Marianne and I stayed up late Sunday night for the Geminids (at Valley Forge again) and then rose early Monday morning to receive and stack half a cord of firewood, and then drove off to run various holiday errands and then home again at last, absolutely exhausted, and looking forward to my son Sean dropping by tonight (I'm writing this on Monday) to help us pick up a Christmas tree at Gorgas Park. Man, I love this time of year. Especially since we hooked up the outdoors lights to a remote control.
Also, unexpectedly, I love the following fashion video. Try not to fixate on the shoes.
Okay, so you couldn't ignore the shoes. Neither could I. According to the New York Times they're unwearable by anybody other than highly-trained catwalk fashionistas. And even they, most likely, had some harsh things to say in the dressing room afterwards.
Still, what a stylish event! I'm crazy about the robot cameras. And am I the only one who suspects that the wonderfully faun-like phizzes of the young women were derived from Matthew Barney's Cremaster movies?
"Cai Guo-Qiang is the most important artist in the world today," the art student beside me on the east terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art said with passionate sincerity. "I skipped my tutorial crits to see this. My department head was mad, but I told him that if he wouldn't let me go, I'd drop out of the department. This is the kind of event you only get to see once in a lifetime."
Wow.
Iknew this guy was great because I'd seen his gunpowder drawings in Edinburgh, at an art show attendant upon the Festival Fringe and loved the black rainbow he created in the air high over over the Castle. So when I heard that a major installation called Fallen Blossoms was scheduled here, I determined to be present for it. Marianne and Sean and I were at the museum an hour ahead of time, so we were right up front. And to make a long story short . . .
Wow.
Cai's art (in my admittedly naive and untutored reading) explores beauty, impermanence, flow, change, and loss. It's also very, very cool to witness. The smoke, which doesn't come out as fully as it should in the pix and vids, is a vivid and moving part of it.
But only a small fraction of those watching noticed something extraordinary and incidental.
Watch the amateur cell phone YouTube video:
Did you notice it? Betcha didn't. But if you look at the tree to the right of the colonnaded entrance about fourteen seconds in, you'll see the briefest of flicks, a little speck fleeing to the right.
That's a red tailed hawk that was perched in the tree. The explosives went off and it was outathere! Marianne saw it explode from the tree and pointed it out in time for me to see it as well. And now it seems to me an intrinsic part of the art.
And speaking of art . . .
I have a particularly visual imagination. My first fantasy novel, The Iron Dragon's Daughter, was heavily influenced by Cindy Sherman's photographs. My second, The Dragons of Babel, was in part shaped by Odd Nerdrum's paintings. Now I'm playing with the idea of writing a third book to round the whole thing off. This wouldn't happen anytime soon, if at all. But I've started thinking about it and playing with images.
So I'm looking for suggestions. What contemporary artists are out there doing rich and strange visual work that taps deeply into the mythic subconscious? I'm talking about people I probably haven't heard of, mind you, and I'm looking for major talents, not just people who have done particularly nice pictures of elves. So Picasso, Chagall, and Froud are straight out. I'm looking for artists whose stuff is profoundly mind-warping.
Yesterday was the 365th blog entry here -- a virtual year! To celebrate, Marianne and I went to see Scapin at St. Stephen's Theater. Terrific stuff. You rarely go wrong with Moliere, of course, but the always-reliable Lantern Theater Company outdid themselves. The set was brilliant, the puppets were fantastic in both senses of the word, and Benjamin Lloyd in the title role was superb. From now on, I'm going to keep an eye out for anything he appears in.
And I had a dream . . .
. . . last night. A conventional one, not a writing-in-my-sleep one. In it, a batch of the Loud Philadelphians (as we're known) made a group trip to a late-night radio station where Gardner Dozois was to be interviewed. Honorary LP (though he is the quietest of men) Ricky Kagan provided transportation. He'd gotten a job transporting coffins, so we emptied them out of the company van to make room for us all.
"There's a dead guy in here, " Tess Kissinger said as we piled the coffins up in the parking lot. "I heard the body thump!"
Off we went. But at the radio station, there were technical difficulties and the taping kept getting delayed. Gardner began to fret that we wouldn't get back before the shift change, and we would get in trouble for mistreating corpses.
"You know," I said, "I'd thought the Age of Stories was over for us. That we'd all gotten so old, we were going to spend the rest of our lives re-telling old stories. But here we are, making a new one!"
End of dream. The holiday seasons have begun, and I'm feeling good will toward everyone here. May your Age of Stories never end.
Wanna see something truly appalling? Check out the commercial video above. But not when there are children in the room. Honest. In a decent society, the people responsible for this would be immediately put to death.
At which point the Devil would have a very hard time deciding in which circle of Hell to place them.
And a plug for . . .
My friend Oz Whiston asked if I'd shill for the Taos Toolbox writers workshop, to be held in mid-June of next year for two weeks. It's being taught by Nancy Kress and Walter Jon Williams, who collectively know pretty much everything there is to know about writing.
Dunno how much it costs or how hard it is to get in, but presumably you can find out here.
Friday, I was interviewed by my friend Andrew Matveev for a magazine in Moscow.
Saturday, it snowed and all in an instant autumn turned to winter. Over the river and through the woods Marianne and I drove, to Big Blue Marble, where my pal Victoria Janssen had a book launch party for her new erotic romance, The Moonlight Mistress. And, yes, there were luscious pomegranates on display.
Sunday, I went to the Morris Arboretum, where I've been obsessively photographing Patrick Dougherty's installation, the Summer Palace. I'll surely write a batch of short-shorts about it and maybe even (if the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise) something longer. Eventually. Right now, I've got a novel to write.
And today's a good time to wander over to The Drabblecast, and hear their version of my "Invisibility for Beginners." Pretty cool. Right here.
"Are you looking for the bird?" the worker at the Bree-Zee-Lee Marina asked.
Well, yeah, I was. And there it is above, an ivory gull, which is an Arctic bird which never gets down as far south as Cape May Point, New Jersey. Before now.
The above is how it all came out. Below is how my blog looked this morning, before Marianne and I drove off into the birding wilds of New Jersey:
Playing Hooky
Did I mention that Marianne retired earlier this year? That means that I'm old enough to be retired, if only I had a job. Then I could spend all my time writing.
Except today. Today I'm taking advantage of the whole self-employment thing by hanging out the GONE FISHING sign and playing hooky. Actually, I'm not going fishing, I'm going birding. There's a fabulously rare gull down at Cape May Point that Marianne would like to see. But since I never catch anything when I go fishing anyway, I don't see that there's much difference.
But just so you haven't dropped by this page for nothing, check out the hypernew Nokia Morph here. See how long it takes you to decide whether this product actually exists or not.
As is so common with me these days, I'm on the road right now. But I wanted to pass along the news that I'm going to be the Author Guest of Honor at sparkling-new convention SFContario next November. This is particularly good news for me because it's in Canada and I love Canada, and it's in Ontario and I love Ontario, and it's in Toronto and oh man do I love Toronto. So I expect to have a great time. I'll keep you posted as additional info comes in.
Meanwhile, here's the basic press release as it was posted on Boing-Boing:
We are starting up a shiny new SF convention in downtown Toronto, called SFContario. The inaugural convention will take place November 19-21st 2010 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in downtown Toronto. It's a lovely hotel that overlooks Allan Gardens and is a stone's throw away from all the restaurants and attractions downtown Toronto has to offer. Our confirmed guests of honour are:
Michael Swanwick Author GOH
Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden Editor GOH's
Geri Sullivan Fan GOH
Karen Linsley Filk GOH
We're going to have a great con! Anyone wishing to register can do so online. Current registration rate is $35 and will be increasing to $45 on December 9th.
And in stark contrast to the joyous news above . . .
You've probably heard that fantasy great Robert Holdstock died on Sunday. I met him exactly once, in a crowded and noisy club under the arches in Edinburgh, so I don't have any personal reminiscences to share. But, holy gee, could that man write! Mythago Wood is not only a fabulous book, but so original that in Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendelsohn had to define a separate mode of fantasy to account for it.
Holdstock died shortly after publishing Avilion, a sequel to Mythago Wood (I have it on order), and all the reviews reported that it was great. That's the way a writer wants to go out . . . on a high note, reminding his writers of all those books books he'll never get the chance to write.
Rest in peace, Robert. I regret all those books I'll ever get the chance to read.
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