Saturday, August 20, 2005
My iPod, my ears and I are currently getting happy to Ladytron, one of those bands I kept meaning to track down and listen to, having first encountered their music in The Velvet Goldmine, then again in Party Monster. But I forget dren. I forget lots of dren. Thanks to subtlesttrap for pointing me to the video for "Destroy Everything You Touch" and thereby reminding me of Ladytron just when I needed a bunch of "new" music (as in, new to me). Check out the video (from their forthcoming third CD, Witching Hour). This would make such wonderful music for Final Fantasy X-2 (which I played until about 4 a.m.), instead of that insipid Nobuo Uematsu elevator crap. Yeah, I know that's some sort of unforgivable blasphemy among Final Fantasy fans, but it's also the truth. The music is frelling insipid. Which is fine and all, if you like insipid music. I'd rather be playing Final Fantasy X-2 to the likes of Ladytron, Radiohead, Catherine Wheel, the 5,6,7.8s, Malice Mizer, Smashing Pumpkins, New Order, Lush, The Sugercubes, and various other appropriate but non-insipid music. Anyway...
Not. Enough. Sleep. Not enough sleep in the whole world.
Er...what next. Oh, yeah. Yesterday. Yesterday I was too, too ambitious. We did manage to proof "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6" (for Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth) and read all the way through the finished-after-twelve-years prologue for The Merewife. As regards the latter, I think that I'm very happy with how this piece has come out. But it was an odd thing to do, picking these loose threads up after so many years. So, the oddness is making it a little more difficult than usual to judge my work. And speaking of Beowulf, I think Neil posted a link to this cartoon the other day, but I was reminded of it this morning by mapultoid. Like I said, if Yaweh and the Xtians get a spot in American science classrooms, then so do all the other non-Xtian "theories" of "intelligent design," including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. How the holy hezmanna are Aske and Embla any more (or less) absurd than Adam and Eve, I ask you? But. As I was saying. Yes, the prologue for The Merewife is essentially done. A few tweaks left, and today I have to write the afterword (because I only managed to get it started yesterday, not finished), and I've told Subterranean Press that I'll do the cover for the chapbook. Also, I have to attend to the Great Secret today.
I've mentioned T. S. Kuhn something like three times in that past week or two, and it only just occurred to me last night that a lot of people have no idea who T. S. Kuhn is, because they didn't waste a huge portion of their time in college on philosophy of science classes. T. S. Kuhn is the author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago, 1962, 1970), one of the most influential works on the history and methodology of science in the last few decades. And sometimes that's good. And sometimes it's bad. I've never agreed with a large portion of Kuhn's central thesis, though I spent a great deal of time studying, dissecting, and writing about his work. He's probably the chief reason that the word "paradigm" is so used and abused in Western culture today. Anyway, that's who Kuhn is. I was always much impressed with his concept of "incommensurable worldviews," though more for its implications for language than for scientific revolutions.
Kid night last night. We watched The Fiend Without a Face, a film that would have probably scared the crap out of me as a little kid, but these days I find the brain-sucking brain monsters more adorable than frightening. Afterwards, we watched the Harryhausen classic, The Black Scorpion, which did scare the crap out of me as a small child.
Lastly, let me remind you (and to quote from a previous post): Spooky has added a PC ("presentation copy") of the lettered, leatherbound edition of mine and Poppy's collaborative short-fiction collection, Wrong Things (Subterranean Press, 2001). The book sold out quite a while ago. This copy comes in a sturdy traycase, signed by both Poppy and me (and I'll personalize it if the winner so desires). It includes my story "Onion," Poppy's "The Crystal Empire," and our collaboration, "The Rest of the Wrong Thing," along with an afterword I wrote and full page B&W illustrations and endsheets by Richard Kirk. Plus, I've decided to offer Monster Doodle Sculpture #2 with this auction, so you'll not only get the book, you'll get one-of-a-kind, squirming, three-dimensional terror from beyond the stars, to boot! Click here to bid or buy it now. Though long out of print, we're beginning this auction at the original cover price for the lettered edition.
1:37 PM
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