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Behold the beautifully macabre photo of the severed head of Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the patron saint of genital diseases, peering out of a reliquary. It's going up for auction in Ireland and the auction house's estimated value is somewhere between $1,100 and $1,700.
So if you're planning on buying me a birthday present and can't think of something appropriate...
You can read about it here.
And elsewhere in the blogoverse . . .
Scott Edelman has posted a video of all but the last two minutes of the Nebula Awards. So if you were curious how I did as toastmaster, well, here's your chance.
The post is here. You'll have to scroll down some.
And I have my Balticon schedule . . .
Once again, I set out to prove that I am the iron man of science fiction. Friday and Sunday are pretty light. But take a glim at Saturday. Wow.
Friday
9:00 PM Fantasy Motifs in SF Literature
Saturday
10:00 AM Postcolonial SF/F
1:00 PM Whose program is it, anyway?
3:00 PM Name Droppers
4:00 PM How Plausible is Today's Hard SF?
5:00 PM On the Shoulders of Giants
6:30 PM Reading (I think I'll read The Dala Horse)
7:00 PM Clark Ashton Who? Great Forgotten Science Fiction Authors
8:00 PM Autograph Session
9:00 PM Growing Up With Us — Children's Books We Still Love as Adults
10:00 PM Name your 5 (or fewer, but not more) favorite books
Sunday
9:00 AM Writers We Don't UnderstandSo there'll be plenty of opportunities for you to get a free limited edition signed-and-numbered chapbook of The Brain Baron. Yours for the asking.
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I stayed a few times in Annesbrook, the County Meath house where the Saint's head used to reside, but it wasn't on display anywhere particularly obvious at the time.
ReplyDeleteIf Scott Edelman really is going to serve up durian, it's definitely worth trying, though I doubt he'll be able to get a really good one. Here in the U.S., definitely on the east coast, they tend to come frozen, which has the advantage of toning down the aroma, but the disadvantage of toning down the taste. And they're not always the most flavourful kinds, either.
ReplyDeleteMy parents used to wax enthusiastic in their memories of the Indonesian fruits of their childhood, the durian among them. Papa: "Oh, and the durian!" Mama: "Yes! Oh, but ... the smell." Papa: "Oh, but the taste." Mama: "True. It tasted wonderful ... " I regularly buy durian fruitsicles at the local Korean supermart in the summer.
Ironic. You were down in DC while I was up in Bawlmer. Now you'll be in Bawlmer, and I'm stuck in DC. [sigh]
--Mario
Here in Philadelphia, you can get durian pudding in little plastic six-packs.
ReplyDeleteIs this a great country or what?