Had to stop while dressing amy for "school" the other day.
It seems that our daughter has joined some sort of tiny paramilitary organization. I stumble across secret meetings of a whole striped cabal of the little things in the middle of the night.
~Dave
PS: I told you she was some kind of ninja, though I will admit to some surprise at the details.
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Riverdale / Rivendell... It's an easy mistake to make. But it's clear that the elves ain't what they used to be.
It seems that confused elves have been sniping hapless locals in the peaceful Bronx neighbourhood of Riverdale.
Minding her own business, a Yonkers woman finds herself targeted by what seems to be a band of confused elves hiding out in a neighbourhood knot of woods. Apparently, she was dropping some friends off at a nursing home when, suddenly, an arrow plunged from the Bronx heavens.
View Larger Map
The cops reported that the arrow's tragectory indicated that the projectile had come from a nearby pocket of woodland. (It's hard to be sure which one).
Yours considering a measured release of orcs (just to keep the elf population in check).
~Dave
PS: Slightly more plausible reportage available at any of the links http://www.mountsaintvincent.edu/4169.htmin this sentence.
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What does it mean when your almost-three-month-old looks at you like this:
We're in trouble, aren't we...
~Dave
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Me and Britney Spears were side-by-side in my hometown paper today.
I'm not sure if I should expect paparazzi. (I might have to perfect my coat-over-head-run-for-limo).
In a Time of Treason is on the long-list of 69 novels up for a new award given in honour of the late David Gemmell. They're looking to recognize books with that heroic fantasy Gemmellian edge. (If you're curious, there's voting and details at http://gemmellaward.ning.com/).
Meanwhile, it seems that Spears is going to sign a three- to five-book memoir deal! And that Spears's mum wrote a book with an ex-Winnipegger!
~Dave
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(Daughter) Amy is deeply intrigued by black-and-white things just now. Has been staring at the lid of a large black-and-white box.
Does anyone know of any good zebras playing chess with pandas type posters? Orcas playing piano? Skunks with dominoes?
Apparently, it's a developmental phase. Still, I may just have to watch a lot of moody art films with her in the future.
~Dave
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Whilst perusing his paper this morning, my Uncle Stewart stumbled across a review of In a Time of Treason in the Globe and Mail (possibly the New York Times of the Frozen North).
The reviewer seems very enthusiastic about the book (says I've got "bold literary chops" and "vivid imagination" and that I can write "like the wind") but is concerned that strong female characters are few and far between. (Next book? Strong female characters. Honest!)
(Wife) Anne is already irritated with me walking around the apartment, arms akimbo, making off-hand references to my bold literary chops and vivid imagination.
~Dave
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In the first episode of what I'm sure must be a series, I'm writing to tell you about our Genius Baby.
19 days old: She's at the doctor getting checked for various reflexes and abilities (and getting called "Cookie" in a charming Eastern European accent) when suddenly, she demonstrates her amazing powers.
(The book says you should expect the next feat at about 3 months. Maybe 2 if you're lucky. But 3 months, you know, to be safe).
But, at 19 days, she suddenly rolls over! (Right in front of a vaguely amazed pediatrician with decades of experience).
Front to back. Quiet intentionally. No help from dad. Doctor asked her "What's your big hurry to grow up, Cookie? Eh?"
(She's going to be a ninja, my baby. How cool is that?).
~Dave
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Of special interest to the science fiction / fantasy community might be this posterized Hierarchy of Beards from over at Wondermark.com.
Anyway, I encourage you to spot your favorites. What was Asimov wearing? What about George RR? And that man at the supermarket (who may be a leprechaun and has decided that my wife is Irish because she was carrying a green shopping bag)?
Hierarchy of Beards
(Sadly, my only attempts at beard growing left me looking like a vaguely Amish extra from Das Boot).
~Dave
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Hey folks,
One of the orderlies on the new-moms ward stops, tentatively approaches me, and asks if I am that guy.... That child star?
I had to say that I wasn't, but now I'm wondering which guy she's thinking of...
(Not all the choices are appealing).
-Dave, former Child Star
PS: Our own little child star struggling to learn about things like eating.
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There is a new little person in our lives.
(New Daughter) Amy Elizabeth arrived on Wednesday night (all of eight days early). She is a perfect little tyke, as near as her dad (yours truly) can see. (Wife) Anne is pretty exhausted, but spends a lot of time grinning despite the CIA style sleep deprivation.
Hooray!
-Dave
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Okay, I'm sure we've all pulled a peculiar message or two from a fortune cookie.
My favourite to date?
And peppered with exclamation points. It's a lovely thing.
Sadly, the other cookies in the batch were much less exciting. (I guess they can't all be winners).
~Dave Keck
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You remember Dorothy's house spinning in the twister?
Well, it looks like Dorothy's place had a medieval predecessor.
Looking at a saint's day site (as you do), I found this lovely thing: http://www.magnificat.ca/cal/engl/12-10.htm
It seems that the Virgin Mary's house (the setting of many important Biblical moments) teleported itself to Yugoslavia in the 13th century. Back in the Holy Land, there had been recent inconvenient losses to the angry locals. Mary's House, sensing trouble brewing, up and teleported itself to Yugoslavia. (A well known haven from political, military and cultural turmoil). Somewhere between Tersatz and Fiume, apparently.
The building was conveniently equipped with a bell.
Of course, it didn't stay put. And subsequently flew itself off to stand among the Dalmatians. Oh, and then it spotted a nice hilltop and settled there. (All the while, chased by avid pilgrims).
All of this is attested by various popes, and, for this and other reasons, a really excellent thing.
~Dave
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Was at an opening the other night. (This was a retrospective of an artist called Greene who was something of a mentor to my father-in-law back in the fifties). The man was an abstract painter. Had naked parties in the house he'd built on an Atlantic cliff (all full of artists). Picture Errol Flynn with a paintbrush.
I don't know if you've ever been to a New York opening, but they are invariably a top-notch occasion for people watching.
At first, I'll admit that I was daunted. There was a lot of money in the room, I think. Silver-haired gents in blue blazers. Women with expensively styled hair. A few young women in cocktail dresses.
But, after a few minutes, the glamour began to wear off and I started to see what was really there.
I was impressed by at least two aging women with outsized glasses Cleopatra's makeup and the nearly noseless faces of mummified cats. (All slits, slants, and burnished leather). Elsewhere, an older gentlemen wore a kind of Sonny Bono combover that looked like a surgical accident.
Among the cocktail dressed young ladies was one buxom girl who clearly hadn't worn her dress since ten or fifteen pounds ago (and seemed surprised and discomfited by the fight it took to keep things in, down, or up (depending).
There were also a few young artistic types, including gigantic young woman in a floor length coat of purple muppets. I remember some kind of jeweled bird pinned to the front of a big muppet-russian fur hat as well and her talking a mile a minute to some poor old soul half her height.
There were a very few folks from my father-in-law's old crowd. A nice and tweedy playwright. Greene's second wife. And, here and there you'd see an old man with wing of wild hair and a turtleneck. Eye witnesses to the old days.
And, of course, nobody was looking at the pictures. (Even me).
~Dave
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Okay. We're on a bus, heading uptown on New York's storied Madison Avenue. I'm dangling from the monkey-hanging things and staring out the window as we race past various swish stores.
And then I have to blink: Someone has named their store "Oilily."
Apparently they sell clothing. Trendy clothing. And, I mean, their site says that the models are "oozing confidence," but I dunno. Is this adverb the one you would have picked for your cool new store? Oilily? Wouldn't "unctuously" have been more high brow? Was "slimily" taken?
The site discusses an unforgettable 'Soft Parade' at Amsterdam's International Fashion Week.
I expected stuffed animals and was terribly disappointed.
Perhaps something is lost in the translation?
~Dave
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I'm writing a scene. I get up and spasmodically jab the "StumbleUpon" button a couple of times.
And I hit this page: http://sosbulletin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/l2_kamaelweap_gsword.jpg
I poked around on the refering website for a few moments, but ran out of patience before I was able to get a good read on irony levels.
But still. There's something serene about a sword called "Pain of Godness." And, as for the rest, I picture someone taking shorthand as the creative sword-namer fought off a serious cold. "Bictory!" [sniff] "Inbincible!" [sneeze].
~Dave
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I used to thrive in these captive moments. I am at a class this morning (attending not teaching) and I find myself with a moment of enforced idleness (such as I used to experience back in school). And my mind is wandering. Whilst looking down upon my morning coffee, I was reminded of a mystery (to me and few others who mind these things). Every once ina while (and for decades), I've been glancing up at the moon and trying to remember how the phases cross the surface: left to right or right to left. All I can ever remember is the moment, years ago, when I looked it up. And, thinking myself clever, locked the order in my memory with a clever memory trick. See, I thought, you just have to remember that they move like the words on a page -- but backward. Or like Hebrew! Right to left. But, for years, I've really only remembered that the phases moved either like English, backward, or like Hebrew, backward. Either left to right or right to left. (And I've never even read a word of Hebrew). Or maybe it's like Chinese: up and down? Is it different in Australia? Well. Sitting here with a few minutes to spare, I've looked it up again. Enforced inactivity cannot be overrated. -Dave
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I'm watching storied Academy Award winning The African Queen the other day when I realize two astonishing things:
1) Katherine Hepburn is meant to be playing a distinctly unattractive woman
2) Bogart's character is CANADIAN!
I went out and read the book.
It turns out that someone thought of Hepburn as a big, strapping, British, blue-collar spinster (from somewhere northern and industrial). And that Bogart's character was meant to be a little Cockney guy.
Fortunately for all concerned, the gang decided that Bogart might make a more convincing Canadian than a Cockney. (If only Dick Van Dyck had been so prudent). You may recall that Governor Arnold was called "Dutch" in that cinematic classic Predator for what were likely similar reasons -- rolling with the accent punches, really.
While casting a slightly less elegant actress in the Hepburn spot might have made the love affair a little more convincing, I have a funny feeling that the poor African Queen would have had a much smaller audience to convince...
~Dave
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The word "perspicuous" is not, itself, perspicuous.
Look it up. I think I'm on to something here.
~Dave
PS: I have similar doubts about "luculent".
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I step outside the other evening and there's our super (a nice guy) standing among the trash bags.
He's been trying to scare "them." (It turns out "them" referred to RACCOONS!)
As a Disney-watching kid, I have a healthy admiration for these intrepid fox/primate combos. (I mean, I hear they wash their food before eating! I don't even know where they find streams up here).
A couple of weeks ago, (wife) Anne and I got to watch a large squad of street raccoons working in the deep evening. They'd found a big heap of bagged recycling near a church, and were stealthily going through the bottles wondering what had happened to the good trash of yesteryear. When a car pulled up, the whole gang froze, projecting: "We are just more bags full of disappointing trash, human. Raccoons are not here." One stepped back behind a car tire in a quick and silent fade. Meanwhile, the couple clomping out of the car, slammed the doors, chatted, and walked right by. (Sneaky).
My super kinda insisted that I see where his particular raccoons were waiting. See, they'd clambered over a fence and onto the substantial ledge that runs around the five-story back of our building. At first I could not see the critter. But finally I picked out a sort of featureless grey-beige afro -- that was staring back at us from the perfect twin ellipses of its raccoon Zoro mask.
I left as my super commenced barking down the ledge.
(I am sure the raccoon held his ground).
~Dave
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Well, I've been to Calgary and back. 
Moderating went moderately well, though we struggled with the topic. They had us talking about mystery tropes in ye olde fiction (possibly fantasy), and a couple of us really aren't doing that. Fortunately, a couple of the panelists were very game and entirely willing to rattle on. Still, there were plenty of laughs. And I got to pun on tropes a little bit which was both challenging and obnoxious.
Met Winnipegers, which is always a good thing. A solid contingent of old friends (and new) from the Prairie made the trip, and we sat down in a steakhouse. (Always a fine thing). And closed the convention in the worlds slowest diner.
Hung around with some of my favourite editor and writer types. David Anthony Durham and I are still, essentially, unable to chat. (It's all very cheerful, but somehow we can never get conversations off the ground). George Martin laments the wan and excessively moral times in which he has become famous whilst eating hotwings. Steve Erikson sports a pugnacious grey beard. I am thinking of adopting Walter Jon Williams. And (one-time) Winnipeger, Guy Gavriel Kay is busy winning nice (if disconcerting) award statuettes (see artist's impression attached).
Oh. And they have dim sum in Calgary. (I had no idea).
All in all, a wonderful time.
~Dave
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