- New Tor.com post up about vespertilio-homo, the lunar man-bat, and Matthew Goodman's The Sun and The Moon: the Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York. .

- My parents got my email, but they are still trying to figure out how to reply. Email is a whole new world to them. No use rushing them on this one.

- The Homelessmoon Chapbook is now available for free and easy download. 5 stories, 80 pages. My story, "Signature Days", is all new weird and depressing with copious amounts of OCD thrown in for giggles. It's also quite short.

- My wife makes aesthetic decisions when she chops onions.

- I received my contributor's copy of CinemaSpec: Tales of Hollywood and Fantasy. The Edgar A. Poe stamp was a nice touch.

- Ack Ack Ack Ack

via BLDGBLOG, a contest I am curious to see the results of:

"In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community?"

... that on this day began my obsession with the comedy team of Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. Jin is to blame.

(enlarge here)

The second Homeless Moon Chapbook will be available at ReaderCon.

5 stories, 80 pages, each one based on a different entry from Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi’s Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Perfectly sized and packaged for wedging beneath wobbly table legs and reading in the hopper. My story, “Signature Days”, is based on the work of Luigi Motta, Italy’s answer to Jules Verne.

And if you’re not going to ReaderCon, and you still need something to wedge under that wobbly table leg or read in the hopper, fear not--an electronic version will soon be available for easy and convenient download.

For those playing along at home:

- My cold is mostly done.

- Guacamole tastes pretty good on top of spaghetti.

- Jay Ridler has a cool piece up at FearZone on Nelson Algren.

- And, I'm still on the fence about ReaderCon.

Meanwhile, the Japanese remain amusing.

(no worries, work safe...)

“The legend recorded the pursuit by the natives of “Manetto,” the Evil Spirit, through Westchester county to the Sound shore, where, escaping to City Island, he stepped across to a safe retreat on Long Island by the use of the Stepping Stones, leaving the imprint of one foot which may still be seen upon a bowlder near Eastchester. He is said to have landed from his leap over the Sound in Flushing bay, on great rocks which were splintered by the impact. Having thus comfortably rid the mainland of that undesirable alien, the story leaves the burden on Long island of proving whether his Satanic Majesty skipped back again, over the gate of hell, to Manhattan, or still remains in the Borough of Brooklyn, playing the devil with metropolitan politics.”

- From Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis by Reginald Pelham Bolton.

Imagine the type of speculative fiction Alfred Hitchcock's Magazine would publish, or think of that part in the second half of Jim Thompson's The Getaway when Carol misjudges the dosage of her tranquilizers and wakes up too early in the cavern crawlspace. These six stories are kind of like that: often weird, occasionally claustrophobic, and slightly paranoid.

Willeford had an eye for the absurd and the madness that hovered not too far beneath the surface of the average American. Even when writing trash (a number of his books were written for the paperback-smut market), his novels were unmistakably his own.

Here's a link to one of my favorite pieces by him and also one of his funniest: "Everybody's Metamorphosis".

My review of John Harwood's The Seance can be read over at Tor.com. Shorter review: I liked it. I really liked it and I then went out and bought The Ghost Writer.

The great BLDGBLOG has a nice article up on the Tree Museum that opened last weekend in the Bronx. This is one of those things I tell myself I should check out, but probably won't. Still it sounds fascinating.

"Perhaps more importantly, Holten's Tree Museum (which she describes as "practically invisible—it's part of the urban fabric") demonstrates an intriguing way to re-imagine the landscape: finding ways to make the hidden layers and connections of a street's story visible (or audible) might ultimately be as, if not more, important than installing a new swing set in the park."

Ummm, the Hotel FOX?

You can read a sample story, "Screening of a Silent Film" by J.S. Bangs, from the upcoming Cinema Spec anthology for free here. It's a nice little story about magic and silent films. Enjoy!

My June cold has arrived, and my head feels like its been wrapped up in a thick towel. Hopefully, this won't get too bad and it'll be one of those colds where the symptoms occur one at a time and not all at once. Also, hopefully, it'll be over and done with by Monday.

In other news, my direct boss has announced his retirement and that we're all to be doled out to other studios to perform their dirty work like foundling children.

He announced his retirement at a meeting like this: "First, I'd like to thank you all for coming and I wanted to say how much of a privilege it has been working with all over the years. Second, if I ever swore or yelled at you in that time, please accept my apologies."

Honestly, I don't expect any of us to be there in 12 months. In fact, whenever a stack of paper winds up on my desk, my mind already wanders off to a distant country where everything is, if not, bright and rosy, then certainly better. Stay tuned on that score.

And finally, my new Eee PC rocks.

"How was I going to get Jesus out of there? With prune juice? He'd been in there for months and plenty of other things had come out, but he hadn't. Who do you talk to about something like that? Any doctor would think I was crazy, and I couldn't see myself going to Father Antsy. He'd just tell me everyone should have Jesus inside them, and that's fine if you're a believer, but I didn't feel much more religious than I had before I ate the biscuit. Jesus hurt, and that's the truth, and I wanted my intestines back to myself. If it had been the Devil inside me, maybe a priest would have been some help. I wondered if Jesus could make your head turn all the way around, like Linda Blair's." - Susan Palwick, "GI Jesus"

The above had me laughing out loud on the subway.

At the end you find out it’s all a VR simulation.

(Just kidding.)

I snuck out of work early yesterday and saw MOON. I’m not going to jump up and down and say it’s fantastic and amazing and you have to see it. You shouldn’t go into it with high expectations. But, if you’re interested in seeing a science-fiction movie that doesn’t treat you like an idiot and has an actual plot (you know, one that can’t be summed up in the word “RUN!”) then go see it.

MOON reminded me of THE QUIET EARTH and SILENT RUNNING. Even better, MOON reminded me of books such as Peter Watts’ STARFISH and some of Stanislaw Lem’s PIRX THE PILOT stories (don’t get me started on “Terminus”, I love that story). MOON's writing is on par with some of the better episodes of the original TWILIGHT ZONE. So, if you’re going to shell out your cash to see some sci-fi flick that’s nothing more than a thrill ride spectacle, you owe it to yourself (and the genre) to see a sci-fi flick that is well written and enjoyably dull.

Because in your heart you know the future will be sterile and dull.

OH MY GOD! This movie was awesome: Tattooed yakuza, an insane hunchback, a black cat that drinks blood, a blind swordswoman, gang warfare, fountains of geysering blood, and a carnival "House of Horrors". It made my eyes drunk just watching this!

Now if only someone would release the Red Peony Gambler series on DVD:

Found while searching for something else, it's aviation pioneer Helene Dutrieu. Of course, I hadn't heard of her until twenty minutes ago when I stumbled upon some website of obsolete technology.

And continuing our adventures in ADHD, Polar Inertia is the "journal of nomadic and popular culture" and believes "the understanding of a culture requires immersion into the instruments of media, technology and infrastructure that have molded its growth."

In other words, it's a site of weird photo-essays such as these on satellite dishes in Algiers and rickshaw mudflaps.

In case anyone would like an actual update post instead of simply links to stuff, here are some “highlights” from this past week:

- Crapped on by pigeon (Fortunately, I was less than a block from home. Unfortunately, I was eating a slice of pizza at the time.)

- Talked about auto-erotic asphyxiation with my dad (Thanks a lot, David Carradine!)

- Arranged a party for my coworkers, failed to attend because I forgot what date I made the arrangements for (Explained to coworkers that this may be part of the reason why I don’t have an actual social life.)

"The general scenario is set 80 or so years into the future, long after the sea levels have risen. The catastrophic side of the sea coming in has long since past and the five images are snapshots of people going about their lives, having adapted to the city’s new circumstance."

I wish I could have seen this show, as well as the Thrilling Wonder Stories conference in London last week.