Aug 22 2008

Questionable Taste Theatre: “Brave New World”

My taste is weird. We all know this by now. But sometimes my taste is downright invisible. I’ll often see something and think, “That’s crazy!”, and for several years I will mention it to anyone who might possibly have seen it, and dozens of people give me that pitying look that lets me know I’m in a bout of Fassbender Syndrome. I give up asking. I begin to wonder if I made up the entire movie.

Without IMDB, I’m pretty sure I’d be a nervous wreck.

That’s right: it’s an adaptation of Brave New World that aired on TV in 1998 and then fell off the face of the planet. It stars Peter Gallagher and Spock. (No, seriously.)

You’d think someone made this in MS Paint, but that’s sort of an insult to Paint, you know?

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Aug 21 2008

Prom: The Pattern

The prom saga continues!

My senior year in high school hadn’t been the horror show that middle school had been. When a group of friends mentioned going to the prom in a large, self-protecting clump, like a tiny flock of nerdy ducks in a sea of over-tanned State Championship cheerleaders, I could understand why they wanted to go. I didn’t want to go, but I understood why they wanted to.

“You should come!” they said.

“I’m all counterculture and stuff,” I said. “I have to go watch a bunch of silent films now while I sew up the holes in the elbows of my vintage black coat that I wear every day on top of guy’s jeans.”

I was really into exposition back then. Oh, and also, being a total pretentious nerdwad.

But they did not give up on me. “We’ve got a limo!” they said. I didn’t listen. “We’re going to dinner as a group!” they said. I paid no mind. “We’re going dress shopping!” they said. I stuck to my guns.

Then one of them, particularly devious, said, “You could make your dress, you know.”

Well, obviously I was going to prom, then.

The pattern I chose?

Anyone who can’t see this disaster coming has never seen a dress before.
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Aug 20 2008

“The Red Shoes”

The Journal of Mythic Arts Farewell Issue is out! It includes my story “The Red Shoes”.

I’m thrilled to be sharing a TOC with so many awesome writers, and vow to spend the rest of the day shirking work to read the issue. It will be a sacrifice, but I am willing to soldier through.


Aug 19 2008

The Middleman: “The Vampiric Puppet Lamentation”

Uh, “Lamentation” is right, you guys. My blood pressure goes up under the cut!

“At my confirmation I prayed I would one day grow up to kill a vampire. And now I can.”
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Aug 15 2008

The “Campbell Dress”

Earlier this week, Mary Robinette Kowal invited me to her apartment so I could poke her Campbell dress for a while. And I took pictures!

The best of these pictures got hacked up in Photoshop, since the dress (a soft pure gold in person) showed up as alternately chartreuse and acid yellow. My monitor, sadly vague when it comes to yellows, was of little use. I desaturated the detail shots and crossed my fingers for the rest. (It’s not much. My oohing and aahing skills far outweigh my photo editing skills.)

An abbreviated photo essay is below; for more pictures, check out the Flickr set.

Who wants to see a dress yanked inside out?
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