handful_ofdust: (Default)
handful_ofdust ([personal profile] handful_ofdust) wrote2011-02-21 01:07 pm

Finally!

Finally sort of not ill. Finally sort of moving forward.

Today is "Family Day", which makes it the fourth uninterrupted day of Cal at home. Thankfully, Steve's here, allowing me to do things like transfer all my notes thus far on Tree of Bones into an .odt Open Office file, do additional research, etc. My favourite nugget today has to be this curt run-down on a particular tzitzimime star-demon: "Tlaltecuhtli, earth goddess and first sacrificial victim. She is a monstrous creature." Also, why does it totally not surprise me that there's an "Aztec metal" band called Mictlantecuhtli? Check them out here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8TMkZH8SAY).

Otherwise, I've spent a lot of time fending off my insomnia by watching episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, almost all of which contain moments where you just want to grab Darren McGavin by his shoulders and shake him, yelling: Carl, shut the fuck up! Carl, just LIE, Goddamnit! Don't be so ridiculously, continually 'surprised' that the authorities don't believe you about the hooker being a vampire, or the doppleganger setting people on fire, or that damn haunted computer! We could shave a good twenty minutes off of every episode if you'd just assume no one will ever listen to you, and act accordingly!

That said, I still end up enjoying the show, more often than not. I'm particularly fond of the guy who plays Kolchak's editor Vincenzo, Simon Oakwood, who looks startlingly like Gary Farmer. Is it possible they cast a Native person to play an Italian? In a show which once cast Richard freakin' Kiel as the rampaging ghost of a Medicine Man, why not? Oh, and there's an episode where a young hotel executive from Mexico turns out to be an avatar of Xipe Totec, which I'd totally forgotten. So awesome.;)

Other good news: Creatures!, the anthology edited by PG Tremblay and John Langan, is on its way--they're reprinting my story "Blood Makes Noise", of which I'm quite fond. Read the TOC and admire the cover art here (http://pgtremblay.livejournal.com/398266.html). And Francesca Forrest sold an absolutely vicious fairytale, "The Yew's Embrace", to Strange Horizons. It's live right now, and incredible (http://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/20110221/yew-f.shtml).

All right, back to the blood-encrusted grindstone...

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2011-02-21 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I love that you and [livejournal.com profile] intertribal are TOC buddies in that anthology--it will be excellent.

(And thanks for the shout-out. Of course if there are two people whom I'm a little embarrassed before re: that story, it's you and Paul, but it can be wrong for one place and right for someplace else, right?)

[identity profile] handful-ofdust.livejournal.com 2011-02-22 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
That story is gorgeous, and I'm absolutely staggered by it. Cruel human nature vs. cruel natural nature, or: If you worship trees, dude, you damn well better treat 'em nice.;)

[identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com 2011-02-22 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
Okay, I'm copy-pasting this comment someplace safe where I can come back and look at it from time to time :-)
sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)

[personal profile] sovay 2011-02-22 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, and there's an episode where a young hotel executive from Mexico turns out to be an avatar of Xipe Totec, which I'd totally forgotten.

. . . please tell me that episode's good.

[identity profile] handful-ofdust.livejournal.com 2011-02-22 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
For a Nightstalker episode? Yeah, it is. Kolchak's really freaked out by the fact that this cycle of sacrifices culminates in the executive himself being sacrificed, and the executive being perfectly fine with that; stupid white man with a portable tape recorder just doesn't get the whole "king must let blood or the land dies" thing, as might be expected, considering this is 1970s America we're talking about.

[identity profile] handful-ofdust.livejournal.com 2011-02-22 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)
And then of course Kolchak has to spout off at the mouth and talk the executive out of it, with brave words about how you don't have to spend the rest of your life as a box boy after the best year ever. The guy (played by Erik Estrada!) cuts and runs, leaving Kolchak to almost be killed by a mummy, who is himself defeated by the rising of the Morning Star.