Crazy Long Weekend–Off to I-Con: Play Nice, and a Challenge
So, Ann and I will be at I-Con in New York as of tomorrow (through Sunday). See our schedule under News in the sidebar. Looking forward to meeting a few readers of this blog–and a few non-readers, too! In other news, we just learned Hal Duncan will also be at the Czech con we’re guests at–woo hoo! (Thus, the re-posting above of some memories of Europe…)
In the meantime, this is now officially a Crazy Long Weekend post. You have four options:
(1) Speculate on who the guest editor for Best American Fantasy 3 might be (we’re announcing it next week).
(2) Pimp whatever books, stories, or anything else you want to tell us about.
(3) Explain who would win in a fight: an Emperor Penguin or a Bobcat (or, alternatively, a weasel and a one-legged pirate).
(4) Share your most private thoughts in haiku form. Here’s a start:
I squished the frog on the ground.
Icky icky frog.
Winter comes.
Someone will get a free copy of a book for something posted in the comments. It’s totally arbitrary as to why you’ll get it and what it will be, but it won’t be something offered here before. Let chaos or indifference reign!
jeff
April 3, 2008 at 9:44 pm
#1) Stephen King, and it’s way too obvious
#2) Was told I made it out of the slush at Big Name Magazine (woohoo!)
#3) Emperor Penguin flippers down. Bobcats aren’t so good on ice or freezing water. It’s the rubber tires and heavy engine that does them in.
I’ll have to do the hauku later. when I’m not Nyquilled.
April 3, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Hope you and Ann enjoy I-Con!
I pitted a virtual Emperor Penguin and a Bobcat against each other and their entrails revealed to me that the initials of the guest editor are K.B. (That felt too much like cheating so I’ll do #2 and fits with the “death” theme.)
As for pimping, I recommend the manga Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service for its all-out weirdness (i.e. one of the characters has the quasi-useless ability to dowse dead bodies and another has an alien broadcasting his thoughts through a sock puppet).
April 3, 2008 at 10:07 pm
This is my terrible terrible terrible Haiku. It’s I-Con inspired (can’t wait to be shy in front of you whilst you sign my books!). Please don’t laugh.
Chain-Mail bikinis
Sordid cosplay confusion
I-Con burgers yum.
April 4, 2008 at 2:36 am
I don’t do haikus. If it doesn’t start with “There was a young man from Nantucket”, it’s just not poetry.
April 4, 2008 at 2:38 am
Who will edit BAF3? Two words: Scott Sigler. It will be the only Best American Fantasy whose introduction needs a Parental Advisory Warning. It will go on to sell a million copies.
My haiku:
Sunshine. Grass. Flies, yum.
What’s that? Oh no, help! I’m squashed.
I’ll stick to his shoe.
April 4, 2008 at 9:01 am
1/ Lou Anders
2/ My short on Alienskin – Dawn’s Star
3/ Emperor Penguin V Bobcat: Depends who challenged who. If it was the penguin then the Bobcat would be in trouble, can’t see it fighting very well in the frozen waters of Antarctica. If the Bobcat had the choice then the penguin is toast, the semi-desert environment which it inhabits would give it a big advantage.
4/
Isn’t a Haiku
Fixed to a five, seven, five
Format? I thought so
April 4, 2008 at 9:25 am
1.) My guess would be Lou
Anders, too. Baldness kicks ass
like the Pyr imprint.
2.) Nothing to pimp but
myself. I rock for no good
reason but Haiku.
3.) Penguin fights Bobcat
Penguin eats Bobcat’s brain. Next,
Penguin comes for you.
4.) Indifference rules.
I sit here designing my
next unemployment.
April 4, 2008 at 11:33 am
I’m no writer of poetry either, but I’m always up for putting in a plug for one of my favorite musicians. It’s also appropriate on this forum, I think, because the first time I met Jeff, he turned out to be one of only two other people I’ve ever met who knew who Paul Kelly is.
Paul Kelly is an Australian musician and, in my not always humble opinion, one of the very best songwriters in the world. His latest single, “God Told Me To” is a good example of his ability to inhabit the mind of a character. You can check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptzrY7JuG_4
April 4, 2008 at 11:33 am
Weasel. Sneaky. Fast.
One-legged pirate can’t run.
Weasel wins, hands down.
April 4, 2008 at 12:29 pm
dishonest frog
burnt necromancer oozing
shoe-leather blood
April 4, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I pimp my own novel, Shelf Monkey, a novel you yourself described as “gonzo fun.” Yes, I know pimping myself may seem like a conflict of interest, but any publicity is good publicity.
If I am FORCED to pimp something else, I choose the novelist Jim Munroe. I am reading his novel Everyone in Silico, and find it to be tremendously fun. On his website http://www.nomediakings.org, he is currently selling his novels at deeply discounted prices. He is worth every penny.
April 4, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Haiku – *ahem*
I have handed in
my resignation. Should I
swipe some office swag?
April 4, 2008 at 2:33 pm
With a weasel trapped inside an emperor penguin versus a one legged pirate trapped inside a bobcat, I’m gonna go with the weasel in the penguin. The penguin-weasel has all the maneuverability, while the pirate in a bobcat would be all squashed, even with the extra room he’d have from that missing leg.
April 4, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Jeff and Ann, I hope you’re having a blast at I-Con!
1. Matt Staggs?
2. Check out the travelling minstrel Charlie Parr, if you like unadorned folk music. I cannot recommend him enough! His albums are on Amazon and iTunes, his site is charlieparr.com. In person I embarrass him, because I think his music is so goddamned good and he thinks he’s just a regular guy.
3. I think the Penguin would just hang in the water and outwait the frozen-assed Bobcat. No one gets hurt, though the Penguin might take some ribbing from his buddies for his lack of huevos (his buddies who also cowered in the water, the hypocritical wussies).
4. Springtime back ache
forestalls
Beth dreams
April 4, 2008 at 7:50 pm
1. ‘taint me, Dave!
2. (A) If I can pimp something I did, I would refer you to the interview I just did with Toby Barlow, author of the werewolf novel in verse “Sharp Teeth.” http://mattstaggs.blogspot.com/2008/04/interview-with-toby-barlow-author-of.html
2. (B) If I can pimp the someone else’s work, I have to tell you that I’m all giddy right now about Jay Lake’s “Mainspring.” It’s brilliant! Smart, adventurous fun in the steampunk/clockpunk mode.
3) The Emperor Penguin would most certainly win against the Bobcat because it would surely have a Penguin Sith somewhere waiting in the wings to take said Jedi out.
4. My haiku:
Venus Flytrap Brain
Catches buzzing droning thoughts
Sated, the lips close
April 4, 2008 at 9:08 pm
4. Priceless words
A gluttony of comments
Shameless me too!
2. Misinterprotato’s album Variations. The music contains all the originality and verve that the title doesn’t.
1. Forrest Agguirre *grins*
April 4, 2008 at 9:20 pm
A quick add to my pimpage – you can hear the entirety of their last two albums at http://www.misinterprotato.com/music.html. I suggest “Island of the Sun”, “Start” and “Everything that Isn’t” as good places to begin.
April 4, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Penguin vs. Bobcat? I’d say this is a game where the home court advantage would pretty much determine it.
April 4, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Think neutral ground. A wrestling octogon filled with three inches of water. What say you now? (Would it help to include a chicken in the equation?)
Jeff and Ann
April 5, 2008 at 4:01 am
‘A wrestling octogon’
Hmm… is that some sort of deceased WWF cephalopod?
You’re determined to get this squid project launched, eh? hehe.
And what’s the chicken for? To call out fowl if necessary?
April 5, 2008 at 7:39 am
octagon…chicken’s fer ta call out Kater’s special powers.
April 5, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I just read Delia Sherman’s short story in the latest “Realms of Fantasy”, and it was really good. Fairies and
Hm… I think the Bobcat is likely to win, which makes me think the penguin is actually going to pull something sneaky to win. Penguins are not a trustworthy bunch, in general. You never know what they have concealed under their wings. Also, I’ve heard they do tend to regurgitate things they swallow. A penguin could sneak some kind of gnarly bullwhip and regurgitate it at the right moment to lay the bile-smelling cowhide upon the over-confident predator.
Haiku? I prefer to limerick.
Limerick.
I bet the new editor’s smart
to be part of this wonderful art
My guess is Nick Gevers
Or perhaps a rogue squiddler
Or a living saint of deadly farts
April 6, 2008 at 5:23 am
I think I would like to list the different ways to knot a tie:
Pratt
Windsor
Half windsor
Italian
Turkish
Onassis
Plattsburgh
St. Andrew
Nicky
Eight in hand
Christensen
Cavendish
Half English
English
Personally, I use a Half Windsor.
April 6, 2008 at 5:28 am
There’s always a show-off kid in the class who has to break the rules in some obnoxiously creative way.
April 6, 2008 at 5:49 am
Besides there are exactly 85 ways to tie a tie. Neh!
April 6, 2008 at 9:28 am
(1) Dan Simmons
(2) book- The Earth will shake- RAW
music- Menomena
film- 13 tzameti
(3) Penguin for sure. Weasel beats pirate. Penguin vs. Weasel (this gets tricky they’re both sneaky bastards) but I’d have to go with the more agile Weasel.
here is a song about Penguins http://www.meepsite.com/PngnsDntFly.mp3
(4) PASS
April 6, 2008 at 10:47 am
1. Just for the hell of it (and since the Amazon comments sound so great), Robert Stanek.
2. I reviewed The Stone Gods.
3. I view all of this as being like Mortal Kombat, so in the first round, the penguin would win with a flipper attack, followed by breathing fire on the bobcat, while in the second match, the pirate’s wooden leg would contain an AK-47 and he would thus waste the weasel. But neither one of those two could stand up to the awesome ferocity of the Hamster packin’ heat or the terrible power of a rabid vampiric squirrel. In the end, class Rodentia would triumph.
4. I don’t do well with haiku
No, no, no I don’t
The rhyme sucks, motherfucker.
April 6, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I found this. I think you need it.
April 6, 2008 at 7:17 pm
That might be even more awesome than Buddy Christ!
April 6, 2008 at 7:28 pm
OMG. My life was not complete until today. Buddy Christ is kinda freakin’ awesome. Too bad Kevin doesn’t have a Buddy Buddha.
Just for kicks I checked Amazon for this, and guess what? Yeah, baby!
(P.S. This is the first time I’ve posted a link, so hopefully it will work. If not, apologies!)
April 6, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Sweet! I can so totally see Adam Sandler singing with this bear in hand!
I’d almost dare ask if there’s a Tickle Me Mohammad Elmo doll, but after what happened to that British English teacher in Sudan, perhaps that wouldn’t be wise…
April 6, 2008 at 11:06 pm
1. Me. Just because no one will ever see it coming.
2. a.) Kentucky swampwater. Try it. Trust me. :D
b.) In keeping with the spirit of pimpage gone before.
3. I have to agree with Larry up there (surprised, anyone?), but with an addendum: the Badger Bomber squadron is waiting for intelligence to confirm reports that the rodents have eliminated all other contenders. They’re waiting in readiness to sweep in and wipe out the entire arena in one bomb run.
4. I fail at haiku. It turned out to be a sonnet, and not a particularly good one, when I was done. (Apologies if it’s too weird for people…)
My hobby has been called by many grim.
The av’rage man, who avoids the macabre,
Shies away, afraid it will somehow rob
Him of humanity: it’s not for him.
I, though: I find those men far too prim.
In monuments to those who live no more,
I find naught ghastly; rather, I find sure
Beauty in the elder stones and the dim
Remembrance, though crumbling stone and rotten
Edifice, image of those forgotten.
April 6, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Aww. Moderated comments, now? Sadface.
April 6, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Huh? Shouldn’t be moderated.
JV
April 6, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I suspect it has to do with the links. I, er, included a few in my failed haiku, and while *I* could see the posted comment, a friend I linked here could not (I’ve since deleted cookies to test the theory, and it’s gone for me, too.) Had a note beside it that said “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
I’m spamming your blog, Jeff; I’m sorry. I fail at this internets thing. *wg*
April 7, 2008 at 12:46 am
WordPress automatically stops posts with more than 3 links I think. They have a spam protection thing built in.
April 7, 2008 at 12:48 am
I see all of your links, Nadine, so maybe it’s just a weird browser issue? And I have to say that I believe that regardless of all of the threats of Badger, badger, badger!, the rodents would still triumph in the end. All you have to do is watch the Bridgestone commercial to see just how devious the squirrels in particular can be!
April 7, 2008 at 1:10 am
It was cleared for public duty shortly after I left my last comment. :) I didn’t know that about WordPress (thanks for the heads-up, Brendan!) but it seems a reasonable policy.
Squirrels are indeed wretched little bastards, I’ll give you that. Ever seen a badger chow down on a small rodent, though?
Still gives me nightmares.
April 7, 2008 at 1:26 am
I suspect team Rodentia may still have an advantage. After all, 2008 is Year of the Rat. And let us not forget the crepuscular chinchilla — anything that cute cannot be trusted.
April 7, 2008 at 11:08 am
Here’s my haiku. It’s more of a prose haiku. And since ‘crepuscular’ seems to be the word of the moment, I’m jumping on the bandwagon:
One filmy, crepuscular eve I glided into the public library. Excitement pulsed through me as I rounded a corner to claim a book. Suddenly I staggered to a halt. An old woman had fixed her rheumy gaze on my book and was lifting it from the shelf. She glanced up into my grimace of horror, then dropped the book into her bag, the resounding plop echoing her triumph. But I didn’t panic. I waited for the old lady to move deeper into the twilight regions of the stacks. I waited. Then—at the right moment—I made my move. Minutes later I emerged smiling into the soft gloaming.
April 7, 2008 at 11:25 am
Yeah–it got tagged as spam. I un-spammed it. It probably was the links.
JV
April 7, 2008 at 12:59 pm
As for the contest, Charles Tan wins a copy of Ben Templesmith’s new Wormwood graphic novel, because his “KB” is eerily prescient. How in gawd’s name could he possibly know?! (Charles–send me your address at my hotmail account, just to confirm.)
Jeff