"Just goes to show that the blood you bleed Is just the blood you owe."
Sunny today. Our high was 72˚F, and it is now 69˚F. Yes, this is abnormally warm weather.
Once again, I woke at 5 a.m.
So much harm has come from the "defund the police" foolishness. Most recently, this epidemic of "smash and grab" robberies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere. We need good cops, not fewer cops. Otherwise, you get this shit, thugs free to act as they choose with little fear of reprisal. Expecting human beings to just play nice and not pull shit like these robberies is the height of naivete. If there are problems with the police - and yes, there are - you address those problems without scaling back police presence. I'm looking at these boarded up storefronts in San Francisco, guarded buy armed security, a surreal background for holiday shoppers, and I see yet another way that America is crumbling before our eyes. And, in the end, "defund the police" will lead to a greater police presence, not fewer police. Oakland, for example, is scrambling to get more officers back on the force ASAP.
And fuck you, Susan Sarandon, you and Bernie Sanders.
Yeah, I just had to vent a little.
I'm going to try to get back to work on The Night Watchers between now and Monday. But we're heading out to Mom's (in Leeds) to do laundry tomorrow, and on Saturday Kathryn and I both get our COVID-19 booster shots (though that will not lessen our anxiety over the coming of Omicron). And I have to get a couple of issues of Sirenia Digest out ASAP, hopefully by next Friday.
I toyed with one of the Winifred blocks a little today (below).
It looks as if we will not be returning to Providence until early next autumn, for a host of reasons. But, at least, this should give me time to get the novel written and finish the plioplatecarpine paper before the chaos of the move.
I lost two weeks in the second half of October to the dermatitis, then, after a brief respite, almost three weeks in November due to a bad infection caused by the bite. One spider. Two lost months (not to mention all the fucking discomfort, and the lost work days). Jun and Mike have both asked if I at least got web-spinning superpowers. No such luck. And no, this has not changed my love of spiders, but I will be more cautious.
I think that's all for now. For today. Except:
So, among the current eBay auctions is a copy of the original 2018 Centipede Press edition of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales (photo below). Yes, this is an expensive book for serious collectors. I only got eleven copies for myself. This will be the first one I have sold. It's pretty much all my Lovecraftian stories, with illustrations by Vince Locke, Richard Kirk, and John Kenn Mortensen, wrap-around cover by Piotr Jabłoński, plus an introduction by S.T. Joshi and an afterword by Michael Cisco. And the book is signed by all involved. This is 552 pages of fiction (well, fiction plus all the rest) bound in the single most beautiful book that has ever borne my name. Full Dutch cloth with two color stamping on spine and blind stamp on front board.A clothbound slipcase and printed endpapers, with a ribbon marker and head and tail bands. This book, it's a class act. So, please have a look. And there are other booksellers asking much more for it.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
2:38 p.m.
Once again, I woke at 5 a.m.
So much harm has come from the "defund the police" foolishness. Most recently, this epidemic of "smash and grab" robberies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere. We need good cops, not fewer cops. Otherwise, you get this shit, thugs free to act as they choose with little fear of reprisal. Expecting human beings to just play nice and not pull shit like these robberies is the height of naivete. If there are problems with the police - and yes, there are - you address those problems without scaling back police presence. I'm looking at these boarded up storefronts in San Francisco, guarded buy armed security, a surreal background for holiday shoppers, and I see yet another way that America is crumbling before our eyes. And, in the end, "defund the police" will lead to a greater police presence, not fewer police. Oakland, for example, is scrambling to get more officers back on the force ASAP.
And fuck you, Susan Sarandon, you and Bernie Sanders.
Yeah, I just had to vent a little.
I'm going to try to get back to work on The Night Watchers between now and Monday. But we're heading out to Mom's (in Leeds) to do laundry tomorrow, and on Saturday Kathryn and I both get our COVID-19 booster shots (though that will not lessen our anxiety over the coming of Omicron). And I have to get a couple of issues of Sirenia Digest out ASAP, hopefully by next Friday.
I toyed with one of the Winifred blocks a little today (below).
It looks as if we will not be returning to Providence until early next autumn, for a host of reasons. But, at least, this should give me time to get the novel written and finish the plioplatecarpine paper before the chaos of the move.
I lost two weeks in the second half of October to the dermatitis, then, after a brief respite, almost three weeks in November due to a bad infection caused by the bite. One spider. Two lost months (not to mention all the fucking discomfort, and the lost work days). Jun and Mike have both asked if I at least got web-spinning superpowers. No such luck. And no, this has not changed my love of spiders, but I will be more cautious.
I think that's all for now. For today. Except:
So, among the current eBay auctions is a copy of the original 2018 Centipede Press edition of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales (photo below). Yes, this is an expensive book for serious collectors. I only got eleven copies for myself. This will be the first one I have sold. It's pretty much all my Lovecraftian stories, with illustrations by Vince Locke, Richard Kirk, and John Kenn Mortensen, wrap-around cover by Piotr Jabłoński, plus an introduction by S.T. Joshi and an afterword by Michael Cisco. And the book is signed by all involved. This is 552 pages of fiction (well, fiction plus all the rest) bound in the single most beautiful book that has ever borne my name. Full Dutch cloth with two color stamping on spine and blind stamp on front board.A clothbound slipcase and printed endpapers, with a ribbon marker and head and tail bands. This book, it's a class act. So, please have a look. And there are other booksellers asking much more for it.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
2:38 p.m.