And We Shall March

Mr. Deity And The Best "Fuck You" Non-Apology I Have Ever Seen In My Life So Far

Scroll to about 3:40 for the bit I'm talking about. 

Context: I thought this was a joke, but apparently some of the feminists got upset about the content of the previous episode. Which makes the whole thing even funnier to me now that I have gone back and done something I rarely ever do on YouTube - read the comments. Wow. Personally, I thought "Is she broken?" one of the funniest lines in the whole thing.

Related.

Jack Johnson / Pardon / Holding

Johnson was sentenced to prison nearly a century ago for his open affair with a white woman but his biggest crime may have been his years of dominance in the ring.

In a letter to Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the Justice Department's pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, said it is general policy not to process posthumous pardon requests. The letter was in response to one King and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had sent to the president.

Fantabulous iPhone 'Know Your Rights" Application

(See? I don't always ignore random press releases. Just most of them.)

The app covers the following topics in a concise question-answer format:

1. Overview of what to do if you're stopped by the police
2. What to say and do in any police encounter
3. If you are stopped for questioning
4. If you are stopped in your car
5. If police come to your home
6. If you are arrested or taken to a police station

7. How to file a police misconduct complaint

The app includes the option to record the officer's name and badge number, names and notes regarding witnesses, and your own incident notes. It is available free of charge on Apple's iTunes store right here.

Bell Ringer Ambush

I Like Neil Diamond's Version Better

Under normal circumstances, tonight I'd be out in Here Be Dragons Land celebrating via food with a clutch of fantabulous friends. Several of us travel from Civilization to the Hinterlands twice yearly to to gorge during the host family's major cooking events. Okay, and also to be with each other, but dude I cannot tell a lie. It is this woman's Ungodly cooking skills that makes several of us happily endure 2+ hours of SoCal highways (depending on traffic conditions) to get there. I take 1/2 day vacation from the day job for one of the events to make sure I get there by sundown.

Alas, half of this year's participants are down with the Plague (as I was last week, despite getting a regular flu shot...the CDC owes me a refund) so Hanukkah this year will be rescheduled. After screaming NOOOOOOO into the phone (I had factored leftovers into this weekend's feeding, and now I will have no leftovers which means I will starve...yes it is all about ME AND MY PAIN) I was promised that there will still be piles and piles and piles of phenomenal latkes at the rescheduled Hanukkah. !Piles! That promise is the only thing that made me stop whining. 

Seriously, these two make the best latkes in the Universe. I thought the latkes of Rabbi Ben's wife were the best until I got my first invitation to this gathering several years ago. Life Changing Experience.

(My latkes suck, which is embarrassing considering my place of origin. Seriously, I don't even try anymore. So I'm kinda obsessed with people who can pull them off correctly.)

Anywho! Elsewhere, I discovered the video below, a fantabulous entry for the Chriskwansolstikkah season. Enjoy!

Update! Via @NeilDiamond, where word of this vid first emerged, comes a bit more info: "The guitar player in "The Chanukah Song" video is Dj Ashba (Guns N'Roses.) Dj performed on and produced the record too... Awesome!"

Awesome indeed. I was wondering who that was...

Within Striking Distance of Miami Dade College? Here's A Chance To Be Taught By One Of The SF Masters, Kathleen Ann Goonan

 Goonan, whose name is no stranger to this space, will be teaching an 8-week writing course at the Florida Center for the Literary Arts starting Feb. 1, 2010!

The course is called Speculative Fiction and Science Fiction: Writing Beyond Borders, which is exactly what she does in her fantastic novels and shorter works of diamond-hard science fiction infused with humanity. That is, when she's not dropping frightfully brilliant essays at random like this one or this one or that other one I love I will link to as soon as I can find it again.

From the course description: Writing science fiction is not unlike writing any other fiction. Character, plot, setting, style, and the intangibles that hold these together are essential parts of the tool kit. But then, of course, there are those other elements--the accepted science fiction tropes of time travel, aliens, space travel, or new and subtle differences between our lives as we know them and what might be--that must be woven seamlessly into the work. Writing science fiction is an opportunity to explore the possibilities our ever-changing present holds. This is a hands-on course in learning how to revise and refine your own short story or novel using the tools of group critiquing, personal consultation with a published, award-winning science fiction author, discussions of good published science fiction, and recommended supplementary reading. Kathleen Ann Goonan has published six critically acclaimed novels.  Her first novel, Queen City Jazz, was a New York Times Notable Book and BSFA finalist.  Her second novel, The Bones of Time, was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.  Crescent City Rhapsody and Light Music were Nebula Finalists. She has published thirty short stories.  “Memory Dog,” one of her latest, is in Year’s Best SF 13, and took second place in 2009’s Sturgeon Awards.  In War Times, her sixth novel, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and was the ALA’s Best Adult Genre Novel of 2007.  Angels and You Dogs, a collection of short stories from PS Publishing, will be out in 2011. Her novel-in-progress, This Shared Dream, will be published by Tor in the near future.

The course description doesn't mention her vast humor, insight, patience and occasionally Stern Glare. 

Goonan maintains a blog here. A lot of those images in her banner are snippets from her watercolor paintings. And by 'her paintings' I mean 'the woman also paints'! 

Registration is open for her course at the center, which is based at Miami Dade College. If you are within striking distance of the center and have writerly inclinations, Goonan is a writer at the top of her game sharing knowledge. Sign up, or spread the word to those you know who would be interested!

I Am Listening to 57 Seconds Of My Inbox And I Am In Tears

I didn't expect to be in tears. Once I (very quickly and with Much Alarm) realized Tears were potentially imminent, I resisted. But then I was like FUCK IT LET THE TEARS FLOW.

Somehow, composer John Boswell took my rather clinical (and surely overly-long) background emails, picked up on the Heart within, and turned my source clips into Glory. The working title he assigned to it is also perfection. Once I get the final version, I'm gonna be bawling and dancing at the same time, I just know it!

Nobody on the planet is happier than I am this evening. 

Related.

I love that his Official Degree is in economics. 

Final Chance To Snag Some Cool Handcrafted Items Benefiting The Interstitial Arts Foundation

The final round of items up for auction to support the Interstitial Arts Foundation will have an extended run through Monday, instead of ending on Friday. It's a Chriskwansolstikkah miracle!

This gives you a chance for more handcrafted holiday shopping, with all of the proceeds going for a good nonprofit cause. Go forth and look at the jewelry, art boxes and clothing, then bid on whatever strikes the fancy of you or someone you <heart>! There are several lovely pieces on deck.

 My offering has new pictures, modeled by IF2 contributor Alaya Dawn Johnson, showing off the purple satin lining, the back, and pretty much everything I didn't in my snapshot because I suck. If I might brag about the back? It took me THREE DAYS to almost perfectly line up the veins into neat chevrons. I think the official term for that is Type-A Obsessive. Man, I loved working with the cloth that serves as base for this skirt. My crack dealers told me last summer that it's no longer manufactured (that they know of) so  

If you go after my piece and win, you need to read this post. Also, due to a gift brought by a guest during Thanksgiving festivities I encourage you to let me do your buttonhole, because I'm gonna change the tie a little bit. The Fabulous I was given fits the Berry Moon skirt perfectly! Please note that you do not have to let me do the buttonhole. You can do your own and that's cool, too.

Go!

The Original Demo For Thriller - IT'S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SONG! Except For The Beat.

Click now before the lawyers find out!

The lyrics are completely different. Wow.

Final Two Days To Bid On Moi 'Berry Moon' Wrap Skirt

Bidding for the skirt I made in support of the Interstitial Arts Foundation fundraiser closes this Friday, Dec. 4th at 3:54 p.m. EST/12:54 p.m. Pacific. Consider this your two-day warning!

Because it's a wrap, the skirt can fit up to three size ranges. Its length is 29 inches from the natural waist. On me (about 5' 6'', generally about 150 lbs, sadly with much less ass than I had before I started seriously doing yoga several years ago***) that comes to about mid-calf. 

Click here if you want in, or just spread the word if you are so inclined. It has one bid already! I'm so pleased. If you're interested in this skirt, you need to read this post. Due to fabulous sparkly items given to me over the holiday break by one of the guests, if you decide to have me do your buttonhole I'm gonna go ahead and slightly alter the tie to incorporate the new fabulousness.

There are also several other lovely pieces on deck ending this week, so take a moment to look through all the current offerings to see if there's a piece of jewelry or other handmade art item you & yours would love to have, and bid on it.

What I like about auctions, particularly those run for nonprofits, is that everyday people such as ourselves have a chance to snag something for far less than it would go for retail. People who know what they're doing - as the IAF people have demonstrated over the past two years - set the opening bid below what they know the retail sales price to be. This is a deliberate attempt to lure in the Power Shoppers. This is Standard Operating Procedure for an auction. There is never a guarantee that the threshold point will be hit, which is why auction fundraisers can be risky for an organization, particularly during times of General Economic Woe. 

Tip: if you ever hear a complaint of omgthisispricedtoolow? That person has no clue *at all* about the Big Picture technicals of running this type of auction. Because I do thanks to several years of observing the killer development team at the nonprofit day job *and* the nonprofit day jobs of my friends, I am highly impressed with what the volunteer IAF team has pulled off.  It's because of what I saw them do in 2008 (I found out about it too late to contribute because I don't move in those circles) that I made a point of keeping an eye out to see if I could contribute something to the cause for 2009.

Related.

Placeholder link for the WTF Interstitial essay I will eventually finish and backpost.

***It's a cultural thing. I love yoga. But I miss my ass.

Now I Know What I Look Like When I'm Sewing!

A buddy from the Hinterlands stopped by for a few hours on Friday just when I was glaring at a string of disobedient lights. Half of them decided to go dark after I had wound them around the garland. For 1.5 hours I tried and failed to figure out which bulb was causing the problem, and was thinking of dismantling the whole thing or maybe open up the plug to replace the teeny fuses. Neither option was good. I was Deeply Irritated.

Then a man walks in the door. I go hellohalfmylightsaredeadfeelmypain. He glances at the string for maybe 45 seconds, picks a bulb seemingly at random, swaps it out, I flip the power, everything lights up perfectly.

IT WAS A BLACK FRIDAY MIRACLE! Yet I was slightly annoyed that a man walked in and figured it out in less than a minute. All tech hates me.

I usually do my sewing late at night or when no one else is in the house, because when people are in the house I'd rather pay attention to them. But I had to make a new Baby Cthulhu for the manger - I like to get the Chistkwanzsolstikkah decorations up by Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend...leave it to the atheist to overdo the decoration thing -  and he didn't mind if I sewed a bit while he was visiting.  

Then I was like, I have no pictures of me sewing (which is not the same thing as taking pictures of things I am sewing, which I do all the time). At my request he took a boatload! Here's a few of them:

Preparing to add the tentacles to the Baby Cthulhu shell. I ran wire through the tentacles so they can be posed:

  

Stuffing Baby Cthulhu with polyfill. The other BCs were stuffed with straw because I like the weight it gives. All of those were eventually eaten by the cat. I'm hoping the cat will ignore a polyfill BC and not eat it:

  

Giving the green thread the Do Not Run Out stink eye while stitching the shell halves together. That awesome headband was a gift from my CCI boss this year! She sent it without being aware of how long I have lusted for one. I put it on during sewing sessions because it helps keep the dreads from being stitched or accidentally sliced off with the rotary cutter (both of these things have happened in the past):

 
 

Here's where I'd post a fantabulous action shot...if my Vanity allowed me to also showcase my adult onset acne. My Vanity Does Not.

Pinning the shell around the polyfill. I like this one because you can see some of the potter clay is still in my hair from Thrill the World and Halloween. Never has it taken so long to get the clay out of my hair! Usually it's only 2-3 weeks:

 

Completed Baby Cthulhu beneath the evil purple Star of Woeful Star of Blight:

 
Body linen, tentacles cotton, swaddled in textured wool (because I was out of muslin). It's a star and not a snowflake BECAUSE I SAY SO. Beneath the swaddling he looks like a malformed sperm.

Baby Cthulhu nestled in his manger of (fake) pearls and skulls. He's directly beneath his evil purple star:

 

There should be more skulls, but I don't know where I put them. Usually he has an honor guard of nutcracker soldiers and a hedgehog, but the thought just now hit that it should be sea creatures! You know, in the spirit of 'the ox and lamb kept time' vibe. By the time this posts, he's gonna be surrounded by sharks and sea lions and whatever else I can find on the cheap. If I can find a sea anemone to perch the manger atop, that would be awesome! A cluster of fake coral will also do.

'Perch' 'anemone'...See what I did there? heh

Note: this is a quick Baby Cthulhu, not as elaborate as the BCs of the past. Thus the raggedy edges on the tentacles, and the seam visible in the head.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! That song is from the very fine folks at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Long may they reign. I cannot tell you how much I love my Lovecraft's handwriting font!

Reminder! Douglas Kearney Live on Stage Dec. 2 @ The World Stage in Leimert Park

You do not want to miss this one. 

 

A Quick Review of "Nevermore" Starring Jeffrey Combs

I'm not gonna cry.

I'm not gonna cry.

I'm not gonna cry!

FUCK.

  

It was so embarrassing.

Only six more shows, at the Steve Allen Theater. There's a reason its run was extended a few times. Phenomenal!
 

The Quilted Wrap Skirt I Made For Interstitial Arts Foundation Is Up For Auction

Right here! It'll be up until Dec. 4 and has an opening bid of $29.

There was supposed to be an essay thing to go along with this post, but it's still under construction. Blame Drupal. I'll drop it into this space down the road once I'm no longer Drupal Distracted and finish it.

Related.

It's Buy Nothing Day And You Know Where I Am, But Did You Know Rev. Billy And SavitriD Are On Tour Spreading The Word?

Not out there! Background. 

 Speaking of Rev. Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping, according to their website he and Savitri D are spending the day as usual telling the masses stuff they don't want to hear, but this time it launches a nationwide tour - with two stops in SoCal! The Hammer Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. is first. The event is free, tickets available only day-of and I'm sure it's going to be a fab talk. On Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. they'll be at Pasadena City College for a talk and screening of What Would Jesus Buy. I won't be at either due to day job and a previous commitment I can't back out of, but I've seen them talk twice, and t If you can go, you really should; their talks are entertaining, educational and inspiring.  One thing SavitriD said at a talk in Pasadena two years ago stuck with me as sort of a motto: SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE LOUD.

Here's a good Stop Shopping And Start Giving introductory explainer from the church:

 

Music downloadable on the site. Many videos available on their Blip channel and of course a random assortment on YouTube. I am particularly fond of the First Amendment Song (I saw her in person it was so cool she also likes zombies!), and the big head sermons - of which I wish there were more than just the two. Here's one of them:

Related links:

Book.

Book.

First documentary.

Second documentary. Interview w/the director of the second documentary. A NYT review of that documentary. 

Random article.

Another random article.

I'm off to decorate! I have to make a new Baby Cthulhu for the manger, since the cat ate the last one. I don't know why he keeps chewing on my Baby Cthulhus. 

Top photo one of Moi shots from the choir's appearance in Echo Park last year.

A Note To The Late-To-The-Game League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier OMG You Totally Made That Up And What About My FEEEELINGS Golliwogg Defenders

None of you are going to get a personal response, except for the two people I've given a heads-up that I will get back to them.

The bibliography (of sorts) was included for a reason. I strongly suggest you start with Pickering. 

As for Eliot, I acknowledged the first time out that my argument for The Waste Land is weaker. But I am absolutely correct on my interpretation of Sweeney Agonistes because I have read it. Maybe you should do the same, if you can find a copy. Your best bet will be going to a good library. Then read up on some of the resorts he used to hang out in because you know he did not live in a self-contained bubble, right?

Also, I could give a fuck about your MFA, your relatives who have MFAs, or your degree in English lit. I recognize that earning an MFA takes an enormous amount of work, and I'm not denigrating that effort, but me not having one is irrelevant in this instance. 

All You Have To Do Is Go KONG KONG KONG For Like Four Minutes Straight And They'll Break Down And Let You Fast Forward To The Monkey v. Dinosaur Fight Just To Shut You Up!

Rum cranberries!

 
 
Mom's modified mac & cheese!  (modification = jalapeno & garlic)

  

Apple, pear and cranberry crumble! 

 
 

Rolls, stage 1!

 

Duck, because turkey is verboten in Moi Household. Doing this one up Alton Style, with only a couple of slight modifications!

  

Duck being steamed!

 

Duck in my biggest cast iron pan (heated to "NASA hot") sputtering away and upsetting the heat/smoke detector! 

 
I was worried that one duck wouldn't be enough for four people, but with all the side dishes it was.

For the record, all of my cast iron I personally restored from thrift store rust. Ego prevents me from not mentioning this whenever cast iron comes up in the conversation. My masterpiece so far was a dutch oven that had not been touched since 1970-something. That one was a favor for the landlord. Took a month! I enjoy restoring cast iron. Very labor intensive, but totally worth the effort. Anybody who will listen I tell do not buy overpriced, lower-quality new cast iron. Buy solid, old, rusty thrift store cast iron and restore it to Kick Ass.

Anywho...the duck at rest!

 
Even more fat came out of it during this stage. I was like, how much fat does this thing have?? And can I say how wonderfully crispy it was? And juicy inside! However I felt it needed more salt and I couldn't tell any added zing from the orange/pineapple juice brine. (Sorry, Alton.) The guests had no idea what I was talking about. Next time I'll do a dry salt brine with crushed garlic and see what happens.

And of course the duck fat from the steam bath set to boil, because no way do you waste that Delicious!

 

And later in the evening, ready to be scraped for freezing!

 
(The one that looks gold has been scraped.)

The pole beans!

 
Or, if you prefer, bacon with a few random beans thrown in for color.   

No pics of the rolls because they're rolls. They look exactly like the other rolls I've posted around here. Tasty, but boring, you know? I forgot to take a picture of the yukon gold cubes w/chard & balsamic because that is done right before the sit-down. I fried that up in the duck pan since it was there and pre-oiled. O. My. God. I ended up hogging most of that dish.

They ate everything! I've got maybe a handful of crumble left. :)

I'm not allowed to talk in this space about what happened during the ritual Thanksgiving viewing of King Kong. It's not the thing in the header. I do the thing in the header almost every year.

I am allowed to say that one of the guests had never seen it before (!!!!) and, being not of the Midwest, did not have the tradition of King Kong being a critical part of the Thanksgiving celebration. I realized years ago that the Kong/Thanksgiving connection is a Midwest thing, so that wasn't weird.

But the rest of it was weird. I'm not allowed to say more. Here in this space, anyway. Heh.

It was a great Thanksgiving! Tomorrow I have to make a new Baby Cthulhu for the manger because the cat ate the last one, and then get started decorating for the season. Sparkly!

"Yet once they were aware that the study required talking openly about race, they started dropping out." / holding

At this point, something interesting happened. Five families in the last group abruptly quit the study. Two directly told Vittrup, "We don't want to have these conversations with our child. We don't want to point out skin color."

Vittrup was taken aback—these families volunteered knowing full well it was a study of children's racial attitudes. Yet once they were aware that the study required talking openly about race, they started dropping out.

It was no surprise that in a liberal city like Austin, every parent was a welcoming multiculturalist, embracing diversity. But according to Vittrup's entry surveys, hardly any of these white parents had ever talked to their children directly about race. They might have asserted vague principles—like "Everybody's equal" or "God made all of us" or "Under the skin, we're all the same"—but they'd almost never called attention to racial differences.

They wanted their children to grow up colorblind. But Vittrup's first test of the kids revealed they weren't colorblind at all. Asked how many white people are mean, these children commonly answered, "Almost none." Asked how many blacks are mean, many answered, "Some," or "A lot." Even kids who attended diverse schools answered the questions this way.

"Matter flows from place to place / And momentarily comes together to be you"

John Boswell of Symphony of Science dropped another one. 

By the time this guy is done, I'm gonna have The Best Album EVAH.

Science Fiction Double Feature And Big Chuck Schodowski ! Wrote A Book !

Due to events going on elsewhere I've been thinking a lot about Coventry of late. Even though seeing that Coventry Now is being promoted as a 'shopping experience', which is not entirely what Coventry Then was about for us, this still brings back an overwhelming cascade of  mostly positive memories:

A fun game: work out how many of the movies referenced you've actually seen, and further, read the source material for (when applicable). Game is most fun when it involves lots of loud geeks and also alcohol.

The biggest discovery during this Nostalgia Trip is discovering not only that Big Chuck and Li'l John have a website, but that Big Chuck wrote a book that dropped not too long ago!!!

You might have to be from where I'm from to understand the freak out over this discovery. You might also have to be of A Certain Age. For me it flows like this:

• Hoolihan & Big Chuck...
• Big Chuck & Little John...
• With The Ghoul (successor to Ghoulardi) woven throughout the transition...
• And me sprawled out on the floor in the basement, often with Dad behind me in his recliner, us either commentating on the hilarious events unfolding on the tv or me (mostly) silently enduring being lectured by Dad about big picture things for reasons I didn't fully understand at that time...
• With occasional playground fist fights with peers who said mean/racist things about Polish people sprinkled throughout those years.
• •  To this day my parents don't know a thing about those incidents. I launched into them because of Big Chuck.
  • For the record, I was maybe 30-70% with Victory when it came to physical altercations. This was long before I studied aikido. I guess it's a good thing that back then I didn't know how to fight with my body. I was fine fighting with my mouth, but being Mouthy on the playground and making the Opponent an object of ridicule means eventually somebody's gonna be pissed off enough to try to deck you, and then It's On. Even though you might lose, you gotta make the attempt to hold your ground. At least, that's what's in your/my head at the time.

I never met Hoolihan or Big Chuck in person. I did meet Lil John once, when I learned that his day job at the time was working at a jewelry store in Severance Mall. You know what happens when you walk into a jewelry store at age 13 wearing a Star Trek T-shirt and a hopeful Geek aura? The worker bees in the jewelry store figure out real quick that you're not there to buy anything, and one of them goes in the back to give Lil John a heads-up. He'll come out and kindly talk to you for a couple of minutes. And you will never forget it.

Big Chuck will personalize any book ordered directly from the site. They're only $2o. A couple of payday cycles from now? I'll have spare moolah to get one for me, one for Dad! Mine "to Moi from Big Chuck" is fine. For Dad's, fingers crossed Big Chuck will write a couple of lines more. Okay if he doesn't, but I gotta make the ask. 

The last 'luxury' purchases of the foreseeable future, and totally worth it!

Also discovered during this Nostalgia Roaming - Ghoulardifest. What?!?? OMG. Do I need to adjust my only needing the one convention per year thing?

Canadian First Nations / Douglas Creek / Trial / holding

John Evans, who represents David Brown and Dana Chatwell in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Ontario government and Ontario Provincial Police, said the OPP turned its back on the besieged family because of the political sensitivity surrounding Six Nations land claims and permitted lawless and masked young men to "roam the occupied site at will," to harass and terrorize the family.

Saul Williams Speaks Up About The Dress Code Situation At Morehouse

But some of the comments are heartbreaking. 

The transformative power of art was harnessed and used to knock down the walls of the music, fashion, and film industries, while the art itself suffered. Music no longer pushed against the status quo, rather, it upheld it. Movies amounted to soup'd up church plays. Public schools lost their music and art programs. Colleges and universities, such as Morehouse, found bank and business CEOs to manage their affairs and became little more than product assembly lines turning out the latest in a conservative male model that simply saw art as escape.

Freedom of expression is Art Appreciation 101 and a tenant deeply rooted in American democracy. The fight for those freedoms has placed American arts and artists in a category all their own. The role that art plays in shaping American society is unparalleled and quite often unpredictable. And the role that African-American artists play and have played in defining exactly what American art is, is undeniable. These lessons, which for me, came as a male visitor on Spelman's all-female campus serves as the basis of the sort of dialogue that has all but skipped a generation born after the Black Arts Movement.

Take A Look At "The Black Automaton" By Douglas Kearney

 Douglas , a fabulous writer referenced around these parts quite often, is gearing up for his second collection to drop next month! It's coming out from Fence Books and you can view a free sample here.

This is the collection that landed him the National Poetry Series. His first collection, Fear, Some, is what got him the Whiting Award. Because he's that good. 

Douglas can often be found performing all over the place, sometimes reading his poetry, sometimes joining his uber-cool wife NK in live dvd commentary of films (and I *totally* suck that I never finished writing up the one at the RedCat) . And he writes operas! Do you know anyone who writes operas? Hahahaha, I do! I saw one of them and it was phenomenal. I just think that's cool.

The new book arrives just in time for Chistkwanzsolstikkah!

Also? Just love the teaser poster to pieces. Douglas is also a graphic designer and has often designed his own books. I bet he designed that poster. (I don't actually know though because I forgot to ask before drive-by-posting.) 

The next chance locals have to see him live is Wednesday Dec. 2, 8 p.m. at one of my homeports (when schedule allows),  The World Stage down in Leimert Park. Go!

Get A Free Copy Of Interfictions 2 And Ooogle The Related Art Pieces!

Go here for the details! Excerpt:

 2. Browse the images of art and jewelry we’re auctioning off and pick 1 – 3 favorites. They can bepieces whose auctions are going on right now, pieces that have already been won, or upcoming pieces. This set contains images of all the art, or you can browse by set here. Then share these favorites on your blog or social network of your choice. Tell your friends and family why you chose the pieces. Don’t forget to include a link back to IAFAuctions.com.

How Michael Jackson Saved Sesame Street From A $5 Million Lawsuit From The People Who Owned The Beatles Catalog At The Time / holding

I did not know this until now.

"Now" being days before you're reading this here auto-load post.