Odds and Ends, Hither and Yon, the Weird and the Mundane

Night Vale Dog Park rules, photo by Robert Couse-Baker,

 

On Thursday night, I got to experience a strange and magical event; the live performance of a Welcome to Night Vale episode. If you haven't heard of WTNV, imagine, if you will, A Prairie Home Companion as an episode of the X-Files.

The WTNV cast and musical guest from the live show in NY

Yeah. It's odd and strange and quite wonderful. A place where hooded figures live in the dog park and no dogs or people are allowed there. Where a mysterious glow cloud drops dead animals on the town and then runs for school committee. Where an airplane materializes in the middle of the high school gym during a basketball game. It's also oddly poetic and moving. If your tastes run to the slightly not right and often just weird, give it a listen.

For the rest of the 3-day weekend, I got to experience a preview of next year's 'empty nest' as our youngest spawn went to visit his big brother at college. The hubby and I had date night: We went to see the movie GRAVITY. I highly recommend this movie, for the intensity and the visual beauty, for the incredible performance of Sandra Bullock, for the soundtrack, for the triumph of the human spirit, and for the sheer impressiveness of the experience.

It was also an experience of a brilliant use of deep Point of View. It's not something I tend to think about in a film, as the POV is often the camera itself. In GRAVITY, the POV was Sandra Bullock's character, and because of that, the movie has an immersive quality I haven't seen in many other movies.

And I've hit 14,000 words on my newest project, the sequel to my Fae changeling novel, THE BETWEEN. It doesn't have a name. Which is problematic because the last project I wrote without a name still doesn't have a name. (Sigh.) I'm really pleased with my progress so far and anticipate having the first draft finished by the end of January.

DERELICT is still wending its way through the byzantine structure of publishing: it's out with SF&F editors at 4 publishing houses. I'll keep you posted.