The Diamond Island

Today, my friend Anne Wagener got a pre-Happy Turkey Day surprise.  A short story of hers, Time Machine, was published in an online magazine. Plus, she found out another short story of hers will be published at Splinter Generation.

Plus plus, she has two other short stories looking for homes as I speak.  One’s a strange tale that takes place in a planetarium and a cavern.  The other I got nothing.  Her secrecy cloaking device engages at this point, I only get so many bonus rounds.

Anne writes quirky, strange fiction that kind of unsettles me.  But I like it, and perhaps unusual encounters are your thing too.  I’ll post links to her other stuff as it materializes.  Congratulations Anne on taking the plunge and getting your stuff out there for people to puzzle over!

With a hand on my heart, reminiscing about strange days in the past, coming back to tell me their secrets now, I put a bunch of notes before me.  One note on my mind—I went into Sedulous Chair today and put up an ad for a weird program I’m working on.  We’ll see what ideas decide to apply for the job.

I have several nets out in the deep and a couple of radar arrays and satellites on the scent for goodies.  These sorts of things take patience to bear fruit, so to speak.  I’m very much a naturalist when it comes to coaxing out the wondrous treasures of the unknown.

There are practical matters to be attended to with regards to the honeycomb hideout.  Energy freed up from having to recalibrate the gravity wells of the haunted house can now be put towards surges of activity for settling in to the new locality.  Every department needs their allocation of warp power to accomplish their ends.  For once, we aren’t just surviving, there’s freedom to pursue the work of DEVOlopment.  Know what I’m sayin’?

For example, just today I noticed that I was carrying a lot less in the way of good luck charms, and saying a lot less prayers to reinforce the defenses.  My psychological forces are in a rest, repair, and renewal mode.  That’s how in the battle I was a few months ago.  Now that medicine, rest, and vacations are being handed out to the starfleet of the mind and body—a lot of good things are taking shape.

Of course, very much on my mind is the completion and release of my novel here.  I’ve got the posts at the ready.  I’m prepared and anxious to move onto the next book.  January will be the third year mark when I let this thing into me and the whole process started cracklin’.

I’m looking at my final checklist of items and I see of the eight things I need to be satisfied on, seven of them are checked.  Any month now I’ll be done and take the next step.  But oh!  I am so in the dip right now, climbing that hill and struggling to be satisfied.  I know it will happen, just not when and how.  Soon, soon!

All the paperwork, inspections and minor work to get Gamera out on the field as a true monster car have been completed.  Me and the rest of the clan were in full on celebration mode, doing the wild rumpus in the cooler air with grillin’ and chillin’.  Though, whoa, wrasslin’ with the kaiju can be mighty wearyin’ on the brain stem.

Worked on the garden, clearing weeds and dead crops.  Still goodies coming in (like radishes and spinach), but its time to make way for winter.  Prepare the earth for the deep sleep.  Lots of bees pollinating the beautifully bright morning glories.  There was a huge box turtle in the garden munching on rotten tomatoes.  Yum!

Lots of different idea ores being mined and refined for this space.  As much as I like writing about various topic-alities, it’d be nice if I could kick it up a notch, now and then.  Of course, that crazy novel thing continues to spark and glow as I work it through the space-flames of creative interstellar cool-whip crystaline radiation.

Costume, costume, who’s got the costume?  It’s about that time of year to reach into the secret locker and pull out a rabbit, so to speak.  What side of me shall I show this year?  Might I even surprise myself?  Having done make-up based monsters the last two years, maybe this time I ought to go for a concept, like Rabid Potato Salad Man.  Raa!

The option to override vanishing procedure has now expired.

Occupants now have nine days to abandon the haunted house.

The haunted house will automatically vanish in T minus nine days.

All you folks in the DC area who are fans of Count Gore De Vol and looking for something to do this Saturday, here’s a pass-along-the-word for ya.

Yeah, I know this is sudden-death notice.  Get in line for the neck-bite.

What: Documentary Film “Every Other Day is Halloween” by C.W. Prather
When: Saturday, June 27 at 8:20 p.m.
Where: At the American Film Institute Silver Theater in Silver Spring, MD

The Count will be there, along with a bunch of other famous people (whom I don’t know).  There will be costumes and props to gawk at and a cash bar reception for getting tanked.  The Count will pose for pictures and sign autographs.  He’ll also be packing a limited supply of Captain 20 pictures!

Advance tickets should still be available at the AFI Box Office, so check it out yo.

Probably better information too, at the official website.  You know you have to click, The Count compels you!

Moving boxes after boxes out of the haunted house of real-world material.  Extracting this stuff from the compactoid dimensional squeeze of the grounds is an exercise in patience.  The place we’re moving into is welcoming us with new energy freed for use.  So much of our psychic reserves have been used in keeping the ghosts happy and the monsters at arm’s length.  The Chucky style doll stays.

My personal starship patrol skills were needed at a technology in music education event in DC this weekend.  There was a need to keep the photon accelerators running and that meant me tractor beaming people at the right moments to achieve idea fusion.  Bonus round ideas were assimilated by the sensor sweep, and one can’t underestimate the power of intergalactic relations by meeting knowledgeable and committed people in similar fields.  Rock the mike!

Relatives galore coming in to survey the scene.  Word travels fast when there’s a transformation in the ectoplasm of fright night.  Hopefully I can keep my mental field together long enough to accomplish remaining objectives before the haunted house deadline.  When that dimensional rift closes it’s going to be a brand new reality.  Beer and chicken wings for all!

All art projects are on hold, have been on hold for a while.  Those lucky few who have been recipients lucked out.  It’s all static as I haven’t had any time to break out the gear and do any recombinant work.  Fear not, book continues in drastically reduced baking speed, comics on the hopper, and pictures will be restored to this website soon as I can let the superstructure and engine stress points bleed off safely.  My audio show experiments will soon bear fruit, all will be coming up hot pockets of the soul!  Or at least a nice tasty sandwich on a summer meadow’s day.

July 4th will see me and the fergaloid clan shooting off fireworks to chase all the destructoids away and get the spirits poppin’ the fresh dough.  Pizza of Doom will be a happenin’ in, yo ho ho.  Rum punch and slackazoids will be a flowin’.

But for now, face to the floor eating dirt.  It’s still Terminatargh time.

The site went through a behind-the-curtains upgrade today.  I apologize for any disruptions in your dropping by this might have caused.  If you notice anything broken you can transmit to me at booey (at) paultristanfergus.com.

I heard that a certain awesome auntie of mine is 60 today.  Congratulations on making it to the 60 mark.  That’s something to brag about.  K and I didn’t hear the news until this weekend, so you’ll be getting a late special surprise from us.  The image should give you a clue of what to expect.  And if you need another clue, it’ll be done in a style similar to this.

Hope you have a great birthday Duke.  You’re a super duper aunt to the max.

05-22-09 ETA: All done!  Will be sending soon Dukey.

My Bad Ronald left some reading material for me last night.

From the chapbook One hunnbred ghosts and curses:

monster dictuanary

• godzilla can take over a city who kills destroys and breagths fire and lanchs his claw.
• blue meanie is a creature whos blue and takes over to make more blue
• jaws is a creature of death who kills anything for beware his jaws can destroy steel.

to kill a werewolf

• he must be killed by a silver bullet fired by some one who understanding.

From the comic book Shut Up! #1, with the burp people:

Well, looks like my attempts at hanging out with my own personal Bad Ronald didn’t go exactly as planned.  Judging by the spit-out bite of hot dog and the untouched milk, nitrate-based meat products in a bread sleeve with lactose liquids do not equal win.

The invitation to walk in the sunlight, breathe the wind, and look at the flowers was also a dud.  It never occured to me that this stuff is just maximum bummer for the kid.  Boy do I feel like a dummy.  Well, I gotta give the rascal points for trying.  I don’t know if I could try his brand of food or go on his kind of a walk.  Maybe I’ll have to, in order to find out what’s up.

That monster is still out there too.  I get the feeling I’m just going to have to wait until it drifts my way again.  The suspense is proving a little unnerving, brr.

Speaking of monsters, I rediscovered an old classic monster flick called Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957).  Pure hilarious goodness.  Scientists stranded on island inhabited by huge energy crabs that eat brains.  The crabs absorb the voices and memories of those they kill, so they are really good at luring victims away.  Meanwhile, the island is sinking into the ocean.  I love movies with crazy time limits before the locale is destroyed or sinks!  But the best part is the stupid crabs taunting the survivors with the voices of their dead comrades.  Pure B-movie gold.

The social media internet sinkholes have caught my interest.  So yeah, Facebook has got it’s talons into me.  For someone of my age, Facebook has been a goldmine of reconnection and personal enrichment.  It’s an event that won’t happen again, as the youngins will increasingly be unaware of life before texting each other with updates.  I wonder what my life might have been like if me and my friends in high school would have had that superpower.

And I’m on Twitter.  Looking up the few so-called celebrity type people I might be interested in has proved pretty uninteresting.  I just don’t worship my heroes enough anymore to want to follow their every effort.  Reading Bono’s tweets on twitter was an exercise in self-depression.  Looking for mundanes with something to say is just as difficult.  It’s like the Livejournal friends feed — lots of stuff that is mildly interesting, but not much I want to follow regularly.  Oh well, growing my dendrites will take time I suppose.

Meanwhile, on the book front I’m putting the finishing touches on the sixth draft.  Been taking in all the feedback I’ve gotten from folks and making decisions as to what to act upon.  Putting the last call on all that though, as I am ready to move forward.  What will probably happen is I’ll post the whole thing as a PDF here, and when I get the Lulu book all sorted out, make a link to that available for people who want a physical manifestation.  Cafe Press t-shirts and mugs are so far down the line it’s only a concept in the brainstem right now.