Although the Great King Marmot is still stunned in his sawdust skull at the news of SyFy (Or, “Sigh…Fie!”), he will now answer the questions that have manifested in his absence. (As King–see his colorful crown–he is entitled to talk in the third person.) Already, he has felt the sun upon his haunches. A single mote of light has entered into his left eye, where before there was no optic nerve. And yet he has received this light and seen it. The awakening has begun…as has the Paint-enhancing…To the questions! Avaunt!

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…this blog will be known as Eksy Dys, per the always hyper-smart Sci Fi Channel’s decision to replace stalwart vowels with iffy ones and call themselves, dumb roll please, Sy Fy. Wot wot? Did April Fool’s Day come early. Am I awake? Am I?

To catch the marmot-free up to speed: No 60-in-60 this week. Penguin Books turned me into stuffed marmot. Forced to answer writing questions, per previous post. To become human again, although I’m debating the worth of that re-transformation. Here are the first answers. Please ask more. I can feel my paw now, and move it slightly, but that is all…

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Because of Booklife deadlines and being a guest at MidSouth Con in Memphis this next weekend (Ann’s the editor guest of honor), I will be re-starting the 60 in 60 around early April instead of, er, now. As my punishment, Penguin Books has turned me into a stuffed marmot behind museum-quality glass. The only way I can become human again and break out of the exhibit is to answer your questions about writing, as a kind of humiliating penance.

So, give me your questions and over the next couple of days, I will answer. You may submit questions now, but I will probably only start answering tomorrow morning.

Remember, if you don’t ask marmot-me questions, I will never become human again…and this sawdust in my head itches mightily. Please remember to address the marmot.

Anyone else a fan of the sadly defunct Pleasure Forever?

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(from here)

Beyond the towers, on the far shore, Finch could just make out the hunched group of buildings that included the apartment with the dead man and gray cap. Was the Partial there, staring out at him? Talking to Heretic? Hiding something from Heretic?

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Evil Monkey:
Another snarling dead dog of a night, even during the day. The city’s like a wretched softball team of spectacularly goitered children. Blood pooling in the calves of old people. And right here, in the gutter, another puking, puling lump of humanity…

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So I decided to take a whole day off and wake up gloriously late at noon and then go explorin’ cross this hotbed of mystery and strangeness known as New York City. Er, I mean, this sleepy little town known as Tallahassee. I went to a 24-hour breakfast place for coffee and my egg fix. Read the NYT. Wandered on down to the local used book store and picked up a cool-looking novel titled Manhattan Nocturne. Checked myself into the angsty nihilist clinic otherwise known as Watchmen (wow. eh. wow. eh.). Ambled out and got myself a smoothie because it was now about eighty hours later and my stomach was grumbling. Decided to check out the local chain bookstore, browsed the magazines, thumbed through some nonfiction, scanned through a copy of Watchmen to see if I was right that the movie wasn’t scene-for-scene.

Then I walked by the cafe, whereupon I came upon the display pictured above. A shiny row of mass market paperbacks. I looked upon them. Much of it seemed fun but slight.

Then I saw the sign above the table, and my blood froze:

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The history of “The Very Best of Spaz Rock” is a long and rich one, extending as far back, by some accounts, as the pre-Christian era, when musician-priests performed elaborate, improvised musical fugues known as “spaz” for mobs of revelers during wine soaked bacchanals in tribute to the nameless god thought by many scholars to have been the forerunner of the Greek god Dionysus.

The Very Best of Spaz Rock, Vol. 1, Monsters of Spaz, has just been released . The tracks include “Killer Squid,” which I hereby claim in the name of Ambergris. But there’s more to delight collectors of the weird, including tracks like “Cerberus,” “Frankenspaz,” “Troll Under the Bridge,” “Baby Bigfoot,” and “Demon Clown”.

The rough geniuses behind The Monsters of Spaz are: Ben Armstrong, Michael Gunter, Mike Stephens, Steev Taylor, Dave Wasson, Will Woodberry. I have to admit to meeting most of them (worked with most of them, too).

What is Spaz? I’ll let their strange multi-dimensional messiah Gunter explain:

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(Not exactly the meal one might expect to celebrate finishing a noir/hardboiled cosmic fantasy, but if you know the writer can’t cook it all begins to make sense. A lovely selection of sushi with two brilliant cheeses [especially the black truffle sheep cheese] and some awesome sugar snap beans, all washed down with a good South Australian Wolf Blass Shiraz-Cabernet blend.)

I turned in Finch to Victoria Blake at Underland Press today. This was the version in response to her notes and my own step back to look at what I’d written more objectively.

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