The past few weeks have been extremely busy. I’ve had to set aside almost all other writing and editing projects (yes, The Spring Chap being one of them — all apologies to those of you who are waiting patiently) in order to finish up a number of things for a . . . well, I’m not sure what to call it, really. All I know at this point, all I can say is that one of my books has gotten some attention from an unexpected area. Conversations with very nice people are ongoing. At times it’s quite exciting. At other times I cannot help but think of il gatto e la volpe.

This is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night, pacing and talking to myself. Rest assured that when things solidify a bit, one way or another, I’ll have more to say about it here.

With all of that going on, it was nice to take some time out this past weekend for a visit to Aurohn Lake. I brought along the copy of Burrough’s A Princess of Mars that I’d gotten for Ken. I’ll be reading it at the same time he will be, although he’s read it before — the first time was back when he was a boy, sometime around the 1920′s. I’m hopeful that we’ll have some interesting conversations afterwards. And then it’ll be his turn to pick a book for us to read.

I’ve already got one of his (unpublished) novels waiting on my nightstand. Pinnacle is a fictionalized account of his work on the groundbreaking car commercial for Chevrolet that first put an automobile on top of a remote mountaintop in the middle of the desert. It’s a pretty commonplace image now in advertising, but Ken did it first back in 1964, and without computers. I’m interested to read the book . . . but I’m looking forward to exploring Mars with him as well.

While we were out there, Keeley, Jeff (her father), and I took a nice long walk around the lake, through the forest, across the meadow, and back again. It started with a liberation of the last few milkweed pods. Across the lake, we spied a trespassing ATV that took off at the first sight of us, which gave us all something to grumble about. But the trespasser was quickly forgotten as we saw a few deer early on — a brief flash of the tail, the bounding into the thicker trees — and a surprisingly non-nocturnal possum that trundled as fast as it could away from us through the underbrush.

Last time we came through the forest a few weeks back, it was bitter cold and the little ponds were frozen solid. This time, however, the warm weather had broken things down considerably and was performing the alchemy of spring that invariably turns everything into mud.

In the distance, perhaps outside the boundaries of the Aurohn conservancy, we could hear gunfire. Far off through the trees, we could just barely make out the edge of a lake on the neighboring property. About the time the gunshots started ringing out — it’s nowhere near hunting season, by the way — we watched a herd of eight or nine deer plunge into the frigid water and then scramble up onto the ice to make their escape — their hoofbeats breaking through here and there as they drummed across the surface.

One of the deer floundered for a while in the icy water and it was breathtaking, excruciating to be unable to do anything but watch. To our relief, they finally made it up and across the ice after their herd.

The gunshots continued. I don’t have a fond place in my heart for hunters, particularly not out of season poachers. Fortunately, my phone has excellent coverage out there in the middle of nowhere and I was able to put a call back to Ken’s and let them know.

This could also serve as my last communication, I thought to myself, before the tragedy struck.

There’s a hill just past Five Bar Gate where the forest ends and the back forty takes over. Just under the crown of the hill is a large hole leading down into a burrow. On top of the hill, the tall grass is matted down where the deer sleep. It’s the perfect spot: sheltered by trees on two sides, high enough to see predators coming, accessible enough to allow escape into deep cover.

Last time we were out, Keeley and I left apples there and I was happy to see that they were all gone. All through the forest and on the crown of the hill, we scattered the new batch of apples and carrots that we’d brought along this time. I’ve been reading A Field Guide to Demons — which isn’t really about demons so much, at least not in the pea soup sense — and I suppose some might say we were leaving offerings for the local gods. In truth, I just wanted to give the deer and the unseen burrow dweller (groundhog perhaps?) a nice treat after the long winter.

I like that little hill. I’d like to have a small, one room cabin up there with windows on all sides. All I need is a wood burning stove for warmth and tea, and a table and chair. I’d go there to write every day, if I could — and if it wouldn’t disturb the deer or the underhill god (groundhog, woodchuck . . . whoever it might be). That would be a good life. I’m surprised Ken never did something similar but, of course, he did. It’s why they moved there in the first place.

In the meadow beyond, the heavy snowfall and high winds of winter had flattened out most of the tall grass, so Jeff and I went down to the far edge of the lake to see what the ATV might have been up to. We also wanted to check and see if anyone had set out traps for the rumored-but-as-yet-unseen beavers (and, of course, spring them as a part of our subversive community service). No traps, fortunately. But no beavers either.

From there, it’s an easy walk back. When we got there, Ken’s wife Alice was on the phone checking on the provenance of the ATV and the gunfire. The collection of discarded beer cans we found along the way didn’t make them any more pleased about the trespassers.

But they were quite interested in the various books I’ve got on my iPhone. In addition to the excellent Classics application from the iTunes App store, I also had the Kindle application installed with my recent purchase of the Burrough’s book.

Scoffing at first, it didn’t take Ken long to get the hang of using the app to read. But he said what everybody else seems to say about the Kindle: “Well, it’ll never replace the pleasure of reading from a real book you’re holding in your hands.” I can’t say I disagree with them. Alice used to be a librarian and, watching her play with the iPhone, I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t have minded having one of her own.

But I was most interested to hear, a week or so ago, that the Kindle store had opened up to direct submissions from authors. Having spent some time playing with the formatting and preparation of a document for that platform, I’m fairly confident that it’ll be one of many avenues by which I put my work out there in the next few months. Unless, of course, the cat and the fox come through.

The evening ended up with a stop off with Keeley’s parents for a nice big barbeque dinner on the way home, washed down with tose overgrown “tall” über pints of beer that everyone seems to be serving these days. All of which only made it that much easier to go home, snuggle up with my wife, and fall asleep well before 10 o’clock.

I woke at 3AM, wide awake and had some difficulty convincing my mind that we didn’t need to go downstairs and have one-sided debates about titles and audience age demographics. Eventually, I won out and fell back asleep in time to be completely late getting up for work the next morning.

A cot would be nice in that cabin too, now that I think of it.

————————————————————-

I have about fifty different tabs open in Firefox, seriously straining the patience and functionality of that application. Here’s my attempt to close a few of them…

It was the twittered birth of Roadhacker and Dirty Snowflake’s baby Maeve that led to the discovery that I am, according to the Mayan astrological system, a White Magnetic Dog. So that’s all right, then.

If I ever get a little cabin somewhere, I’ll almost certainly need a shelf for this. At least, unless I win one of these someday. If so, then I’ll pick up the idol from the HPLHS’s excellent adaptation of Call of Cthulhu instead.



And while we’re on the subject of Things I Want Someday, a few of these plushie skulls from Lana Crooks would look good on that shelf too. And they might also be great decor for a baby’s room as well. Or maybe we can just hire this fellow. Excellent stuff, but I do have to admit that these pillows might be taking it a little bit too far — at least, in a baby’s room.




And in case you missed it the first time, two of my online friends had a baby and twittered the whole thing. When I told my wife about it, she said “No electronic device of any kind will be anywhere near a birthing room, right?”

As with my vague non-news report above, I thought it best to adopt a neutral position in response. For now.

That, my friends, is a whole lot of writing. And he did it all on his own.

Although he’s rounding the corner into his nineties, he still writes every single day — poetry and articles, as well as the odd advertising blurb or copywriting gig. And he’s been keeping a daily journal for what’s probably sixty years or more.

Ken’s quick-witted and spry and doesn’t mind regaling a much younger and infinitely less-experienced writer with stories from his life and career.

So, he’s a god and I’m lucky to know him.

Whenever I see him, Ken never fails to ask about my work — both at my day job with the agency as well as my extracurricular creative efforts. He’s incredibly generous with his attention and encouragement, and he’s genuinely interested in what the current scene looks like.

As an old radio guy, he’ll sometimes ask me if I remember the classics — Inner Sanctum, The Shadow, and so on. Seeing as how I’m a bit of a powerdork and grew up with very cool parents, I can actually hold my own in some of those conversations. And, as someone who has spent a fair amount of time sitting in front of a microphone recording my novels, I’ve got a lot of appreciation and enthusiasm for the uniquely audible world of radio.

Of course, these days a lot of that world has been transplanted into podcasting. As one of the best-natured curmudgeons I’ve ever know, Ken’s got a healthy interest in new technology but he also isn’t above calling it bunk from time to time. One of the things I’ve been looking forward to is opening him up to the world of podcasts (via his new Mac and iTunes), because I think there’s some really terrific stuff available there — all the past “nostalgia” shows that are available, as well as what’s going on right now.

I remember a number of years ago, when I heard of podcasts for the first time. I have to say, I didn’t quite get it. This was long before the iPod and it seemed like a real fringe movement. At work, there was the programming intern who listened to MIDI files of classic video game music scores. There was the other intern who listened to podcasts. I didn’t get it. At all.

Eventually, I found my way into podcasts — both as a podcaster as well as a listener. (But I still haven’t figured out the appeal of the MIDI file thing yet. At all.)

One of the things I hear a lot from people is “I don’t have the time…” or “I don’t know where people find the time…” to do something new — whether it’s listening to podcasts, or getting involved in a social networking site, or even just sitting down and reading a book (“Do people even do that anymore?”). Like anything else, you end up making the time for things that you enjoy. All you have to do is get over that little edge at the outset, the one that seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth to start.

The tipping point for me was in the convergence of the iPod, iTunes, and NPR taking the fairly bold step of putting out a lot of their content for free as podcasts. It was being able to get This American Life and The Writer’s Almanac right there in my hands, whenever I wanted it. That did it for me.

My own listening habits have grown over the past few years and they’re fairly varied. The number of podcasts in my playlist tends to fluctuate between ten and thirty different shows (in fact, I just added a dozen or so new ones today). With all of that rotation, there’s really only a handful of ‘casts that I listen to on a fairly consistent, faithful basis.


RadioLab
This is at the top of the list, hands down. It’s a hard show to describe to people, but it’s somewhat accurate to say it’s a superb melding of the sensibilities of This American Life with content from that Science class you never went to in college. Outstanding stuff. The hosts/producers Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich have a lot of fun with the material and it’s hard not to get caught up in it all. I’ve been listening to this one for over a year and every time there’s a new episode, my little geeky heart just leaps for joy. And, unlike other shows, this one has a considerable shelf life; the reruns are just as good the second and third time around.

Favorite Episode: There are so many good episodes available through the WNYC website and iTunes, but a good place to start would be with either their episodes on the War of the Worlds, Space Capsules, or Emergence — but, really, they’re all great fun.

RadioLab website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me
This show drives me to work every Monday morning. The classic panel show format is a lot of fun and host Peter Sagal has a quick, clever mind. His rotating panel of guests always seems to be having way too much fun taking apart the newsmakers of the week. My personal favorite is Paul Provenza but they’re all lots of fun chasing after jokes together.

Favorite Episode: When Kevin Clash and his slightly better known alter-ego Elmo came on the show. Wickedly funny stuff.

WWDTM website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

Welcome to Mars
This is the only terminal podcast in the list. For twelve episodes back in 2006, writer Ken Hollings unpacked the period of time running from 1947 through 1959. It’s a fascinating tour of the emergence of UFO culture, conspiracy theory, B-movies, and the psychedelic generation. Great, great stuff and lots of fun listening to Hollings make subtle little connections underlying seemingly unrelated facets of what he calls the “American Half-Century”.

( Full disclosure: I have to admit that I found the Theremin-infused sci-fi score a little wonky and intrusive, especially in the earlier episodes. But it calms down for the rest of the series.)

Ken Hollings’ website | Download the show from iTunes

The Moth
I only recently ran across the storytelling collective called The Moth but it’s rapidly become a favorite. The premise is pretty simple: Each week they publish a new episode in which someone tells a true story (without notes) in front of a live audience. The stories run the gamut of emotion, from the hilarious to the heartbreaking. And there’s nary a sour note in the bunch.

The Moth has been a storytelling institution for over a decade, and I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t heard of it before. But, thanks to the podcast, I’m hooked.

The Moth website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

The Sound of Young America
If I had a talk show, I’d interview all my heroes — writers and comics artists and comedians and musicians and magicians and directors — no matter how obscure. And, during every interview, I’d be a quivering mass of fanboy joy.

Jesse Thorn (aka “America’s Radio Sweetheart”) is already doing that show. It’s excellent and I hate him for it. I would have given anything to do something so cool back in my twenties. I just sent in my monthly support donation too, just to show how much I despise him and his excellent, cool show. That’ll show him. Punk.

Favorite Episode: There’s so many to choose from. His interview with Chip Kidd is great, as is the conversation he had with Mark Evanier about comics legend Jack Kirby. And the John Hodgman vs. Jonathan Coulton episode is a lot of fun. He even got to interview Neil Gaiman and Harry Selick when Coraline was released, the bastard.

The SOYA website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

Studio 360
Kurt Anderson’s got a great show on Public Radio and I was a very happy man when they made it available as a weekly podcast. As a free-form exploration of the Arts and Culture, you can’t do much better than this. He brings in great guests to chat — musicians and writers and artists from across the spectrum — but the backup segments are always interesting and compelling. This is a show that invariably sends me to the Web so I can look up some book or album they mentioned and add it to my wishlist.

Favorite Episode: They spent an hour on The Great Gatsby last year and when it was all over, I ended up wanting another hour’s worth. That’s good radio.

The Studio 320 website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

I Should be Writing
The title says it all, really. I ran across Mur Lafferty on Twitter one day last year. Her longstanding podcast is a staple for aspiring writers. She does great interviews and isn’t afraid to spend time discussing her own career ups and downs as well. She’s the purple-haired Queen of Podcasting, a real capital-w Writer, and a true trailblazer for writers exploring audiobooks as a channel to publishing.

Favorite Episode: Mur recently sat down with Scott Sigler, checking in with one of the top podcasting (and now published) authors. Eavesdropping on two pros discuss the nuts and bolts of it all? Good stuff.

The Murverse website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

Cthulhu
One of the best things about this show is the format. The host — known only as FNH — usually starts things off with a historical exploration from the 20′s and 30′s, before treating everyone to a piece of music or popular song from the period. Each episode ends with the main feature, typically a story from Lovecraft or a related author. Best of all, the podcast is open to submissions — listeners are encouraged to send in stories of their own, or their own productions of a Lovecraft classic.

FNH has done an amazing job bringing all of this together and making it work. I can’t say I always appreciate every story I hear. Sometimes the original works aren’t quite my cup of tea or the varied production values from the in-the-field submissions leave something to be desired, but the historical and musical segments are worth the trip all on their own.

Favorite Episode: I’m a bit biased on this one, as FNH was kind enough to feature my story “Summer Salt” last year. But you gotta love a guy who’s willing to take on Lovecraft’s “The Dream Quest of the Unknown Kadath” and serialize it over 13 episodes.

The Cthulhu website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

This American Life
This is the gold standard. Ira Glass and his team put out great stories consistently, week in and week out. Even though it’s completely free (as are all of the ‘casts I’ve mentioned here), I was happy to make a donation last year to help keep the podcast version going. And I’ll do the same again, whenever they ask.

Favorite Episode: So many great ones over the years, but I’ve got a few that I listen to over and over again. “The House at Loon Lake” is probably at the top of the list.

This American Life online | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

The Writer’s Almanac
I used to work on a shipping/receiving dock. My day consisted of opening cardboard boxes. My coworkers were, with a few exceptions, a completely different form of life than anything I’d experienced before. They spent their nights out drinking, smoking, doing all sorts of recreational pharmaceuticals and (to hear them tell it) going home with whatever female was willing enough (or inebriated enough) to let them into their bed. They staggered into work and spent the day doing as little as possible while recounting their escapades, before heading out to do it all over again.

Most of ‘em were scary, mean-tempered bastards. They had 20+ years of anger and bitterness on me and I spent my days doing my best not to draw too much attention to myself.

In contrast, I spent my nights sitting alone at home with nothing but writing to fill my time. It was probably the most productive time of my creative life, but I wouldn’t go back there for anything. It was a lonely, sad time.

I write, partially, in the hope that one day people will read my work. But back then that seemed like a very distant, unlikely dream. For all I knew, I was going to be opening cardboard boxes for the rest of my life.

But for six or seven minutes each morning, I could let all of that fear and loneliness and shame fall away. The gentle ease of the piano at the opening, so familiar and comforting, is the perfect lead-in to Garrison Keillor’s voice as he delivered the literary news and events of the day before reciting the daily poem. And then his closing “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch…” was the benediction that I held onto for the rest of the day, until I was free to write again.

Better times now, a better place. But the Writer’s Almanac is still a daily ritual in my life and I’m just as grateful for it as I was the first time I heard it.

Writer’s Alamanac website | Subscribe to the show at iTunes

So, those are some of my favorites — at least, these days. I don’t know that I’ll subject Ken to all of these (see, I wasn’t just babbling there at the beginning) but I’m sure that if he takes the time to explore a little bit further, he’s bound to find something there to catch his interest.

Enough of that, then. It’s time to get back to work. I’m behind on my deadline for The Spring Chap, one of the stories in particular just isn’t behaving well at all. It needs a severe spanking. But it’s going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt… oh, you get the idea.

Speaking of which, this film is either brilliant or disturbing. Or both.

Either way, I want one of those zombie puppets.

Which gives me a nice reason to mention that the latest episode of the Cthulhu podcast features a recording of my short story “Summer Salt” — which makes me quite happy. New episodes of the Cthulhu ‘cast are one of the things I check for whenever I fire up iTunes, so I was doubly pleased when FNH told me he’d accepted the story.

If you’d prefer to use your eyes instead of your ears, you can read the story here.

But you might soon be outnumbered as there are new subscribers still signing up for the “Assam & Darjeeling” and “Matters of Mortology” podcasts. You could still be one of them, just click on the download links here and here.

I received a very nice note last week from a listener in Singapore who has been loving “Assam & Darjeeling” — which gave me a silly smile to wear for a few days.

And while we’re on the subject of smiles, although The Dark Knight had it’s problems I have to say that I agree with most of the hype about Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker. My only quibble is that it overshadows Aaron Eckhart’s work as Two-Face, which was also excellent. And we got a trailer for the Watchmen movie, which I have no doubt will begin to generate more and more hype until it comes out next year.

And, yes, the “other” hype is true too: The new iPhone is outstanding. I’m still saying thank you to the powers that be for giving me one. Doublestuff kickass, to say the least.

(Oops. I forgot to mention that once the two current podcasts finish up, I’ll be starting a brand new one. This next one will be a bit broader, more of an anthology, and much more collaborative with the audience. Details shall follow later this week.)

On the publishing side, I’m currently regrouping after most of my efforts on the BEA trip this year have yet to produce anything fruitful. There’s still a few open leads that I’m waiting to hear back from but this weekend will mark a change in my efforts to connect with an agent, thanks to some good ideas and resources that proved worthwhile for an author friend of mine. As always, stay tuned.

The new project proceeds apace. The writing is going well. It’s going to be a long book.

For what it’s worth, the new book is called Pantheon.