweatpants and a fleece bathrobe with moons on it. The “I don’t care if I’m attractive or not” gambit. He called her on it by falling to his knees before her, singing softly, “Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shiiiiining….” So she took the cue and undid her sash.

I started the story a few years ago, on my sofa in Somerville, looking out at the snow on the porch on a cold winter's night. I picked it up & put it down a lot since then, and when Jonathan Strahan asked me for a story for ECLIPSE 3, I realized it was a push to get it finished. It was very exciting and very challenging to write, as it's in a new style I've been experimenting with, messing with points-of-view and indirection and what people are willing to reveal to others and to themselves - I've done a couple of new Riverside stories in it (of which more later; neither is out yet), too. I didn't think this one was really working, so I'd put it aside yet again when I realized that Jonathan's deadline was near, and learned that he couldn't give me an extension. So I sent him the rough ms., saying, "If you like it, I'll knock myself out to get it done for you on time (and maybe you can even give me some editorial suggestions), but if it's not right for you, I'll put it away again & see if I learn more about writing eventually...." Of course, in the course of whipping the rough draft into shape to send him, I cracked the back of it. Pressure (and an audience) are wonderful things! Don't forget that, kids. Anyhow, armed with his love, I finished the story, and am 95% pleased with it. And I am forever grateful to Jonathan Strahan for his faith and encouragement on this one.

Here are a few excerpts, mostly from the Grahame, with bits of mine thrown in, just to give you a taste:( Read more... )
* * *
And so I wish you all a lovely holiday season, however you roll. You can read Grahame's Dulce Domum chapter here, online - or get out your battered old copy of The Wind in the Willows.

I still have very little voice: I can whisper at level 1 and, for short bursts, at volume 2, like if I need to check my voice mail on my cell phone (the irony of a cell phone with voice recognition commands). The thing about whispering is that it's like yawning: occasionally people automatically start doing it too. I don't sound as scary as Whispering Wendy, though. Whispering Wendy is this evil-sounding synthetic voice. You may wonder, how evil can a female voice named Wendy sound? Well, the way I've always imagined the backstory is that Tinkerbell succeeded in offing Wendy, leaving Wendy this disembodied ghost that acts as a sort of psycho-dorm mother for the Lost Boys. I like to contemplate Whispering Wendy and Coraline's mommy in a smackdown.
But you can check out Whispering Wendy for yourself
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/rhythmsp/ASA/AUfiles/35e.AU

Today I cross-referenced and decluttered my laptop hard drive and backed up all my ebooks. For the curious, my ebook directories are Drivers, Fantasy, Horror, Nonfiction, Media & Cultural Studies, Science Fiction, and Writing, with appropriate subdirectories. Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction get their own directories due to size.

This morning I finished scanning Wade Davis's _Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie_ (1988), which is, basically, a more academic version of his _The Serpent and the Rainbow_ (1985), which is one of my favorite books. There is a lot of good material for untold zombie stories, mostly in how Davis proposes the theory that the process of creating a zombie cannot be separated from the culture and the community, that the medical ingredients of the zombification powder are basically inert without belief, and that making a person into a zombie was a form of social punishment against someone who had betrayed or exploited his community (in a Haitian community, for instance, Scrooge could have been turned into a zombie, and wouldn't that be a creepy sight, all those poor street urchins and starving mothers silently watching Scrooge shamble through the foggy streets of London?).

Another good zombie story: "The Dead One" (2007), a film featuring a Day of the Dead narrative based on the graphic novel "El Muerto" by Javier Hernandez, although I've had no luck finding a copy of the comic to purchase. There is some really wonderful imagery, and the story delivers a few surprises along with a rich mythology.

And here's another cool comic which Alexx read to me last night: Volume 2, Issue 1 of "Locke and Key" written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez. No zombies but there are ghosts, and a spooky house, and many many strange keys. This issue also answers the immortal question: what does a ghost bring to a knife fight? An ectoplasmic chainsaw.

I need to say that again: an ectoplasmic chainsaw.

Tickled pink to be included in Paul Cornell's The 12 Blogs of Christmas (#6: "So What Are You Doing This Christmas?") -
my answer squeezed in between Lois Bujold's & Charles Stross' (dear autopope), a nice place to be!

What we will actually be doing on Dec. 24th is unpacking bags from our current trip: We're on Sanibel Island with my family, unwinding & communing & enjoying the fact that it is not icy and blustery (though I do miss the way the City shuts down under severe weather, and everything gets magical). We barely made it - not because of the snow, but the NYC traffic! We actually did miss our flight out on Thurs. night - first time that's ever happened, though Delia is always convinced it will - imagine, if you will, a white-knuckle taxi ride every time! But when we still hadn't gotten across the TriBoro 40 minutes before takeoff, I phoned NWA & admitted defeat, and they booked us (yes, with appropriate penalties, but not too heartstopping) on a flight the next morning. So we went to this great little place I know ("Hotel Chateau Riverside"), and made popcorn and watched Harry Potter & the Amazingly Dim Adults, and set the alarm.

I hate having to pay the Stupidity Tax (- Who knew we should have left 2 hrs to get to LaGuardia at rush hour before Xmas?), but sometimes you just gotta. At least you get infrastructure & services.

Happy holidays to all, esp those who are enjoying the storm!

The Guardian film blog has an interesting post about Welles's work with television
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/dec/17/orson-welles-television#box
to help announce the broadcast of
Orson Welles' Sketchbook series, which will start on BBC Four on 18 December at 7:30 pm and be available online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pgv42/The_Orson_Welles_Sketchbook_Episode_1/
soon after. Can anyone tell me what time that will be EST?

Also, I read about this book on Boltype
http://flavorwire.com/53407/holiday-gift-guide-books-for-nonreaders
and thought it might appeal to some of my friends, especially as it is produced by a local (Waltham) printer:

block quote start
Pictorial Webster’s: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities

Do you love dictionaries but hate words? Then this book is for you. It is exactly what it says on the cover — a collection of all the wonderful old engraved
illustrations from the Webster’s of the 19th century. We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether the book “acts as a visual Finnegan’s Wake of 19th Century
America” as its compilers claim. We’re still busy just getting lost in its pages. Samples
here.
http://www.quercuspress.com/webstergallery.htm
block quote end

I started the new cycle of Prednisone and antibiotics yesterday but, while the inflammation around the eye began to clear up almost immediately, there was no effect on the sweats or the headache (it's actually eye pain but I experience it as a headache focused approximately behind the brow bone of my right eye), and I woke up at 12:30 a.m. this morning and was unable to get back to sleep with the headache, although I kept popping Ibuprofen. After Alex left for work, the headache seemed to get worse and I started to lose my voice, which made trying to contact my GP kind of challenging (my eye surgeon has gone on vacation, and is in Burlington, and she said for any furhter issues I should contact my GP).

It was about this time that I realized that the level of eye pain was beginning to bring back memories of my glaucoma days. It wasn't quite as bad as an acute angle glaucoma episode but, short of having blunt iron spikes driven into your forebrain through your eye sockets, what is? So I made the decision to stop telling myself it wasn't that bad and went over to Urgent Care.

It was my lucky day: there was a floorshow of hyper preschooler boy children and their dads who were stepping up to do their best to keep the high-level explosives contained. We were there for about two hours and the floorshow never let up. I was also pretty impressed by the boy who kept doing something that made him go "Ow!" pause, and then do it again with the accompanying "Ow!" Yes, I feel certain that this child will grow up to be someone who says things like "I knew the gasoline fight had gone wrong when..."

So I got into triage and they initially tried to tell me that I should go to Burlington to see my surgeon, and I got to explain at volume 2 with occasional drops to 1 that she had gone on vacation, she told me if I had any issues to go to my GP, and what I didn't say was that I had no intention of spending 2 hours each way on the MBTA while in pain. More waiting, more doctors, more explaining about how my surgeon was pretty certain my symptoms were not part of a systemic infection, and I got a diagnosis of some sort of virus and a script for Vicodin plus a lecture about how the Prednisone seriously lowered my immune system and I should just stay home as long as I was on it. It's also no good for me to get the swine flu vaccine because my system is already working hard, but I should gthink about getting the next round in the spring. For sheer information and an amazingly consistent pleasant attitude, the Codman Square health clinic is pretty outstadning.

I came home, had a round of drugs, and am now going to try to find a zombie movie to stream on NetFlix (as far as I am concerned, a year's subscription to NetFlix justifies itself just for being around on those days when you're really too sick to even read). I don't even like zombie movies usually, but today I feel zombies are just my speed. Zombieland is not available on DVD yet but maybe Quarantine?

As we continue trying to get rid of Stuff we don't have room for in our apartment, Ellen experiences anguish over the fate of a very battered comforter (which once had matching curtains made of sheets, sewn by her late grandmother, sniff!):

- I know; but it's my last link with the past....

- Honey, you still have many links with the past.

(Would that be the overflowing endless boxes of papers & books & T-shirts & ....?)

Not having a basement or an attic truly sucks.

DAY: Thursday
DATE: December 17, 2009
TIME: 6:00 pm
ROOM: MIT 26-100, access via 60 Vassar Street, Cambridge
MAP: http://whereis.mit.edu/?selection=26

Please join us as Randall Munroe, creator of the wildly popular web-comic
"xkcd," visits MIT to give a mini-talk about his new book and the school
it's funding in Laos. Plus, he'll answer some of your questions. Books will
be available for sale afterward and he'll be doing a signing!

Books are also available now at The MIT Press Bookstore.

Thanks to Breadpig <http://www.breadpig.org>, the Berkman Center at Harvard,
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/>, and the folks behind ROFLCon
<http://roflcon.org> for their help making this event possible.

For more information call (617) 253-5249 or email books@mit.edu.

One of the things I've been doinglately to keep my spirits up --aside from reading lots of horror fiction and munching on Trader Joe goodies-- is listening to WWOZ from New Orleans
http://www.wwoz.com .
It's a blues and jazz radio station, incredibly eclectic, and the DJs don't talk too much except to tell you about the music.

My third round of steroids and antibiotics ended this weekend and all of my post-op infection issues pretty much immediately returned, but now more noticeably because for ten days I felt better than I had for a couple of months. Nothing is working on the headache and I am also running a fever.

My surgeon called me back a little while ago and put me on the same Prednisone and antibiotics combo that I was most recently taking for the next couple of weeks, and then said what we pretty much already figured out, that the sclera transplant was probably being rejected and that the entire orbital sphere--which is where these issues originally started--would probably have to be removed. That would leave two options. One is that the original sphere would be replaced by a much larger prosthetic, not the little bit of half-shell plastic which I have always had.

There is, however, a second option, and I want to say up front that my original reaction was that there was no way I was going to tell everyone this. I want my readers to know, however, that I am seriously committed to documenting the ins and outs of the prosthetic/cyborg lifestyle, even when it pains me to do so.

So the second option is that the surgeon takes some of the patient's own tissue and uses it for the orbital transplant. This tissue is typically taken from the patient's buttock. I'm a bit vague about the rest of the details because the surgeon was calling me from between surgeries and didn't have time to say more, but it does give one a lot to ponder.

And in case one craves more medical wizardry and tales of body parts scrambled interchangeably, here's a post about a blind man whose vision was restored using what I refer to as his "eye-tooth."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529946,00.html

Yes, indeed, I should have some really good material about disability and technology for those Arisia panels I am going to be on. I wonder if I can find someone to turn my old prosthetic eye into a steampunk keychain?

Due to some schedule tweaking, the tactile and described tour of the Arisia art show has been rescheduled for that Saturday of the con, from noon to one. We'll meet at the art show and I will distribute cotton gloves to anyone who wishes to participate int he tactile aspect of the tour. A number of the artists are planning on being present to describe their work so I'm very excited.

Kes: I'm not finding much on this story beyond the short description such as that made to The Lost Gamer
http://www.thelostgamer.com/2009/12/13/stevie-wonder-pleads-for-disabled-accessiblity/
in which the author scratches his ehad and mentions that hey, no one really thought about that before, but I am a bit boggled that seemingly no one thought it at all ironic that Stevie Wonder was asked to bestow an award for a game to which he has no access.
Sometimes righteous indignation fails you and you have to go straight to helpless giggling.
Also, I love Stevie Wonder.