GrandfatherTrout

Paging athenais, and all other fans of Jane Austen: You need to go here right now.

Athenais, et al.: white courtesy telephone, please.

We always knew they were more than just mindless killing-machine clone warriors.

Via Mrs. Kennedy.

Meanwhile, The Story With Wikipedia In continues to flounder. I realized today that I'd written four pages of my main characters blabbing on and wondering what the hell the plot was supposed to be. That is probably a sign that the author doesn't really know the answer either.

I think I need to add a tulpa to the mix and see what happens.

I have had quite a few moments of fabulous metropolitan culture in the last ten days or so: dancing until 3 at Habibi, the monthly bash for NYC's gay Arab community (yes, really; the dance music, from Egypt Lebanon Syria et al, is fabulous, and the partygoers handsome); seeing Boeing Boeing on Broadway; Fleet Week. Oh, and the new Indiana Jones movie.

But none of them came close to seeing Greg play at the Duplex tonight. The crowd was tiny -- me and roadnotes and coyotegoth, a handful of drunken British tourists -- so Greg got to make some calls that he might not have attempted for a fuller house. Including a whole lotta Kate Bush. He did "Wuthering Heights"; he did "Hounds of Love"; he did "Cloudbusting." And then he went straight into "And Dream of Sheep," which made me happy; and then he went straight from there into "Under Ice," and we realized he was making some kinda banzai run through The Ninth Wave, and we didn't know whether to fall out of our chairs from the shock or just howl with joy and laugh and wave our arms. Because Greg is a Kate Bush geek who plays a mean piano and has a lovely clear tenor voice and was fully capable of pulling something like this off. He did a quick here-are-the-highlights of "Waking the Witch," he did "Watching You Without Me." He went straight on into "Jig of Life."

The other Kate fans in the room were in awe (and did all we could to throw in the umpty-leven other vocal bits). Those too young to know The Ninth Wave -- which, because I'm sure my father is out there wondering, is the astonishing song cycle on the B side of her towering 1985 work Hounds of Love -- had no effing idea what was going on or why we were losing our minds. Who the hell tries to perform The Ninth Wave on an upright in a West Village piano bar?

Anyway, just to be cheeky, he went about eighteen bars into "Jig of Life" and then segued gently into some Elton John tune that the Brits had requested. We hyperventilated quietly in the back; I ordered another ginger ale.

It rocked. Sure, I'm hopped up on ginger ale and it's 3 in the morning, but I wouldn'ta missed that for nothing.

It's a beautiful day in New York City -- sun shining, weather warm but not insane, pedestrians handsome -- and aside from a trip to get a sandwich at lunchtime I have spent it at home, either writing or poking about the Internet doing some research.

Today's progress on the story with Wikipedia in it: first ~1300 words. I have a goal, I have a mechanism, I have some characters who seem willing to banter interestingly with one another. Much of what I have written may be cut, but it got me to where I am, so fine. I have reached the point where the goal must be addressed directly. Once again, I realize I have no overt conflict on the horizon. Not sure what it's going to be, exactly, and I tire of smacking face-first into this same structural issue over and over. On the other hand, I had no bouts of oh my god run for your life today (q.v.), so perhaps I should take my triumphs where I found them. Thirteen-hundred words, y'all.

Yay. I'm off to get a margarita now.

Am trying to circumvent the antimuse again; the story that seemed so full of promise a couple of weeks ago disintegrates every time I try to touch it. I need to stop trying to think the short pieces through start-to-finish before I sit down to write them, because that way leads to an endless loop of "wait, this aspect of the plot doesn't hold up under scrutiny; think of something else." Until the whole damn thing is dead, vivisected into unrecognizable dog food on the table. But the ability to just sit down and go, which used to be something I could plug into so easily, has gotten tangled up in something very frightened. Sitting on the balcony this afternoon I was no more than a page into an attempt at the story in question before I found myself beset by the urge to throw the laptop over the rail, hurry hurry hurry. Because apparently smashing my computer and possibly killing some random stranger 13 stories below was preferable to tuning into the celestial radio without... without I dunno. Without the promise of something "good" in exchange, I suspect. Just to be safe, I moved into the bedroom before continuing. I am very tired of this particular neurosis.

Anyway, here's something fierce to scare away the demons. Research suggests that it's an Australian performer named Strykermeyer; the song he's covering using is Laurie Anderson's "Sharkey's Night" (1984). Video is apparently from a documentary made to accompany a DVD release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Strykermeyer did performance makeup for the film's drag artistes.

I had a dreadful beard-trimming accident this morning, and as a result I have a better idea of what my chin looks like today than I have had for -- what, a couple years at least. It's very short. The beard, that is; the chin is still suitably chin-shaped.

To take my mind off the aarghness of it all, here's another damn YouTube video. This time, a proper use for Cadbury's Creme Eggs. Which are not food. As opposed to, say, Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, which are divine. (Thank you, Faustus, M.D.)

If you don't get this, well, you won't get this. But if you do: Well. It is -- how you say? Bwah.

(Ten thousand thanks to stealthmuffin, who rocks.)

Dear self:

That was fun, again. Here, in no particular order, are some songs from Greg's repertoire for which I think it's time to start learning the words -- no, I mean really learn the words, so they can be sung without listening to the original recording -- if you're going to continue to hang out in piano bars with disreputable types until much too late in the evening:

• "Alison"
• "Every Day I Write the Book"
• "I Don't Know What it Is"
• "Wuthering Heights," because this is a prime demonstration that singing along in the car etc. for 20 years doesn't mean that you're not faking bits here and there
• "Rocket Man"
• "Wicked Little Town"
• "Back on the Chain Gang," maybe
• "Ask," because how fun would that be?
• "And Dream of Sheep" into "Under Ice" is still a totally brilliant idea, seriously

And of course, see if you can find the music for "Guilty," that Randy Newman song, in the arrangement (or at least the key) that Bonnie Raitt used.

For those who need a break from whatever they're doing: an exercise in lateral thinking, best undertaken in short bursts: Funny Farm.

Here's what you need to know: it's a concept map. Start with the kicker on the first square: "On the Farm." As you identify the first set of associated terms (things you would see on a farm, i.e.), branches of associated terms appear. Keep filling in. Eventually, I am told, you will end up at four words in the corners of the map that are the clues to the puzzle's ultimate single-word solution. Be prepared to think laterally. Be prepared to bump into whole chunks that you know right off the bat will probably require Googling.

Don't forget to eat and sleep. (Via Dr. Virago at Quod She.)

I saw the Clark GableCary Grant*-Rosalind Russell screwball classic His Girl Friday last night for the first time, in the company of a friend who has been after me for months that my old-movie exposure is so low as to risk revocation of my Gay Card. (He's threatening megadoses of Joan Crawford. I am uneasy.) Anyway, I need to get this out there, in the hopes that someone will enlighten me: was that intended to read as a happy ending?

Because GableGrant spends the whole movie in repeated attempts to scuttle his ex-wife's impending marriage -- by having her fiancé arrested on bogus charges three times and also arranging for the kidnapping of her intended mother-in-law by his friend the local thug -- and generally refusing to take "we're divorced" for an answer, doing everything in his power to take Russell's stated dream of leaving the newspaper business for a quiet life of domesticity in Albany away from her. Hijinks ensue, GableGrant's efforts pay off, and Russell agrees to marry him again.

To recap: The manipulative asshole wins, the nice guy gets sent home to Albany, and Russell remarries the guy who has shown no signs of being any different than he was when she divorced him. And we're supposed to... cheer? Laugh? What?

I don't know why I found myself as outraged by this as I did. The film has obvious merits: snappy rapid-fire dialogue, a plot that moves along at a zillion miles an hour, strong performances. But I couldn't get past that fundamental aspect of the plot. I guess it should be chalked up to 1930s sexism; but as much as I could dismiss a couple of moments of casual racism as being a product of the movie's day, I just couldn't do it where GableGrant was concerned.

Am I the only one here? And was this kind of plot a standard screwball device? Because if so I may be in trouble.

*D'oh! Thanks, pixelfish! How embarrassing...

gethuman.com

For future reference: your shortcuts through the mazes of twisty passages to get to an actual person.

Things that you may find the new B-52s¹ album reminiscent of, at random points:

• Dieter from Sprockets
• Various fabulous moments from Wild Planet
• Dr. Seuss on some unidentified (but probably illegal) psychoactive chemical
• Some sort of perverse let's-torture-Babelfish experiment
• Various fabulous moments from Cosmic Thing
• Every truly excellent dance party you ever went to in college

Seriously, dude. It's not perfect, but it's everything you want from a B-52s album: love! Science! Consumerism! Aliens! Dancing! Universal harmony! It's demented geekery in the best possible way, and it puts a big dorky smile on your face and leaves you struggling with the urge to dance your ass off right there on the subway. Kate and Cindy, their voices still as perfectly matched as two fake pearls on an East Village czarina's bosom, as smooth and shiny as ice. Fred, freaky as ever, busting out the left-footed recitations. Twangly-jangly guitaromania. Buzzy-zippy electronicity. Put on your best wig, whomever you may be, and get thee out onto the dance floor.

Lord have mercy. Has it really been 16 years since their last album? And 19 years since Cosmic Thing? I refuse to think about the ramifications. Keep doin' what we're doin', 'cause it's what we like.

¹ Yes, it's true. They dropped the apostrophe. If I wasn't already ready to sing hosannas from the rooftops, this woulda done the trick.

I had yesterday off and as a result didn't realize it was St. Patrick's Day until about 2:30 in the afternoon, because I spent the morning stretched out and watching Doctor Who episodes.¹ I missed the parade. I missed the first wave (~9AM-1PM) of drunken yahoos.

Which is not to say that I missed all the drunken yahoos, on subways and sidewalks all over town. Aargh. I mean, I'm fractionally of Irish descent myself, but still: go away, you idiots. I still think we should do a pre-Christian Irish holiday parade, and paint our naked bodies blue and run screaming down Fifth Avenue with weapons flailing. In the mean time, though, here's something that did, eventually, put me in the holiday spirit and did not result in waking up in a gutter somewhere. Enjoy.

¹ I've now gone all the way through the Daleks in Depression-era NYC two-parter. Not one of their better efforts, and I'm not sure how much I believe the Martha-Doctor dynamic, but whatever. The theme music alone is enough to put an utterly dorky smile on my face.

Paging athenais and all other tiki aficionados:

Trader Vic's is having an overstock sale at its warehouse in Richmond (CA). All this week, 10AM-7PM.

You are advised to plan accordingly.

It's winter at last in NYC: real winter, not merely cold. There's snow! And horrible puddles of gray slish in the gutters! And everything! So the weeks of hat hair we've all had to endure, and the new boots we had to buy because our old ones caused nerve damage when we wore them to Burning Man, and all that? They are all worth it now.

I have celebrated by flobbing around the apartment -- which I have to myself for a while because the housemate is in Los Angeles -- and doing nothing. No, I mean really nothing. No, even nothinger than that. It has been both pathetic and lovely. Along the course of the nothingness, I found the clip below, which was created for a recent animation-industry awards banquet by the voice actors from SpongeBob SquarePants (event M.C. Tom Kenny, along with presenters Rodger Bumpass, Carolyn Lawrence and Bill Fagerbakke). My SpongeBob mania has cooled from the white-hot state it achieved a few years back, but still: this is genius: three classic movies re-voiced by SpongeBob, Squidward, Sandy, and Patrick. (With a cameo by Gary the Snail.)

[via MamaPop]

Hokey smokes, what a long week that was. Am now in Boston for Boskone. Busted my ass to make a deadline today, dashed to the train, discovered that I had somehow screwed up my Amtrak tickets and that as a result I would not be on the 7pm Acela, arriving Boston 10:30. Instead, was reticketed for the 7:30 local, arriving Boston 11:50. Which actually left NY at about 8:20, arrived Boston 1:15. (Only saving grace of trip up was that I discovered that I had a goldmine of unviewed Doctor Who episodes on my laptop's internal drive, so between efforts to breathe life into the story about the sponge-golem kitty I brought myself up through the end of Rose Tyler and the subsequent Christmas episode.) Walked the mile to the hotel, which was good for clearing the head. Checked in. Was hoping to meet up with friends at the Tor party, but if it's still going on I can't find it. No food to be had anywhere.

Going to fall over now.

The hidden world on the other side of the refrigerator.

It appears I have just made hotel and con reservations for Boskone. Cool!

For my next trick: travel from NYC to Boston for the con. I will be going up either as late as I can reasonably manage on a Friday evening or as early as possible on a Saturday morning. (I won't know until midway through the week of the event, at the earliest, when I'll be able to slip out of the office on Friday. We ship a magazine that day.) What do you think, folks: Acela? Regular old train? Bus?

She answers the telephone.

He goes to college despite his parents' pleas. They eat the steak. You open the envelope. You wear the shirt anyway. He cooks dinner for her at home. She goes into the dining room. They leave the room. He raises his hand. You stand up and look him in the eye. She pulls the plant out by the roots. He shaves his head and changes his name. They wrap it in paper and put it in the closet. He throws the ring off the bridge and into the gorge.

She throws the lamp at his head and screams at him to get out of her room. You kick it under the bed and say nothing. They agree to work together to find the missing girl. He orders all guns to open fire. She pays hundreds of dollars for a new pair of prosthetic eyes. He tells them to stay where they are. They run down the stairs and chase him into the woods. He decides to leave his wife. She remains at Burning Man even though she knows her mother is ill. They sell the plane. She taps him on the shoulder. She writes her name on the list. He lies. They buy the tickets anyway. They don't tell anyone what they have seen. They set it on fire. You pour it into the bowl. You stick your hands into the murky water. You unbutton your shirt and smile.

She tells him exactly what she thinks. He burns the letter unread. He turns left instead. He initiates the computer's autodestruct sequence. He gets in the car. She gets out of the car. She enlists in the Space Marines. He follows his master into the cave. You ignore the uncharacteristic spelling errors. It slithers out of the box and into the light. They order another round of drinks. She straightens her apron and leaves the kitchen. She puts down the gun. He buries the knife behind the rose bushes. You abandon ship without a moment's hesitation. He fires the flare gun.

She does not answer the telephone.