Heads Up, Poe Fans!

In case you didn't know (or remember), Monday, January 19, 2009, is Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday and there are all sorts of things going on; in fact, so many there's even a blog (The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial--Celebrating 200 Years of Poe's Life and Work) to keep track of them. Why, even the oft-stodgy USPS is getting in on the act by issuing a very nice-looking commemorative stamp!

I assume the Poe Toaster will be out and about in Baltimore and I'd love to be there for his appearance, but I'm going to settle for something more local-- the 24-Hr. Birthday Bash at the Poe Museum* here in Richmond:

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond will host a 24-hour birthday party for Edgar in his bicentennial year. On January 19th, 2009 the Poe Museum will open at 12:01 a.m. and remain open for 24 hours. Enjoy poetry readings during the day, tour the Museum in the dead of night, or join us for birthday cake and a candle-light vigil at Poe's shrine at dusk. There will be something for everyone during the 24-hour celebration. Specific times for each event are TBA but updates will be posted to this site on a regular basis.

And for the naysayers? Those who don't (or can't) understand what all the fuss is about? Well, author Nick Mamatas has something to say about that:

How can we read Poe today? (**) Even those who heroically managed to resist schooling well enough to find pleasure in reading have to search through two centuries of baggage to find the real Poe. He is everywhere — on The Simpsons and The Gilmore Girls, in the National Football League, and if the industry gossip is true, in a script by Sylvester Stallone which the actor is also planning to direct. "Nevermore!" isn't a coda — it's a punchline. Then there are the well-known facts of his life, and the dubious results of biocriticism. Every pale girl is Poe's wife, or his young mother who died when the author was a child. Every fever is delirium tremens or rabies, just like Ms. C Kelly suggested. Poe also left us without unforgettable, well-rendered characters of the sort readers of contemporary realism have been trained to see as the apex of quality literature. What we are left with is what we've always had: the power of the Gothic.

--"Poe at 200"

*1914-16 E. Main St.
Richmond, VA 23223

**Punchline: "But we should read Poe for the sheer bloody-minded pleasure of knowing the truth: Some motherfuckers just have it comin'."

Be Seeing You...

We lost Patrick McGoohan yesterday... and I'm sad.

There are obituaries and tributes all over the web (BBC News, Six of One, etc.), but I won't recap them here. Better to remember him in Secret Agent (aka Danger Man), The Prisoner, The Three Lives of Thomasina (no, I am not kidding!), The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, Ice Station Zebra, Scanners, and, later, the most interesting character in Braveheart.

I'm gonna miss you, Patrick; you made my early years much more interesting and entertaining.

Morbidity and Mortality

No, not a deep, dark, philosophical discussion--I try not to do that here. This is fun stuff, believe it or not...well, fun should you possess a certain dark and peculiar twist of mind, a sensibility that compels you to view sideshow exhibits, freaks of nature (human or otherwise), disease progression, medical anomalies, and icky stuff in general (for example... and thanks, Cath!). I'm looking at you, Wayne!

Should you be such a person, then you're probably already aware of the Mutter Museum (umlaut over the u; Wikipedia entry here) in Philadelphia; you may even know they used to publish a calendar featuring high-quality photographs of their exhibits. Well, according to the Morbid Anatomy blog ("Surveying the Interstices of Art and Medicine, Death and Culture") they've resumed publishing after a 6-year hiatus and they're for sale at a reduced price on Amazon.com!

You'd better believe I've already ordered mine.

Three Quickies

I spent an inordinate amount of time surfin' the Web and, being the borderline obsessive-compulsive that I am, archive the bits and pieces I find particularly amusing. Just thought I'd share with the group.

This exchange occurred in a LiveJournal community about Richmond, VA:

Post: Odd question, I know, but does anyone know where I could get a fez in the area? The lazyweb has been fruitless.
It's difficult to explain why I need three of them, but it's for an art project.

One reply: sure, sure.. everything can be explained away as an "art project."
don't be ashamed of your sexual fetishes. it's what makes you special.

And from an article about how gambling casinos (among other places) are intentionally designed to suck you in:

"Slot machines are also designed to deal out a high number of 'near misses' with, for instance, the first two reels set to land on the 'Jackpot' far more often than the third reel, dealing you more false hope than your high school girlfriend (emphasis added and believe me, I am SO stealing that line)."

And finally, a quote from Neil Gaiman to which I deeply relate:

You spend your adolescence dreaming that you'll grow up to be Lou Reed, and then you grow up to be Leonard Cohen.

Which reminds me of That '70s Show episode where the kids (kids? Did I just write "kids"? Geez, I'm getting old!) are trying to come up with quotes for their high school yearbook. At the episode's end we see a montage of their pictures and under Donna's it says Most likely to move to New York and become Lou Reed's reluctant muse.

One can only dream.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Or Further Into the Basic Connectedness of All Things...

I'm currently on a Thomas Pynchon kick, reading both Vineland and Against the Day because, well, I like dense, complex, quirky, post-modern novels by dense, complex, quirky, post-modern novelists. Uh, novelists with mad skillz.

Relax. I'm not about to go on some kind of fanboyish tirade. Far from it.

Okay, so remember the "More Cowbell" sketch from Saturday Night Live? The one with Christopher Walken as "the Bruce Dickinson" ("Guess what? I've got a fever... and the only prescription... is more cowbell!") and Will Ferrell (you can listen to it here)? 'S funny, right? And I had to wonder which SNL writer came up with the idea and what, exactly, was going through his mind. I mean, sure, the absurdity of a cowbell in "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is self-evident, but what, exactly, inspired this sketch? What made the writer think of cowbell?

Fast forward to Dec. 31, at work, where one of my numerous bosses, who is also a Pynchon fan (in fact, he loaned me his copy of Vineland when I mentioned I was reading Against the Day) as well as a devotee of weird and unusual music, was expounding upon the works of Spike Jones and Thomas Pynchon (it was a slow day). He whips over to his office and prints out a little summary sheet and directs my attention to the following items...

--"Pynchon wrote that Spike Jones, Sr.'s orchestral recordings had 'a deep and indelible effect on me as a child.' "
--"Pynchon supplied the liner notes to Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones. In his notes, he writes of Spike's unique blend of music as being 'like good cowbell solos, few and far between.' " (emphasis added)
(hoc loco)

...then made reference to the SNL sketch.

Erudite bored pathologist say whaaaa?*

The moment was positively Pynchonesque.


*Okay, confession time: sometimes I watch TV shows intended for the 'tween set**, shows like (I am so embarrassed to write this) Hannah Montana. Yeah, I'm a 12-yr. old girl. Shut up. The show has its moments. One of the catchphrase formulas has the main character responding to something completely outrageous and unexpected with "(string of adjectives) (noun cluster) say whaaaa?" It's a guaranteed Diet Pepsi Nose Spew every time. Of course, I'm easily amused.

**This has led to some meta- (not mega-, though it could be mega) embarrassing moments, most recently when I was texting my friend Erica and made an iCarly reference to which she replied, "I don't know how I should respond to the fact you knew that."

Welcome, 2009!

And about damn time, I might add, 2008 having been something of a Suckfest for all involved. That includes pretty much everyone I know, online or off-.

[run-on sentence]

In the early part of the year I came down with a severe case of bacterial pneumonia, then my father came down with pneumonia, then my mother lost the ability to walk as her Alzheimer's progressed slowly, steadily, inexorably onward, then my father died, then (unrelated) my low-grade depressive tendencies deepened, then someone I was just starting to get to know committed suicide, then my DVD player died (okay, that was merely an annoyance, but given the timing and the fact that movies are my life, I was upset), then I had a crisis of faith with (and within) my Super-Secret Support Group, then my job reached new and unexpected heights of suckiness, then I entered Recluse Mode...

[/run-on sentence]

That enough whining for ya?

Notable deaths in 2008 (from my perspective): Edmund ("Why Everest?" "Because it's there, ya twit.") Hillary, chess wacko (and Jewish anti-Semite--go figure) Bobby Fischer, Suzanne Pleshette, Roy ("We're gonna need a bigger boat!") Scheider, William F. Buckley, Jr. (the man I loved to hate), Gary ("Roll for damage") Gygax, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Widmark, Charlton ("Wait! I need to rip off my shirt for this scene!" "What, again? You're playing Moses, fer crissakes") Heston, Albert (Mr. LSD) Hoffman, Sydney Pollack, Bo Diddley, Mel Ferrer, special effects guy Stan Winston, George Carlin (who finally has a place to put all his stuff), Isaac ("Duke of New York") Hayes, David Foster Wallace (I guess this was yet another supposedly fun thing he'll never do again), Paul Newman, mystery writer Tony Hillerman, Michael Crichton, Forrest J (no period) Ackerman, Nina Foch (especially for her role in the Outer Limits episode "The Borderland"), pinup cutie Bettie Page, and Eartha "Catwoman" Kitt.

The year was not without its bright spots, though. When Dad died a lot of people, a lot, bent over backwards to express their sympathy and support, to reconnect, however briefly, and to help out whenever and wherever they could. That meant something, especially since Mom wasn't (and to some extent still isn't) aware of what happened and I had to go it alone for a while.

I read some good books, I saw some good movies, I ate some good food, I hung out with some cool people, sometimes IRL, sometimes online. I spent time with Sid-the-Near-Feral ("Is this the Year of Daily Tuna?") Cat. I rediscovered the simple, quiet joys of coin collecting, of all things, something I'd forgotten about since adolescence.

Still, I'm ready for a new year, so here's hoping it's a better one for everyone!

Books Read In 2008

2008 was not a particularly good year for me (more later) and this is reflected in how few books I managed to complete. Yeah, I started a bunch and maybe got a third of the way through before I lost focus, set them aside, and went on to other things. Call it a strange form of literary ADD I hope will vanish in 2009. I still spent hours reading shitloads of other stuff, mostly online--blogs, discussion forums, and the like; the occasional magazine--but that was more like constant snacking.

Anyway, in 2008 I read:

1. 3/Jan/08--The Sign of the Book by John Dunning (2005).
2. 4/Jan/08--Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006). *****
3. 9/Jan/08--The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem (2003). *****
4. 11/Jan/08--Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (2007).
5. 16/Jan/08--New Orleans Noir ed. by Julie Smith (2007).
6. 22/Jan/08--Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob Andelman (2005).
7. 24/Jan/08--JPod by Douglas Coupland (2006).
8. 27/Jan/08--Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006).
9. 28/Jan/07--If You Liked School, You'll Love Work by Irvine Welsh (2007).
10. 26/Feb/08--The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (2006).
11. 28/Feb/08--Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman (2004).
12. 5/Mar/08--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005).
13. 11/Mar/08--The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (1990).
14. 14/Mar/08--Shockingly Close To the Truth!--Confessions of A Grave-Robbing Ufologist by James W. Moseley & Karl T. Pflock (2002).
15. 21/Mar/08--Novel by George Singleton (2005).
16. 26/Mar/08--R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (2004).
17. 5/Apr/08--Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology ed. by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel (2007).
18. 8/Apr/08--State of Fear by Michael Crichton (2004).
19. 11/Apr/08--The Vanished Man by Jeffrey Deaver (2003).
20. 17/Apr/06--Voices From the Street by Philip K. Dick (2007).
21. 22/Apr/08--Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick (1964).
22. 24/Apr/08--The Blue Moon Circus by Michael Raleigh (2003). *****
23. 24/Apr/08--Me and Orson Welles by Robert Kaplow (2003).
24. 28/Apr/08--Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand (2007). *****
25. 29/Apr/08--Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (1973). *****
26. 5/May/08--Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008).
27. 13/May/08--The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (1994).*****
28. 21/May/08--The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2007).*****
29. 10/Jun/08--The New Weird ed. by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (2008).
30. 19/Jun/08--Steampunk ed. by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (2008).
31. 17/Jul/08--Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999).*****
32. 18/Jul/08--Tank Girl--Armadillo! by Alan C. Martin (2008).
33. 22/Jul/08--Yellow Dog by Martin Amis (2003).
34. 19/Aug/08--Created By by Richard Christian Matheson (1993).
35. 26/Aug/08--Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton (2004).
36. 1/Oct/08--The Coin Collector's Survival Manual by Scott A. Travers (2006).
37. 2/Oct/08--Glasshouse by Charles Stross (2006).
38. 13/Dec/08--Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein (1984).
39. 24/Dec/08--Next by Michael Crichton (2006).

***** indicates books I particularly enjoyed.