Baltimore Book Festival

Yesterday my wife Lauren and I spent the afternoon at the Baltimore Book Festival. We were there largely for Lauren, because she had the first official signing for her new book Wicked Baltimore. Here she is signing it for one of her new fans:

If you have any interest in Baltimore/Maryland history, or you just like reading about the dark corners you don't normally get in history books, it's a fun read covering everything from Poe to political riots to grave robbing. Check out her own site for more info.

I did a lot of wandering around while Lauren was signing and selling copies. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association had a small tent there that featured readings and sold books by some local members as well as some fun games. The Maryland Writer's Association also had a nice little tent, which featured among other things a nice announcement from the Baltimore Review. They're re-launching their literary journal but as an online-only product.  They seem to hope it will allow them to publish a greater number of authors and highlight them in different ways. I wish them luck with the venture and may even send them something soon. 

I also spent a lot of time at the Radical Books Pavilion. Sponsored by Red Emma's, a Baltimore Bookstore and coffee shop that focuses on "radical politics", I was intrigued even if a lot of the material and other people there made me feel like a crazy right winger. I took in a really interesting talk by Dean Spade, a lawyer and law professor from Seattle who is a big spokesperson and advocate for gender, sexual and transgender politics. I have to admit I came not being at all familiar with Spade, but he's a definite rock star in his world. He spoke largely about the ineffectiveness of focusing on legal aspects like forcing the adoption of hate crime legislation and suggested that more locally-based pressures are required to create real change. It's not a world I know a lot about but I found it pretty eye-opening and couldn't help but wonder what, if anything, I can do in my position as a librarian in a moderate/liberal but fairly comfortable part of the country.

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Goodbye, Borders

Yesterday I paid what will likely be my last visit to a Borders Books. Here's a typical shelf in their store:

As you can see, things are about half-full, like some carcass partially picked over by a small flock of vultures. What's there is kind of in order, but not really. The staff seemed more interested in selling the tables and bookcases than in helping confused customers find books. And frankly, I don't blame them.

It was a melancholy experience for me. I grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Up through high school the only game in town were B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks. Nice stores for their day but pretty small in comparison to what we've become used to. I'm pretty sure the stores from my youth would only barely hold the regular fiction collection of a Borders or B&N, so when Borders first came to the area when I was in college it was like a revelation. And it wasn't just about size.

You mean you don't stick Sci-Fi into the darkest, loneliest corner of your store?

You mean you actually carry comics and graphic novels? Like on the shelf?

And you'll special order stuff for me and not sneer at me while you do it?

For the first time since I was a little kid I actually felt welcome in a bookstore. It was fantastic and I made a point to visit it every time I came home from college so I could stock up on pleasure reading for the semester.

As I've gotten (much) older and my tastes have changed I've found less and less by just browsing in their stores, but certainly more than I do when I browse their main competitor. Losing all of these stores will be a loss for many communities.

Take where I live: Prince George's County, Md. A suburb of Washington, D.C. Population of 863,420 and, according to Wikipedia, "the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation". With the Borders stores closing, that sadly leaves all of two bookstores in the entire county. When the location in Landover shut down a few months ago it ended a series of weekly kids programs, teen book groups, adult book groups, an anime club, author readings, and a place many went just to read, write, and use their internet while sipping coffee. Say what you will about poor business decisions by corporate and ineffective competition, but around here I know book lovers will feel a real sense of loss when these stores shrivel up.

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Research: When It's Time to Dig In

We've all seen them. Those legal thrillers or crime shows where the hero just can't find the one single detail that ties everything all together. And then they go to the library, sit down at a public computer, open up a search engine and, after a few quick keystrokes, find the answer that leads them to the villain, the secret lair, the unknown weakness and the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow. But research is rarely that easy.

I just finished the first draft for personal essay/memoir kind of thing. Although it's mostly based on things that happened to me, there are a couple of fine details I want to research and nail down before I even think about sending this thing out. One of them being the date of a concert I went to in the mid 1990's. I know the year. And it was snowing that night, so I know it was sometime between November and March. But beyond that I really don't remember.

So I spent a couple of hours digging through the electronic databases at work, accessing The Washington Post as well as some more local papers, looking for any mention of the specific concert tour. It wasn't a major stadium tour, but at the 9:30 Club in D.C. Not the current super-warehouse space, but the old, dingy bar near the Metro Center metro stop (oh how I miss that dirty place). I couldn’t find anything, so it became apparent that it wasn't a show Mark Jenkins or one of the other critics reviewed. But I thought I'd still find it listed in an events guide in old weekend sections or something. But the databases don't seem to capture any of that stuff----just the actual articles. In the end, I think I'll have to trek out to the one library in my library system that still has old issues of The Washington Post on microfiche, and go through the weekend sections week-by-week until I find what I need.

I was at writing conference once and heard Karey Joy Fowler talk about her process and how one of the greatest tools for her in writing historical fiction is going through the advertisements and personal ads to get a sense of the language, what people bought, ate and did for fun. Details like that are still getting left out with most of our digital tools. It just points out to me some of the limitations of using digital sources for research. They can be a wonderful time saver if they have what you want, but for those pieces that are a little more esoteric----and those are often the pieces that are the most fun-----you still have to get your hands dirty flipping through physical newspapers, magazines and microfiche.

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What's Up, Google Docs!

I've been doing a lot of research lately for a number of writing projects, but things often get waylaid when the wife usurps the laptop. My normal research process is to bury myself in a subject; I read, read read and take notes on the computer as I go. Whether I'm looking up biographical details about the jazz musician Sun Ra or exploring different ways to describe what happens when an object falls into a black hole, it's a method that works for me so I can get those odd, salient details into a piece.

Even though it's our laptop now, it was my laptop before we got married. So most of my writing files are on there and, frankly, I'm just used to keeping them there. And while we have a desktop computer as well the laptop is often just the most convenient one to jump onto.

Walking the dog tonight, a solution occurred to me: google docs. I've used it before for group coursework in library school and even for some projects I've worked on for YALSA. But never just for myself. Surprising I never thought of it before now, because it is so damn easy to use. Either upload your documents or work on it right there in the web-browser. The beauty of it is, I'll be able to save my work no matter what computer I use. Hell, I can even work on some things during my lunch time or other slow moments at work. I know, I know. This sounds like my account's been hacked by google...so to be fair, I know there are other document-sharing programs out there. This is just the one I've used and know how to use.

So, thanks to google docs, I have no more excuses for not writing. At least so long as we have at least two computers in our home. I guess I better get back to it.

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Miss L and I are back from our trip through Alaska and Canada, but I will have to write about that stuff later on. Instead this is about something that happened on Monday night, right after we got home. As a warning, although not graphic this post is a bit morbid.

I took our dog Echo out for his late night walk around 11 pm, only to find the cross-street half a block down barricaded by police cars and yellow crime scene tape. It was a little hard to see with the police lights blinding me with the alternating red+blue lights, but I could make out the shadowy outlines of people on the other side of the street, craning their necks around so they could figure out what was going on.

I couldn't get through at all, so I decided to walk around the block the other way, discovering the far end of the same street was taped off as well. At the end of the block sat a large vehicle that looked a lot like an armored car, but was really a crime lab on wheels. I saw police officers going in and out of it, carrying equipment, taking photographs and marking several spots on the black pavement with yellow triangle markers. I flagged down an officer and asked what was happening and was told, "Someone was shot and killed. That's all we know so far."

Not knowing if the shooter was still out and about I decided to cut Echo's walk short and head on home.

The next morning I took Echo out again around 9 am. Normally at this time of the day the street is bustling with people walking dogs, getting their kids off to school or heading in to their jobs. But that morning I found the street deserted, like everyone was avoiding the area. I walked through a touch apprehensive myself, knowing that death had landed so close just the night before.

My morbid curiousity got the better of me, so I started looking around a little. I found some small pieces of paper in the gutter, sticky and stained red with blood and still wet from the morning dew. Labeled at the top as an "Incident Report Form", there wasn't much on it aside from the name of the person who called in the shooting to the police.

I walked back across the street and looked down at the area where the yellow triangle evidence markers were. The pavement here was lightly stained with a deep, dirty red color; I could only think it was where the victim bled out.

These two little pieces made everything all too real for me. All the odd little things that happen in our little Baltimore neighborhood---people sleeping in cars, freaks stumbling through the neighborhood drunk, drivers blasting down the narrow roads at twice the speed limit late at night----all suddenly fit into a pattern of danger for me. I've been mugged in D.C., I've seen people loaded into body bags from a distance along Route 1 in Alexandria, Va. and I've even been caught between two rival gangs taking pot shots at each other in Staunton, Va. But this really got to me----I guess because it happened so close to where both my wife and I live and sleep.

Today our apartment community held a meeting of sorts. We found out from a detective that this was not a random incident; the victim was apparently targeted. I'm not sure how or why, the police would not say. Although the victim was living in one of the apartments, he was either subletting or sharing an apartment illegally. This helped a bit, knowing that this wasn't just some random thugs rolling through shooting residents.

There was a lot of talk of adding security cameras, increasing the lighting and even starting a neighborhood watch. I hope some or all of these things take off; I really do like where I live and, in general, feel pretty safe. I hope I continue to feel that way.

Hopefully I'll have happier posts up soon.

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Yukon, Ho!

Miss L and I are off to Alaska. Or, to be more precise, we will be by tomorrow morning. Between the trip and the big pile of books I'm taking I should have a lot to write about and share. I'll update if I can, but internet access as I understand it will be expensive. Next update, at the latest, on 9/1. Until next time....

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Crazy Note Found Taped to a Bookcart At Work

I love finding ephemera. You know what I mean----those random bits of flotsam and jetsam that give you the barest glimpse into someone's life. Pieces of toys, bookmarks, old pencils, half-xeroxed pages. But nothing's better than a good old fashioned letter. Yesterday one of my co-workers found this letter---or part of a letter really---taped to a bookcart in the library. We have no idea who wrote it, nor why someone taped it to a bookcart. Any weird spellings are from the letter itself, and not my sloppy typing. I swear.


Cap'n + Bosco go way back to Basic Training for Federation Army. Bosco was conscripted Cap'n volunteered. They both became disallusioned very quickly when the War against the Independants, Bosco refused to fight and kill and became a pacifist and Cap'n refused to fire on a pro-independance rally and was dishonorably discharged. Cap'n and Bosco met up at a bar + discussed their future. Cap'n said he had a job for Bosco on a shop. He left out the fact that it had yet to be stolen.

It was a typical salvage job---old models of ships + sell them at auction. The ships were stored in an impound lot, the lot that Murdock + Bosco would steal the Daedalus from.


That's all there is. The first paragraph was on the front, the 2nd short paragraph on the back. Although they had more room on both sides they just stopped writing. I don't know if this is real or if it is fiction, but either way it's great. It's moments like this that I really love my job.

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A Car, A Truck and Two Books

I had two near-misses in my car on my way home from work last night. The first happened just a few minutes after leaving work.

I was cruising east down Old Keene Mill Road in Springfield. It's a major 4 lane road for the area and the road widens to even more lanes as you get close to the highway ramps. Once I hit the section where things widen the little compact Honda in the lane next to me decided it wanted to merge its rear end with my front end. I tapped my horn and the driver did what I probably would have done----floored it and then zipped into the lane right in front of me.

The 2nd happened about an hour later; I was zooming north on I-95 and passing the exit for Columbia, Md. In this case I was in the 2nd right-hand lane and a truck was merging onto the highway from the access ramp. The trouble occurred when the truck kept on moving into my lane. If I hadn't slammed on my brakes he would have knocked my poor little Mazda Protege right off the road.

I didn't get mad either time; I know these drivers didn't do on purpose, they just didn't see me. But the experience dropped a story idea into my head. In kind of a Twilight Zone meets Kafka kind of thing, I imagined a main character who, all of sudden, no one ever notices. He doesn't become invisible or ghostly----people just stop noticing him. How that would shape, and probably destroy, his life? It will probably be some time before I get to this one but I think it has some real creepy possibilities.

Completely unrelated, but before all this traffic madness happened I stopped by a bookstore to pick up the new Thomas Pynchon novel, Inherent Vice. While it was a little strange that I got the only copy they had in the store, at least the results where better than when his last novel came out and I couldn't find a store in a 15 mile radius that even had it on order. The cover looks like a lost Jimmy Buffet album, but based on the description it sounds like it will be a fun romp through the 1960's.

I also picked up a copy of Don Quixote that I found on the store's discount table. I've been meaning to read it for a long time and for some reason it's been coming up in conversation a lot lately. Late this month Miss L and I are taking a trip up to Alaska, so I think these will be the two books---along with the most recent issues of Gargoyle and McSweeney's---- I'll pack to keep me occupied on the plane and boat.

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So Long, Pap

There have been a lot of things this past week that I've wanted to write about. The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and how Buzz Aldrin's rallying cry to push onward to Mars is a gleaming rocket of hope to outer space dreamers like myself. The collapse of DC's last free-form/guy talk station and how it very oddly relates to a short story I've been working on the past month. Or how it looks like I'll be finally moving into a new position at work.

But I shoved everything else to the side when I got the word that my grandpa passed away. His health has been heading downward for a long while now, and he's been in hospice care for the last six months. Although it wasn't a surprise, exactly, it still stung a good bit.

My dad ask me to write an "appreciation page" to handout at his memorial gathering later today. I was happy to, although I was somewhat mystified about how to sum up his life in 500 words or less. Do I write about my memories, and how much I appreciate his willingness to raise me when my own parents weren't able? That I loved the fact that the sweet smell of pipe tobacco clung to him years after he quit smoking? Or that I was always amazed by the magical way he seemed to make friends everywhere he went? My first draft was over six pages and I felt like I was holding back. In the end I just stuck to the bare facts and came up with something that I hope people will like.

He wasn't a war hero. He didn't create great art. He didn't start his own company----in fact, his father's business fell apart when he took over. But he was, and always will be, the measure of what makes a great man in my mind. I know in a rational sense that he was in pain and that death at this point was probably the best thing for him. But I have an aching spot inside me that misses him and I know that spot will ache the the rest of my life.

Excelsior

Assateague Island

This past week Miss L and I ventured east to Assateague Island. It's quite a wonderful place. It's a barrier island just off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia that operates largely as a National and State park, but does have the small beach town of Chincoteague on the Virginia side.

What makes it most unique are the wild ponies. No one is really sure where they came from. Anyone who read Marguerite Henry's book Misty of Chincoteague as a child probably knows the popularized theory that they came from a Spanish galleon that crashed against the island during a vicious thunderstorm. But the more historically accepted version is that the wild ponies descend from domesticated stock; apparently it was quite common for farmers in the 17th century to let their livestock roam free so they could avoid taxes imposed upon fences.

Most people visiting Assateague Island will either stay in nearby Ocean City, Md or the town of Chincoteague, which features a number of hotels, B&B's, eateries and antique shops. We decided to do it on the cheap and camp out. This was Miss L's first time camping in a tent and my first time in several years. Here's a shot of our campsite:

It was a great place to camp. Not much in the way of firewood, so you have to either buy wood or charcoal and bring it with you. The other bad thing were the mosquitos. Although not too bad during the day, they descend upon you like a plague once the sun goes down. After dinner much of our night-time activities revolved around battling the little buggers, everything from intense repellent to candles to the ye' old slap-and-sqaush technique.

We were definitely on the low-end of technology as far as the campers went. Most people were either in RV's or tents so large you could fit an entire village in them. A number of groups arrived with full-sized stoves and gas-powered generators so they could watch t.v. while they camped. Kind of defeats the purpose of camping in my mind, but to each their own.

Much of the island is marshy, as you can see from this photo here:

But if you go towards the center of the island there are some nice hiking trails. The water between the island and the Md/Va shore is a very calm sound, making it ideal for anyone like us who enjoys a leisurely canoe ride. There are some nice beaches as well, and beaches that aren't anywhere near as crowded as Ocean City or Rehobeth.

And, of course, there were ponies. We wondered how hard it would be to find them, but they were pretty much everywhere: on the beach, walking along the roads, in the water. We even saw some piles of "evidence" that some horses wandered through our campsite, although we never actually saw them there.

By far the most memorable, though, was the stallion we saw in the parking lot of the visitors center. He was just hanging out taking a nap behind someone's car, without a care in the world. If you look carefully at his *ahem* undercarriage you might notice something to indicate that he was having a particularly nice dream.

While the kids didn't seem to notice at all nearly every adult burst into laughter. Miss L and I decided he was a wee bit of an exhibitionist. We came back a few minutes later after checking out the visitor center, and our friend was awake and no longer exhibiting.

But now it's back to work and real life, at least until we venture up to Alaska later this summer. Until next time....

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I get around

A couple of weeks ago my car made it past 200,000 miles. Although not the first car I've pushed this far, it's extra special because I put all the miles on myself save the first 35,000. The mileage crossed over at a very appropriate spot, right on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. For anyone outside the area, the Wilson Bridge crosses the Potomac River, connecting the commonwealth of Virginia and the state of Maryland. It's a very appropriate spot for me these days, since I cross the bridge every time I go back and forth to work on my 62 mile commute.

Right now I'm sporting a 1994 Mazda Protege. Not exactly a car that turns heads, but it's been the most reliable car I've ever had. It's taken me as far north as New York City, as far south as Memphis and as far west as Cleveland. The only times it's stranded me were times I should have known better----times when battery died when I knew it was getting old, for example. Although I plan on keeping this car going for at least another year, I am starting to think about what the next Heb-mobile will be. With thinking about the future, I of course think about the cars I used drive around town and what part they played in my lives. These pics, btw, are stock photos. Not the actual cars I owned.

My very first car was a 1970 Dodge Challenger. Three years older than me, it was bought new as my dad's car and he held onto it for me until I could drive. It was fast but heavy, making a strange combo that didn't turn very well but was still way too much fun to drive for any 16 year old. The car lasted me through high school, taking me on all kinds of camping trips, runs to 7-11 and lots of hours of cruising around with my friends Big Ed and Jimbo. But the summer between high school and college the brakes needed about $2k in repair work and my dad and I decided it just wasn't worth it to keep it going. We used to spend a lot of time together working on the engine even before I could drive it, so giving it up hurt more than just giving up a fun car. It was a big turning point in our relationship and we really don't spend time together like we did at those moments banging our knuckles and burning our fingers keeping that sucker going. If I ever get rich, my big F-U car will definitely be a restored Challenger.

My next car was cut from pretty much the same mold. A silver 1982 Camaro Berlinetta, it not only hauled ass but had the bonus of a T-top. One of my favorite things to do was take the T-top off in the middle of winter, blast the heat and drive really fast down deserted roads in the middle of nowhere. It took me through probably the most emotionally turbulent times of my life, which is probably why I spent so much time taking it into West Virginia and sleeping in it in random parking lots. But the day after graduation I carted my first car full of crap from Harrisonburg,Va. to Fairfax County, Va and got hit from behind at a stoplight by a 16 year old girl on a learner's permit driving a van by herself. It's amazing I didn't get hurt, because the van's front bumper ended up on top of the back seat----I remember reaching back behind me in a bit of a daze, and touching the bumper while still sitting in my front seat. Needless to say, the poor things was totaled. I went almost four years without a car, until I got my current set of wheels.

What do these cars say about me? I have no idea, but I'm sure there's a pattern. As I think about the next car part of me craves something that just soars down the road but eats gas like the new Dodge Challengers, or something more practical that gets really good gas mileage. I guess I need something that just says, "Hey, that guy's a librarian...he likes to read and write, but still manages to have fun." I don't know what it will be, but when I see it I will know it right away.

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Balticon '09

This past weekend I went to Balticon. For the uninitiated Balticon is one of the better sf conventions in the DC/Batimore area. While many sf conventions seem to focus on t.v. and movies Balticon focuses on the book side of the industry. In the years I've attended it I've heard talks and readings by James Morrow, Catherine Asaro, Brenda Clough, Neil Gaiman and tons more I'm just not thinking of right now.

The panels were all pretty strong; I took in talks on diving into an author you might not fully understand, new publishing trends, ways to rejuvenate your blog, religious themes in modern sf.....and an absolutely fantastic reading by Gene Wolfe. I felt kind of bad for him, because counting his wife there were only 15 people in attendance for a guy who published some of the best novels I've ever read. But the intimacy was fantastic and he approached it all with the right humor.

But really the thing about this year that really hit me was how many people are just getting their work out there no matter what. Having trouble finding a publisher for that novel? Well, do an audio version and put it up as a podcast. Can't find anyone interested in your short stories? Make them available in an ebook format. I met three authors this year who used methods like these to build up an audience and used that as a selling point to get a publisher for a new project. One of this year's guests of honor, horror author and podcaster Scott Sigler, did this as well. The overall feeling is that if you have a good idea, get it out there. If you like it someone else probably will, too.

I'll be digging through all the fliers and notes I took over the next few weeks. As I find real gems I'll do my best to share them here.

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Grandpa's Secret Stash

The last few weeks have been all about moving. Moving boxes, moving furniture, moving little knick-nacks and finding places for all these things in our new apartment. Things are getting more solidified---all the furniture's here, we're starting to put artwork on the walls and are even talking about a house-warming party next month. We still have have a bunch of random things in a storage unit we need to go through---mostly a combination of wedding presents we haven't touched and boxes of books----but we are well on our way to being finished.

Combined with our own move, Miss L and I worked a lot with my dad last week to move my grandpa. We're moving him out of his retirement home into another place where he'll get better care for his dementia and be closer to family. While packing up all his stuff---like me, he mostly has books and music----I stumbled across something I never thought I'd find. Tucked away in the bottom corner of a bookshelf, sandwiched between a book of geological maps of Wisconsin and a biography on HItler, I found his stash of dirty books. Most of them were of the artsy variety---a book of Ingres nudes, a set of Picasso line drawings on pocket-sized cards, and an abbreviated version of the Kama Sutra. But what's sticking in my mind for a variety of reasons are volumes one and two of a series called, quite simply, Female Photographs.

These two little books date back to 1968, and are filled with 80 or so pages of black and white photos of pin-up girls in their undies. Their raciness lies somewhere between Playboy and Penthouse. The back pages are filled with ads for "marital aids" and a strange catalogue of books put out by the same publisher: With Open Mouth, The Talking Jewels, Scientific Curiousities of Sex Life, and on and on. This is old school stuff seems quite quaint and even funny by today's standards.

Now some people may not understand this, but finding grandpa's secret stash makes me feel a little bit closer to him---albeit in an odd manner. In some ways he raised me more than my dad did and I've always put him on a bit of a pedestal. Finding something like this makes grandpa seem more human, more approachable, more real. It makes me feel that despite all my shortcomings maybe I too can live a pretty happy, full life if he managed to.

Back to reviews and other fun things soon.

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Moving Woes

Miss L and I are getting ready to move from her studio apartment in downtown Baltimore to a slightly larger place in Catonsville, a suburb of Baltimore just south of the city. It's a one bedroom with a decent-sized living room, a small kitchen and something sold as a dining room---but it's really a wide hallway outside the kitchen we'll probably use as a home office space.

So the last ten days or so has been spent buying some new pieces of furniture, moving some of our things from storage or our current place, and figuring out how much of our stuff we can actually have in the new space. Not surprisingly, the big thing for me are all my books. My mom has four of my large bookcases, each roughly 70 inches tall and holding five shelves each.

While I can leave some things at my mom's house, it becomes an issue of what I want to keep on hand. What titles and authors do I absolutely have to have in the apartment, and which ones can I leave behind.

So far I've prioritized it like this:

1. Necessary reference books (an unabridged dictionary, different writing style guides, grammar books) just because you never know when you need them.

2. Art history and literary theory books. Although I don't read these all the time, I do read through them at random points to nudge my brain a little. I probably wouldn't look for them if they weren't sitting on my shelf.

3. Books by some of my all-time favorite authors: Murakami, Philip K. Dick, Paul Auster, John Bellairs, Kathy Acker, Stanislaw Lem, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Samuel Delany, Lance Olsen, Ray Bradbury.

That's as far as I've gotten so far. Just this bit makes up seven boxes, and I probably have another 15 or so to go. Next I'm thinking necessary literary "classics", followed up by all my literary mags and graphic novels. After that I have no idea. I'm pretty much making this up as I go.

Although I am culling some things out, it's hard. Everything I don't want I plan on either selling on Ebay or donating to the library, so hopefully everything will still manage to find a nice new home.

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NaNoUpDate

By NaNoWriMo's standards, I was a success this past month. I ended up with 52,580 words, just over the bottom limit for what they consider a "novel".

Skimming through things this morning, I saw lots of great moments: an origin, fun little battles, and making new friends and enemies everywhere he went. But the whole doesn't really add up to anything. I guess that shouldn't surprise me. Writing this way, where word count trumps everything else, doesn't really leave much time for editing or reflecting. Just go, go, go ninja boy. And overarching plots have never been my strong suit.

Now I guess the real work begins. Playing with it, developing it and seeing if it can be transformed from a pile of nonsensical scenes into a coherent story. Miss L and I are still talking about doing it as a webcomic. I think I'll start with his origin tale and see where adapting that takes us. It's a concrete mini-storyline with good guys, bad guys, an obvious conflict and would probably take up about the same space as your standard monthly comic book. We'll see what happens.

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Prepping

I spent tonight prepping for NaNoWriMo, which starts just over 24 hours from now. Unfortunately, I have to write things by hand first. I don't know why, but it helps me in getting into the right mode. I spent probably more time than I should have picking out a notebook to use, but I wanted to go with something unique. I chose a notebook a friend of mine decorated and gave to me several years ago. I've been saving it for a special project, and this seems as good as any.

After work tonight I stopped off by my mom's house, where most of my books are still living. I picked up a few titles that might help me along the way. Samuel R. Delany's About Writing I plan on reading cover to cover while the writing prompts in Oulipo Conpendium, Lance Olsen's Rebel Yell and Jack Heffron's Idea Book I hope to use at those moments when I get stuck. I also grabbed some short story collections: the Complete works of Poe, Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link and McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. Fun stuff, really, to give me mental breaks and help keep me going.

I've got my idea, vague though it may be. I've got my characters, as thin and translucent as they are. I don't know if this story will work or not, or if I even have it in me to write 5+ pages a day for 30 days straight. But I want to find out. I have to know if I can still tap into that undefinable something you hit when writing just starts to flow.

More once the writing commences.

Excelsior.

Back to Real Life

Miss L and I made through both the wedding and honeymoon in good shape. I won't go into all the details, but things really went without a hitch. Perfect weather for an outdoor wedding, no one got so wasted they had to go to the hospital and no fist fights. What more can you ask?

Things were a little tense---at least for me---at the first part of the ceremony. I was standing up front with my family to my right, my groomsmen holding up the chupah and Miss L's family escorting her down the aisle. Right as the Rabbi was about to speak a group of motorcycles buzzed us, blasting the thundering noise of their engines as they throttled by. It was perfect. After a brief moment of silence everyone laughed and then we went forward with everything without a worry in world.

One of the special things about our wedding was our cake. Based on a series of drawings Miss L did, the cake was created by Charm City Cakes of Baltimore. Working with them was a great process. We came in with the vague idea of a cake with a pop-up book theme and they really ran with it. It came out well, and really speaks to our goofy yet bookish taste. It also tastes pretty good, too.

The only other real literary-related thing didn't come about until our honeymoon. We went up to the Brandywine River Valley in Pennsylvania, a real pretty place to go in the early fall. Along with trips to historic battlefields, old mansions, gardens and museums---yes, we're both big museum nerds---we also had a good time just poking around the stores in Kennett Square.

Probably my favorite shop was Thomas Macaluso Used & Rare Books, a wonderful two-floor store just off the town's main drag. Aside from some wonderful antique maps that Miss L kept ogling, the shop has some real gems like a first edition of WS Burroughs's Nova Express, an early US paperback edition of Joyce's Ulysses and a gorgeous book written and illustrated by the artist Rockwell Kent.

The owner was fantastic. Although I've been in stores with that quality of books before, normally the owners work really hard to make you as uncomfortable as possible if they don't think you're really there to buy something. He chatted with us, told us a bit of the history of the area, and even talked to us about literature. Although we didn't buy anything, he's someone I will probably seek out if I ever want to find a rare or unique book.

But now life moves forward and I have much to ponder. Where to look for a full time job, whether or not to do NanoWriMo this year, what to have for dinner tonight....so many things to consider. But mostly I'm looking forward to finding out what kind of lives Miss L and I will lead now that we've officially joined forces. Until next time...

Excelsior

Marriage

By 7:00 pm tonight, assuming an asteroid doesn't strike the city of Baltimore and I don't get swallowed up by a roving dinosaur, will be married to Miss L. I'll share some photos and thoughts once we recover.

Baltimore Book Fest

Last night Miss L and I hit the Baltimore Book Fest. While we were, of course, there to check things out Miss L was there primarily to promote her new history book on the jewish community of Baltimore. I'm happy to say she sold enough to pay for the space and have a little leftover.

I avoided most of the dealers this year, even the ones like Raw Dog Screaming Press and the Radical Book Fair tent that I know I like. I just don't have the money or the physical space to be buying books right now. So that left me the booths of nonprofits and the performance spaces to check out.

I first stopped at a reading hosted by the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Actors were reading work from this past years festival. It was a real mixed bag in terms of quality. Some felt like pieces written by undergrads while others were quite good. But with comedies, character studies and absurdist pieces it was nice to hear such a big variety of work.

The so-dubbed Creative Cafe held a reading sponsored by the Art of Conversation reading series/open mic and the Little Patuxent Review. I walked in on the end of one poet reading a nice, rhythmic piece about his father. It was real loving and caring without being sappy. He was followed up by a female poet---apologies to the poets for not writing your names down---who read a powerful piece entitled My Letter to Michelle Obama. It really cracked open the complicated dichotomy of her being beloved as a black woman in her position, but also concerns over her recent re-packaging to make herself more palatable to conservative, white America (ie straightening her hair and being dubbed the black Jackie O). Although the piece was a little long, it was certainly provocative. I definitely want to check out the reading series once I get a bit more settled in B-more. If these two poets are any indication of the quality of work, it should be a good time.

Aside from the performances, I talked a bit to some folks with the Maryland Writers Association and Baltimore Science Fiction Association. The area seems really rich with literary groups and outlets and I can't wait to learn more about them.

It's a shame D.C. doesn't have an equivalent to this. While they do have the National Book Festival---which is an amazing event for all the national and international stars it continues to get----there is nothing this large in D.C. that promotes authors whose reach is more regional or local. Perhaps there is one and I'm just not aware of it...and if so please let me know.

Baltimore Book Fest runs the rest of the weekend. So check it out if you have the time.

Excelsior

Visions of Frank

One of my current side projects is helping put together a day-long conference in November that focuses on the use of comics, graphic novels and cartoons in a collection for teens in libraries. Among other things, one of the duties I ended up with is tracking down a good dvd of Japanese animated shorts to have playing in the background as people check in and get settled into the day. It's turned out to be harder than I thought. While there are a bunch of good collections out there, most can't be played on a US dvd player (yes, I know there are ways around that, but not with the equipment we'll be allowed to use at the conference).

One of the few that can be played on a US player I found through Netflix; it's a crazy collection called Visions of Frank. Basically, Japanese animation teams join forces to create cartoon shorts based on the Frank comics by Jim Woodring. If you don't know Woodring, just imagine Felix the Cat falling into a Salvador Dali painting and ingesting a big pile of acid tabs. It's twisted, surreal, often non-sensical stuff that ranges from complete idiocy to sheer brilliance.

The animation collection runs the full gamut of techniques: hand drawings, computer animation, stop motion photography....even magnetic sand paintings. The one I linked to at the bottom is my favorite off the disc, probably because it seems like an old-style cartoon gone completely awry.

As wonderful as this stuff is, I can't imagine using these to set the tone with 50 librarians. I think they're expecting something more along the lines of Pokemon, not something plotless and brilliantly nuts like this stuff is. It might work, but I think I'll keep looking for some alternatives that aren't quite so far out.

Excelsior.