Tags: tv

http://thursdayjava.blogspot.com/2009/07/looks-like-we-made-it-through-week.html

Looks like we made it through the week without another mass exodus of our famous people. You're safe for now, Jim J. Bullock!



And here, faster than you can put on your Cosmic Cow hand-puppet, are today's playlists:

Log for first part of July 9th, 2009 show

Log for second part of July 9th, 2009 show

You stay classy, RMS.

Tags: computers, perversions
Current Music: Matt Loper -- RMS Remix

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
51. Devil In a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley.
52. A Red Death by Walter Mosley.
53. White Butterfly by Walter Mosley.

54. Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa From a Shaky Doom by Ysabeau Wilce. Full disclosure: Ysa and her Devilman are friends. I enjoyed the first Flora Segunda book, with some minor reservations about pacing; this one is so good that it makes me wonder if I was completely wrongheaded to even have those concerns. Flora's alternate California (or Alta Califa, if you will) just gets weirder and scarier and more spectacular, this time with ghouls, fancy balls, earthquakes, AWOL sisters, kakodemons, flying pigs, anarchist rock bands, fancy red possessed boots, time travel, and some jaw-dropping twists. Makes me want to read the third book right exactly now. (Also makes me want to read those yellowbacks about Nini Mo. Ysa's next project, perhaps?)

Tags: 2009 reading, books

Because it was already 6:00 p.m. by the time the members of our caravan were checking into our rooms, and the first programming items were to begin at 8:00, we immediately dove into dinner. Paul, Deb and I joined Diane Martin, David Shaw, their child Miles (check out the cute trio below), plus Kit and Joe Reed for a wonderful meal.

The conversation was lively—lots of talk of how the first Readercon came to be in 1987, plus nods to fallen comrade Bob Ingria—and the food was great. We'd all complained the year the restaurant was closed (was that two Readercons ago?), but the food has been much better since its reopening. Especially the tower of duck David and I split! (Though, yes, it's more pricey, too. But the trade-off seems worth it to me, particularly since there's so much great stuff happening at Readercon that it's difficult to make a case for venturing out.)



The first panel I attended was "Writers Who Review," and it featured an all-star line-up—Michael Bishop, Paul Di Filippo, Liz Hand, Barry Malzberg, Howard Waldrop, and Gene Wolfe. I never tire of hearing Barry Malzberg quote from his worst review ever: "Avon calls this a brilliant new novel, thereby making three mistakes in three words." Michael Dirda asked Gene Wolfe whether he'd ever learned anything from a review, and Wolfe replied: "All I can say is ... no." The audience roared.

Unfortunately, there were readings going on at the same time, so I had to miss the second half of the panel. I normally sit in the first few rows of any panel, but this time I'd sat in the back just so I could slip away surreptitiously (as much as anyone 6' 4" can sneak) to head to friend Resa Nelson's 8:30 reading. She read the opening chapter of The Dragonslayer's Sword, and since there was time left, the first chapter of her new novel to be published next year, Our Lady of the Absolute.

Then it was off to hear F. Brett Cox read at 9:00 from his novel in progress It Came Out of the Sky. Brett always gives a good read, and it made me anxious to read the whole book. Now finish the damn thing, Brett!

There was no further official programming after that, so I hit the bar (because that's what we do at these things, right?) and sat with Warren Lapine, Doug Cohen, Ron Sawyer, Rick Wilber, Jacob Weisman, Nick DiChario, and others, paging through the new issue of Realms of Fantasy. Congratulations to Warren for preventing a good magazine from dying. Now about Science Fiction Age ...

After that, there was no more juice in me, so I crashed. Now it's time to shower, shave, get dressed (in that order, I think) and get on with the day. Not only am I on two panels and giving a reading, but there are three panels and two readings by others I want to attend as well. Thank you, Readercon committee, for being that damn good!

Tags: readercon

I woke up yesterday at 3:00 a.m., and my head didn't hit the pillow again until 12:40 a.m. Here's a little bit of what happened in between.

I left the house in West Virginia, heading for BWI Airport, by 4:00 a.m. I was alone, but as it turned out, I was not without friends. Tuning to the local NPR station as I drove, I listened to the BBC, because that's what airs on that station so early in the morning. Suddenly, I heard a friend of mine being introduced—writer and critic Kim Newman, whom I first met (if my memory is functioning the morning after my first day of Readercon) at a World Horror Con in the early '90s. He was brought on to discuss Bruno, which he didn't seem to like much, though he was impressed by the hours of work necessary to get each of the tiny clips which made it up. Hearing his voice, I felt as if Readercon had already begun!

That wasn't the first time that had happened. I was once driving back from a Springfield Boskone to Framingham (when I lived there in the mid-'80s) and had Ted Klein unexpectedly and serendipitously accompanying me for a full hour on the radio.

I arrived in Providence at 8:50, where I was met by Paul Di Filippo, just as I've been each year for at least a decade, ever since I decided to fly there instead of to Boston for Readercon, plus Michael Bishop. Mike and his wife Jeri have been staying with Paul and Deb Newton for several days of touring before the con. We headed back to the Di Filippo/Newton manse, where we admired the book collection, discussing some of our favorites, including a novel which had made an early impression on Mike, We All Died at Breakaway Station by Richard C. Meredith, whom we hadn't realized had died so young.

We had plenty of time before the first of the next two were due to arrive at the Providence airport, so we headed over to an Italian restaurant on Hope street for lunch. As usual with any gathering of SF writers, however small, the conversation inevitably gets around to Harlan Ellison, so while some of us had souvlaki and others chicken parmigiana, pasta, and/or salad, we each told the stories of our first meetings. (Don't worry—Harlan didn't monopolize the meal.) Then it was off to pick up Howard Waldrop, who arrived around 1:30. On the way back to Poplar Street, Paul pointed out those places which Lovecraft would have seen, including the cemetery where grave-robbing had taken place in the story "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." (Which wasn't the same cemetery at which Lovecraft ended up being buried.)

After Mike, Paul and I delivered Howard to Poplar Street, Paul and immediately turned around to head back to the airport to pick up Michael Dirda, whose plane was to land at 2:30. (Don't worry, Providence is small, and the airport wasn't that far away, so even though I was going to be there for the third time that day, it wasn't onerous.) Driving back with Mike, we discussed, among other things, the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. Since Mike is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, I asked him what he thought of it. He told us that he felt it would bear the same relationship to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle as the James Bond movies do to the books. Make of that what you will.

Here are the guys (Howard, Michael Dirda, Paul, me, and Michael Bishop) back in Paul and Deb's dining room, having a drink before hitting the road for Readercon:



And please—don't blame me for the level of testosterone in this image, or in the one I shared last night. We tried to get either Deb or Jeri into the shot while the others took the picture, but they're the ones who chose not to be in it, not us!

Then we climbed into the car and headed to the con—but not without stopping at Lovecraft's grave, as I reported last night when I was too weary to write about much else. After that, it was straight on to Readercon. Poor Paul, who'd already done those three round-trips to the airport, held up well driving the seven-person van to Burlington through rush-hour traffic.

As we pulled up, the first person I spotted was Jeffrey Ford, out in front of the hotel for a smoke, so of course I had to greet him with the lame, "Oh, I see they'll let anyone come here" line ...

And then, after all of this prologue, the real Readercon finally began!

Tags: readercon

Rolling buildings! A flying Bentley! Sure, why not? It's a disaster!

Tags: movies

Tags: star wars

The undead came out in hoards on this fine wet afternoon in Portland, Maine.
The forth annual Zombie Kickball game started with a drizzle and end
with a downpour, but in between a good time was had by zombies and all.

Tags: weird

Loudtwitter is dead.

But you can still follow me daily on Twitter here.

Tags: tweets