Astra, Dresden, Big John, Elric and Other Old Friends

We were sick most of the last two weeks, but got back on our feet and went a few places this weekend.  

On Saturday we went to the Mia Marie Winery on Highland Valley Road, only three exits and four miles up the winding road from Anne's place.  Astra Kelly was playing, which was a treat since she had just moved to Arizona and I wasn't expecting to see her in town again.  Then again, I hadn't seen her play since before COVID, you know, before so many things broke down and don't feel as real anymore.

Some things I wanted to point out: she let's you know where she's going to be appearing and brings swag to her shows.  So many creative people have completely forgotten to send out newsletters.  I would get to more shows if to performers would give any kind of advance notice.  Half the time, I only know a show happened when someone posts about it on Facebook it after it's over.  And most musicians have given up on bringing actual items -- CDs, anything you can buy -- to help them out.  Honestly, a tip jar and a blurb about how you can find their stuff somewhere online (sometimes followed by mumbling about how the downloads don't pay shit) doesn't really cut it.  Astra brought her new release on vinyl, several past CDs at a reasonable price, some of her aromatherapy items, and other bits of projects I never knew about.  Apparently she is now the voice of a cat on Instagram.  That is how you do it.

One thing she had that I had never seen before was a "download card".  That was a little plastic card like the ones you get Google Play points on, except it has a URL and a code, and if you enter the code at the URL then poof, you get the download as promised.  As a pleasant bonus, she included both MP3 files and high-fi WAV files.  You can find her here.

(Nov 3 note: we saw her again today, this time in Ramona, and she had her whole shop with her again.  It was nice seeing people walk over and check out her things, and Kim at the wine counter was talking about how "crafty" she was.  If we don't let people know what we do, how will they ever know?)

That was inspiring for whenever I have an upcoming event.  I would rather bring too much than not have anything to show.

Now on Sunday, we went down to Balboa Ave to check out Book-Off, a big jam-packed bookstore where I found the first Dresden Files novel a few weeks back.  I didn't really plan on spending any money, but there was a gorgeous, like-new four volume set of all the Elric stories.  Michael Moorcock had always been inspiring to me, from his writing style and imagination to his works on Blue Oyster Cult albums.  I enjoy when someone can be creative across art forms and genres.  I root for underdogs and far-out creativity. This set was not cheap, but once in a while I see a definitive set of something, and feel like a collector again.  I had to have it.  Throw in a nice trade paperback Game of Thrones for $5.

Meanwhile, I got the new Jeff Vandermeer book "Absolution" from Barnes & Noble, and it dives right back into the crazy creepy Southern Reach world that started with "Annihilation".  I expect to ramble about that in the future.  Jeff and Ann Vandermeer have edited many magazines and projects, and I even submitted a story or two and I was never accepted, and they wouldn't know me from a bump on a log, but I can enjoy being a fan sometimes.  Anyway, I believe today was the official release date, so poof: mentioned.

As for the Dresden Files, I read book one (Storm Front) again, and it's such a quirky world, a real gem.  It is hard to make a supernatural setting that's even 10% different from all the rest, and these books have character to spare.  He does get beaten to a pulp more than he should be able to recover from, but that mix of crime noir and White Council shenanigans is classic.

We watched the whole series, and I have no complaint about it: I thought the cast did a fine job, and don't care that they had to shuffle the episodes or make monsters easier to film.  Paul Blackstone was top notch although blah blah he doesn't fit the exact description in the book.  He gets points for personality and holding together the mix of humanity and madness.  I've read pages and pages of gripes and production issues, but I enjoyed it back then, and just as much this time around.  My only complaint was that it ended after only 12 episodes. 

One of the monsters in the Storm Front episode, loosely built on that first book I had just read, replaced an ugly toad demon with ... big John DeSantis from Master and Commander.  Hey, I knew that guy.

John was an all-around nice guy every time I saw him on or off the set.  After M & C, it was always a treat to see him guest star in my favorite shows, from Supernatural (a golem) to Stargate (Jafaa warrior) to all the other places he showed up, and in 13 Ghosts, OMG he was terrifying.  It must be weird to only get the meanest, most evil roles when he just wanted to kick back and chat -- he definitely knows how to use his looks and voice.  I always wish him the best out there in show biz.

Here is a shot of John DeSantis and I from the Master & Commander wrap party 20-odd years ago.

Memory lane ...

So this has been an indirect tribute to the people we meet in this mad creative life.  They feel like friends when we see them at shows, or at conventions, or on the page or on the screen.  Maybe we never actually sat down over dinner, or went on road trips together, but "acquaintance" never felt sufficient.  As for the fictional characters, they fill niches in my mind in other ways.

BTW, all or most of the Dresden Files books are available as audiobooks read by James Marsters, who has a great voice to these.  I enjoy listening to them with Anne after hours.

I wrote 8 or 10 poems while Astra was singing, and I hope some of these things help to rip more works out of the depths and onto paper.

A Week On My Own again (again?)

My girlfriend was down in Puerto Vallarta this week, so I had so much free time to do my own thing.  Theoretically.  Aside from the days that were completely ruined by full-time job and commute.  So that left two hours on weeknights and then the weekend.

I was able to put together a new draft of the collaborative collection I have been working on, and get it emailed out.  This meant pulling out stories and poems that were not as well liked as the others, then putting in some new pieces of mine and splitting the whole thing into three logical (roughly genre delimited) sections to make it a bit more interesting.

The regular Thursday zoom call was a real treat.  Some of the new (to me) folks were there (JJ and others), but also two writer/publishers I have known for 20-30 years.  Between the host and those two, and I, we must have appeared together in 200 or more publications since the 80s.  We've all published each other's work when we working editorial roles.  So I'm afraid we took over, talking like old times, and the others slowly wandered off.

Yesterday, I drove down to Ocean Beach to work some more on that collection in person.  There was one piece that was a haibun in two sections -- each section a paragraph & ku, but we found that there was a time slip in there, and new in-between scenes were needed to tie it together in a tighter package.  So that was fun.  I was hoping to write several new pieces together, but a chunk of the limited time was taken up by computer issues and me having to loop 15 blocks back to my car because I forgot my darn reading glasses.  I could just barely read without them, but knew it would bring on a headache.  

So, it was a nice foggy day on the coast with some chill in the air.

Driving home, I had a head full of words.  And with certain instrumental pieces playing, I had half-formed poems where the words fit the rhythm of the song exactly.  But is that even a thing?

Back at Anne's place (totally quiet sanctuary, no cats or dog), I had to do my usual 2-3 hours each weekend of writing up descriptions for the stamps we sell online.  Anne does the scans, and there was a huge backlog to get to.  But since I am trying to keep my brain in writing mode, I ended up researching a few of those stamp issues, and adding four non-trivial blog posts about them:

Wendy Fitzwilliam (Miss Universe 1998)

Angola Classic Animals

An Industrial Nightmare from Saar

and

Selvage markings: Registration marks 

I have to admit that I work in bursts and after a big gap I will back-date the new stuff to make it look more natural.

And today, back in Escondido, it was mid-90s and sunny.  I got back to my place (2 cats but the dog is still in day care) and wrote up 4 blog entries for my games blog and started on this update to my Writer's Life blog.

I have no new sales to report.  No new submissions, really.  But I am still getting things done.  Collaboration work, a zoom call with other writers, and 9 blog posts, with other drafts in progress. 

The image is from our trip to OBCoffee: my pumpkin spice chai with a very Buddhist tree-of-life motif in the foam.