I'm pleased to announce that Penguin has submitted The Red Tree to the nominating committee for the Publishing Triangle Awards. Which is cool, and I hope they'll do the same for the Shirley Jackson Awards.
Amen.
I don't know what the insect in the third photograph is, but it's lovely.
We are told, straight out, these are living people suffering from a virus that causes them to become enraged cannibals. Not the living dead; the infected living.
Like I told Trivia Guy last night...I haven't seen it yet, but from the previews, I suspect that there are gags in it that 'slow zombies' just wouldn't have cut it for.
And thanks for the word on Pandorum. That might end up a night at the five dollar theatre, now that I know it's not just torture porn in space.
Like I told Trivia Guy last night...I haven't seen it yet, but from the previews, I suspect that there are gags in it that 'slow zombies' just wouldn't have cut it for.
That's a good point, really. No. The film would not have worked with slow "zombies."
And thanks for the word on Pandorum. That might end up a night at the five dollar theatre, now that I know it's not just torture porn in space.
Nope. It's not that. And yeah, probably worth five bucks.
I was bored and disappointed by Pandorum to a level where I left the theater upset. You are spot-on about the mutants, they were boring and superfluous to the point where it was a little insulting, and it gave really short shrift to what was a far more interesting conflict involving Dennis Quaid's character. It could have been a very tight thriller with some awesome unreliable-character hijinks that left the audience wondering which of the principles was the crazy one (or if they were both round the bend), but as it was, it was a slightly cheaper, more comprehensible Eden Log in English.
.It could have been a very tight thriller with some awesome unreliable-character hijinks that left the audience wondering which of the principles was the crazy one (or if they were both round the bend),
Yep.
but as it was, it was a slightly cheaper, more comprehensible Eden Log in English.
Gods, I hated Eden Log. I actually dozed off a couple of times.
Now I am even more disappointed by that movie - before it was just for what it was, and now that I've thought a little more about it, I am disappointed for what it wasn't.
Falltime is the best time for Wolfsheim, I've found. And for other "nostalgia" bands, like Type O Negative and Gravity Kills (yeah yeah yeah) and Kidney Thieves.
Also, I'm reading The Red Tree AND A is for Alien right now. The differences between the two, the separate voices, one more gritty and raw, the other more functional and detached, keep shocking me whenever I open the pages of each. It's pleasant to have a change, especially since I picked The Red Tree as the "putting my son to bed" book. Probably not the smartest choice, but then again, the only real story that absolutely ooked me out in Tales of Pain and Wonder was "Postcards from the King of Tides".
It's pleasant to have a change, especially since I picked The Red Tree as the "putting my son to bed" book. Probably not the smartest choice, but then again, the only real story that absolutely ooked me out in Tales of Pain and Wonder was "Postcards from the King of Tides".
I hope you don't mean to say you picked The Red Tree out as a bedtime story for your son.
Haha, no. He's only 11 months, so he wouldn't get much out of it anyway, but the book is all for me. He still nurses to sleep, and I get bored while he does so. Reading occupies my mind, but in a dimly lit room, now that I'm two-thirds of the way through The Red Tree, I'm beginning to wonder the intelligence of my reading choice. Oh well, stay the course, right?
I'd be more inclined to read Neil Gaiman's The Dangerous Alphabet to him or snippets from Roman Dirge's Something At The Window Is Scratching, and I'm already amassing a collection of Roald Dahl stories for when he's older. I just hope to goodness he'll enjoy reading.
Haha, no. He's only 11 months, so he wouldn't get much out of it anyway, but the book is all for me. He still nurses to sleep, and I get bored while he does so. Reading occupies my mind,
Oh! Denison! That's my relatives. George Denison was one of the founders of Stonington and led the township's secession from Connecticut to Massachusetts. He was kind of a professional pain in the ass. He even died while in a session of the Connecticut legislature, possibly just to piss them off. So he's not buried at Stonington, he's buried in Hartford. He lived to be nearly ninety, I think-- it's possible his constant state of indignation kept him alive that long. And I'm not just making that up-- he got so angry at his first wife for dying that he abandoned their children and ran off to England for several years. He really was a wacko. I know, I know, boring family histories aren't the point of all this, but people always forget that those names on the stones were real humans, and had their own eccentric issues with reality in their turn. I find the genealogies interesting because you can draw little squares of inbreeding in them. First cousins, first cousins, first cousins, first cousins, no wonder I don't have a normal number of
( ... )
Oh! Denison! That's my relatives. George Denison was one of the founders of Stonington and led the township's secession from Connecticut to Massachusetts.
Having seen your comment yesterday, I thought you'd get a kick out of that.
but people always forget that those names on the stones were real humans, and had their own eccentric issues with reality in their turn.
I had started writing a novel about those Denison ancestors but, as you know, writing is complicated, and the characters were pulling me in a direction that I very much doubted my family would enjoy. But now my genealogy-expert grandmother is over 90 and ailing, and I hope to visit her before it's too late and retrieve all of those painstaking notes she took and go over that research she did. Once she's in a place not to be upset by where that research takes me, I'll resume; for now, I'll respect the work she's done and merely appreciate.
I always get such a fascinatingly dark vibe from archaic New England; I actually somewhat like the Puritans, for all they're so misunderstood now. They were twisted, yes, but not the way people think of from our modern standpoint. Ooh! But I love the pictures you've posted.
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Amen.
I don't know what the insect in the third photograph is, but it's lovely.
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I don't know what the insect in the third photograph is, but it's lovely.
Not an insect, actually. An arachnid (though not a spider), a harvestman, often called a "granddaddy longlegs."
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Oh, neat. Thank you. We have acquired some garden spiders the size of marbles in the back yard-I spent way too much time looking them up yesterday.
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Like I told Trivia Guy last night...I haven't seen it yet, but from the previews, I suspect that there are gags in it that 'slow zombies' just wouldn't have cut it for.
And thanks for the word on Pandorum. That might end up a night at the five dollar theatre, now that I know it's not just torture porn in space.
Reply
Like I told Trivia Guy last night...I haven't seen it yet, but from the previews, I suspect that there are gags in it that 'slow zombies' just wouldn't have cut it for.
That's a good point, really. No. The film would not have worked with slow "zombies."
And thanks for the word on Pandorum. That might end up a night at the five dollar theatre, now that I know it's not just torture porn in space.
Nope. It's not that. And yeah, probably worth five bucks.
Reply
I'm hoping to see Zombieland this weekend.
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.It could have been a very tight thriller with some awesome unreliable-character hijinks that left the audience wondering which of the principles was the crazy one (or if they were both round the bend),
Yep.
but as it was, it was a slightly cheaper, more comprehensible Eden Log in English.
Gods, I hated Eden Log. I actually dozed off a couple of times.
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Also, I'm reading The Red Tree AND A is for Alien right now. The differences between the two, the separate voices, one more gritty and raw, the other more functional and detached, keep shocking me whenever I open the pages of each. It's pleasant to have a change, especially since I picked The Red Tree as the "putting my son to bed" book. Probably not the smartest choice, but then again, the only real story that absolutely ooked me out in Tales of Pain and Wonder was "Postcards from the King of Tides".
Reply
It's pleasant to have a change, especially since I picked The Red Tree as the "putting my son to bed" book. Probably not the smartest choice, but then again, the only real story that absolutely ooked me out in Tales of Pain and Wonder was "Postcards from the King of Tides".
I hope you don't mean to say you picked The Red Tree out as a bedtime story for your son.
Reply
I'd be more inclined to read Neil Gaiman's The Dangerous Alphabet to him or snippets from Roman Dirge's Something At The Window Is Scratching, and I'm already amassing a collection of Roald Dahl stories for when he's older. I just hope to goodness he'll enjoy reading.
Reply
Haha, no. He's only 11 months, so he wouldn't get much out of it anyway, but the book is all for me. He still nurses to sleep, and I get bored while he does so. Reading occupies my mind,
Okay. You had me going there for a moment...
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I know, I know, boring family histories aren't the point of all this, but people always forget that those names on the stones were real humans, and had their own eccentric issues with reality in their turn. I find the genealogies interesting because you can draw little squares of inbreeding in them. First cousins, first cousins, first cousins, first cousins, no wonder I don't have a normal number of ( ... )
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Oh! Denison! That's my relatives. George Denison was one of the founders of Stonington and led the township's secession from Connecticut to Massachusetts.
Having seen your comment yesterday, I thought you'd get a kick out of that.
but people always forget that those names on the stones were real humans, and had their own eccentric issues with reality in their turn.
I think on this a lot.
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I had started writing a novel about those Denison ancestors but, as you know, writing is complicated, and the characters were pulling me in a direction that I very much doubted my family would enjoy. But now my genealogy-expert grandmother is over 90 and ailing, and I hope to visit her before it's too late and retrieve all of those painstaking notes she took and go over that research she did. Once she's in a place not to be upset by where that research takes me, I'll resume; for now, I'll respect the work she's done and merely appreciate.
I always get such a fascinatingly dark vibe from archaic New England; I actually somewhat like the Puritans, for all they're so misunderstood now. They were twisted, yes, but not the way people think of from our modern standpoint. Ooh! But I love the pictures you've posted.
Reply
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