August 2007

Verus Gnomicon: The Book of Knowing True Names. The reason, I think, science fiction is so bad at predicting the future is that it isn’t about the future so much as it is a commentary on the present, a commentary that uses ad absurdem as a technique. (Well, not really, but this is a ponder […]

One of the elephants looked like she’d lost a lot of weight. The old grandfather bull giraffe had died. He had so many knobblies on his head he looked like his horns had taken sprout, irregularly, almost down to his neck. A swirl of budgies (one of whom regaled me with a wolf whistle) has

(Doyce’s Story) It wasn’t meant to be bad. The kind of people who come up with these kinds of ideas aren’t the kind of people who can mean for them to be used the way they inevitably will be used. Perhaps it’s a kind of protection for the human race: the creators can only be

I hate editing. You’re not actually making anything, you’re just fixing your screwups (at least, that’s what my annoyed brain is telling me at the moment). But, in the interest of possibly lessening the suffering of another writer out there… I’m using a spreadsheet tool to help keep track of things (a tab for characters,

What’s the “walk score” of your neighborhood? Does it have a lot of parks? coffee shops? bookstores? Our house is a 37, which matches up with what I’ve been saying: I love everything about our house…except the neighborhood, which is kind of boring. (via Biophemera)

Back on Odin’s shoulders, Munin doesn’t so much as stick his beak in Odin’s ear before Odin starts ruminating about Baldur’s last day. The great, one-eyed face droops lower and lower, until tears roll down his cheeks and disappear into his beard, and he snuffles like a great, big beagle. Normally, this is where Hugin

I don’t think I’ll ever make this recipe…boggles the mind, no? But I may always wonder.

The paintings of Alie Ward. “Whatever” makes me think of Katie. (via Neatorama.)

by Paul DiFilippo. Check out the cover at the link above. Three figures, each presented in three sections: one has the head of a woman (Queen Victoria), the torso of something resembling an albino frog, and the feet of a dance-hall girl. The other two figures are even stranger and more mismatched. Along with the

(This was back in June.) The Coffee Tree is this combination coffee shop/bookstore in Huntsville, pretty much off the beaten path as far as tourists go, and I had high hopes for it. I went in. It was like an old general store, with wainscotting and turned posts and mint-green paint. I was served by