UnCommonwealth

Oh Brunhilda, you're so lovely....

Brunhilda, please report to the stage.

Workspaces

Hey, thanks for the congrats on yesterday's news, everybody. Watch this space for more news soon, though I'm willing to bet it's not (exactly) what most of you would guess. (Though what most of you would guess is also coming, just farther out--settle down, Chance.)

In other news, we've been doing a fair amount of light remodeling. The big thing was laying new floors in the back rooms (which we hired professionals to do--professional carnies, apparently, but hey, they did a pretty good job). Other than that, it's been all painting, re- and free-cycling, and putting together new furniture.

We've still got a fair way to go, but two rooms are mostly done--the office and my new workshop in the back. Here's some preview photos.

First, my little home bike shop.

And second, dans le modè de van Eekhout, the view from my desk.

I'm sure Gwenda, who's also been doing some online remodeling (pretty pretty), will have more pictures up later--possibly even all flikrfancified and everything.

UPDATE: Oh hey, I think I've managed to Flikr a couple-ten pictures myself.

Bertie and Daisy, 1930

Found this lying on the sidewalk while we were walking the dogs tonight. On the back, "1930" is written in the same blue-inked hand as the legend on the front.

Work on the novel continues apace. I briefly stopped new word production to do a quick spit shine on the first four chapters 'cause we've got Write Club this weekend, but I'm soldiering on.

Pretty pretty

The folks at Cricket Press put together this beautiful poster for the bike race I'm promoting next month.

And I bet you do, too.

FanFic for College Credit

My Jane Eyre class is designed, very sensibly, to have the hard stuff in the middle so that we can ramp down to funner, easier stuff at the end of the semester (we went from reading Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea and will end with The Eyre Affair).

The last big project is to pitch an updated movie version of Jane Eyre. I sold the women in my group on a fantasy version. Our take is that when Rochester calls Jane a changeling, he's literally correct. Bronte's novel, then, is the story of the fairy Jane in England. Our movie is the story of the human Jane in Faerie.

She goes to the Lowood School for Wizards and Witches where she endures the stern tutelage of Alan Rickman, meets the Fairy Lord Rochester as he's transforming from horse to centaur to man, escapes Thornfield to the human community of Marsh End where a fellow changeling, the fanatic St. John (Paul Bettany) wants her to accompany him back to the mundane world, and then makes her way back to Ferndean to magically heal a Rochester caught in media transformare between horse and man after barely surviving the witchfire that kills Bertha (the secret source of his power).

It's all Powerpoint and Photoshop, but it's a ton of fun. And a ton of work, so that's it for now.

Yay! Snow!

This will probably be the only "snow event" of any significance we get this winter, so here, in fine it's-Friday-on-the-tubes tradition, are pictures of the pets.

"What the hell is it? It's everywhere!"

"Properly positioned, I can affect a haughty disdain that belies my normal goofball personality."

And finally, we halfway figured out how to shoot little video clips with our fritzy digital camera, despite the fact the display screen doesn't actually, y'know, work. I'm sure Gwenda will be putting up movies of Emma romping in the snow later. (For those of you who find this sort of thing annoying, remember that would be worse if we had kids; for those of you who wish we had kids, this is the best you're gonna get, so enjoy.)

There's no sound on the five second download below, so just imagine the gentle susurrus of falling snow delicately counterpointed by Gwenda saying "You better not be recording me! Give me that!"

Download gwendasnow.AVI

 

Yeah, yeah...

I don't want to hear about it. I'll post a "what's been going on, there, hoss?" type entry in the next day or so. The short version of events is that over the last couple of months of the semester, in the mindblowing crossover team-up that nobody predicted, James Baldwin and Geoffey Chaucer combined their unworldly talents in order to kick my ass.

To make up for it, I have these goodies. Those of you in the science fiction world (or, possibly, in the billiards fiction world) might have a greater appreciation for these snaps than some other folks. Emma the Dog Girl and I discovered these two bits of local color on our afternoon walk yesterday.

First, it's possible that the people who've opened up this new pet grooming salon might get some calls they don't expect.

And here's something that's a little bit spooky and a whole lot interesting, spotted among the castoffs in the back of a stonecutter's shop.

Tevis is, in fact, buried one county over from here. A possible explanation is that the birth year on the stone (obscured by a leaf in this picture, but it's carved as 1927) doesn't agree with the birth year of 1928 I've seen elsewhere.

You say scarification, I say Scalzification

Yesterday, John Scalzi drove down I-75 and, surprising me in my office where I was doing some late night crusading attorney general type work, he disfigured half my face with acid.*

For some reason, this has driven me to adopt a stylish split-level wardrobe and to concoct elaborate-if-easily-foiled plans to rob banks that depend on the flip of the coin. Also, I mysteriously blame Christian Bale for my condition, despite the fact that, let's be honest, it's pretty hard to confuse him with Scalzi.

*Technically, he used Photoshop, but his Photoshopping style can definitely be described as acidic.

Pretend we're on cable

Okay, as has been reported elsewhere, we've been rearranging furniture and throwing some stuff out and donating books we don't need copies of right now to the library and etc. The office is now all clean and elegant and no longer features a fireplace covered with pop culture bric-a-brac.

Anyway, that big metal bust there. Yes, I did in fact buy that at some tourist junk store in San Miguel de Allende a couple of years ago, and yes, Gwenda did laugh at me while I hauled it around steeply pitched cobbled streets looking for a way to get it back to the States for less than a hundred bucks, and yes, I know that a metal sculpture of Don Quixote isn't necessarily all that auténtico an object to find in central Mexico.

I was thinking about putting it out by the street to see if anybody would take it, but I'm afraid somebody might bring around some literature. He's got a bit of an Anton LaVeyish vibe when seen in real life. I suppose I could put it in the back yard but I think that would freak out the neighbors.

If this were Trading Spaces, I suspect I'd come back from tastefully redoing your den to find this guy down in the crawl space.