Monday

Finished Edward Lee's Slither today. Again, another fascinatingly venal and inventively gross book which seems to have been essentially written in order for Lee to type the word "worm" (and/or "worms") as many times in a row as humanly possible. It's not that I deny people like his characters exist, necessarily, but I do wonder whether they'd all necessarily cluster in groups, the way he usually has them doing. Also, does meth addiction really lead to multiple orgasms? Question, questions.

Best single line: "Come on, Lieutenant--while those two nerds dissect that worm, let's find a place to fuck!"

Otherwise: I guess everybody's heard about Amazon's "glitch" already--whatever search-function screw-up caused them to remove the rankings from a whole bunch of books whose content was labeled "adult", including many, many LGBT books that aren't actually explicit in any way, shape or form. Because books about "preventing" homosexuality from a Charismatic parent's POV are allowable, but Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness (perhaps the least sexy lesbian book ever) is. Funnily enough, my own books haven't been affected, even though both certainly have gay content (occasionally fairly explicit); I put this down to nothing more or less than nobody knowing any damn thing about them/me, aka the luck of the draw. Still, I'm happy to say that Book of Tongues will eventually be emminently ban-worthy, especially if it keeps going in the directions it's already going in (which it will).;)

Still got the pizza-hand, unfortunately. It looks worse now that parts of the upper layer of skin have fallen off. This is why Polysporin is our friend.

P.S.: My Cool & Dark column about Todd Grimson's Stainless is up at FearZone, here (http://www.fearzone.com/blog/stainless-grimson). Enjoy.

A Book of Tongues: THUD

Pretty good day, considering I did far more sleeping than writing: 971 words added, taking us to 44,106 overall. Steve is off at Social Skills with Cal, so I'm going to start cooking and doing chores. Tonight: Full compliment of Monday TV, plus the big tax sort. Tomorrow: Back to normal! And I meet kelpqueen to sign the contracts, over dim sum.;) So that won't suck...

I've been dubbing like a maniac, these last few weeks. Some of the better playlists include:

2009: God Help Us Through the Night
My Shadow—Keane
22 Hours of Darkness—the Ike Reilly Assassination
On Your Wings—Iron & Wine
All is Whole—Whitley
Trophy—Bat For Lashes
Sober—Pink
Somewhere a Clock is Ticking—Snow Patrol
Red Tide—Neko Case
Grey Teeth—Angel Deradoorian
Something Pretty—Patrick Park
Penny on the Train Tracks—Ben Kweller
Dreamer—Jenn Grant
(Don’t Fear) the Reaper—Nick Cave featuring Enya
My Body is a Cage—Arcade Fire
Judas Sings (Jesus and Me)—Robyn Hitchcock
Land of Jail—Gram Rabbit
Is It Only Love That Lets You Down—Gene Loves Jezebel
Mermaid Blues—Tom McRae
Water to Sky—Thea Gilmore
Ice—Daniel Lanois

2009.2: A Little Gambling is Fun (When You’re With Me)
Go to Hell—Nina Simone
Under My Skin—Trading Yesterday
Tear My Stillhouse Down—Gillian Welch
Bad Influence—Pink
Poker Face—Lady Gaga
Mercy on Me—Christina Aguilera
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room—John Mayer
One Night—Travis
I Am Still Running—Jon Foreman
Not Running—Liz Durrett
You Will Rise—Tom McRae
Fault Line—Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Open Your Arms—the Editors
Blue Spirit Blues—Bessie Smith
The Piano—PJ Harvey
High Barbary—Gordon Bok and Cindy Kallet
Resurrection Fern—Iron & Wine
Things That Scare Me—Neko Case
You’ll Never Leave My Heart—Jeff Beal and Ed Harris
Born, Never Asked—Laurie Anderson

2009.3: He Was White as a Sheet (And He Also Made False Teeth)
The Day the World Went Away—Nine Inch Nails
Our Solemn Hour—Within Temptation
Another Way to Die—Alicia Keys and Jack White
Clint Eastwood—Gorillaz
Orange Sky—Alexi Macdonald
Putting Shame in Your Game—Beastie Boys
Kudurru Maqlu—Nile
Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche—Nile
Nemecic—Rotting Christ
Wings of Time—Tyr
Sacrificing to the God of Doubt—Darkthrone
Baptized—Arthimoth
I Don’t Care (ft. Adam Gontier)—Apocalyptica
Frontier Psychiatrist—the Avalanches
Say (All I Need)—OneRepublic
Chasing Cars—Snow Patrol
Alive—Edwin

2009.4: The Dead They Cannot Rise, and You’d Better Dry Your Eyes
Lovestoned (Intro)—Justin Timberlake
Night Time is the Right Time—Aretha Franklin
31 Today—Aimee Mann
You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid—the Offspring
Black Black Heart—David Usher
Soft Black Stars—Antony and the Johnsons
Room of Angel—Silent Hill 4: The Room
El Wraith—Amon Tobin
Forgotten Sanity—Curve
One More Cup of Coffee—Bob Dylan
Eyes on Fire—Blue Foundation
Ironspy—Splashdown
Soldier, Soldier—Anni Fentiman and Brian Peters
Cholera Camp—Bellowhead
Slips Jigs and Reels—Peter Bellamy
Main Menu Theme (American McGee’s Alice)—Chris Vrenna

It's an odd range of stuff, but I find all of it useful, in one way or another. Thank God for the Internet.;)