Muse-o-rama

Okay, I'll be the very first to admit that I've been utterly absent. It hasn't been my fault, okay? We can all blame a little Armenian man named Yousuf Karsh for that. He has taken over my life wholesale (not discount, not high-end -- WHOLESALE) and reduced my LJ-ing-ness to mere yammerings (when applicable) and (mostly) silences.

But I want to thank all of you guys for the birthday greetings! You guys are the best, sweetest and loveliest (yes, I fancy myself a writer, and so these sorts of puerile superlatives are the best I can come up with) bunch of wingnuts I'd care to associate myself with.

Now, because of the wee photographer, I am now going to Minneapolis in the morning where I will converse with loads and loads of art educators about various things including, probably, mid-century photography.

More later perhaps!

Cheers, thanks, all that,
Liz

Well, I guess I'm flattered.

I had a Supernatural dream! And it SUCKED.

I dreamed I was waiting to watch the season 5 premiere (that's good news, right?), and I was really, really excited, and it was one of those dreams where you're watching it, and then you're in it, and then you're watching it again, right?

The show completely jumped the shark: the boys were running a baby daycare, but it deked you out in the first few minutes, had you thinking that the babies (and the yummy mummies) were theirs, and then the camera panned out and you realized it was...a daycare! The small town in which they lived was all a-buzz with a rumour of a 'Winchester cousin' had just breezed into town, who turned out to be identical twin girls who were (in my opinion) just plain weird-looking. And then I brought the cousins a pastrami sandwich (it was open faced and totally lame, only about two puny slices on stale rye) while saying loudly, "Allow me to advance the plot," and they all went on an adventure (I dropped out then) and there were unicorns involved, and a golf cart, but everyone acted like they couldn't see the unicorns, including the leads. The unicorns didn't add to the plot, like, AT ALL.

Colour me perplexed.

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Hey! Remember me? Maybe not. But someone sure has...the amazing and long-suffering Issaro, aka fanfic_read_by, has taken it upon herself to record in podcast form my secret Favourite Fanfic...Old Rebel Yeller. It has the boys, of course, and a possessed golden lab and involves dressing up as Civil War Reenactors. What's not to love, I say? If you have a long drive coming up or are, like me, presently walking an hour to work each way (oh, Ottawa Transit strike now in it's 44th day, how I love thee!), this could be for you. And she has a bunch of good SPN podfics squirrelled away on her site -- go explore. Here's the linky link to mine.

In other news, I'm currently beavering away on some original fic (it involves ghosts and paramedics and French-speaking fiddlers), as well as getting my ass handed to me by always-interesting work, which is why you haven't seen me around.

I am still watching the Show, of course. And that's what generally fills MY hour-long walk to work.

Kisses, Big Pink

p.s. I also feel terrible, but I may have forgotten to mention that ages ago, grrli made a podcast of Red. You can find it here. Thanks to parisindy for pointing that out to me!
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Since posting the PDFs of my fanfic collected works a couple of days ago, I've been fielding questions about Best Practice for printing options. I think that my gorgeous collaborator on the Single White, Double Yellow project, morgandawn , has said it best here.

Go forth and multiply! Or, whatever.

Since Mr. Pink and the Nippers have gone to BC a week before me, leaving my sorry ass in the desolate winter wasteland known as Our Nation's Capital, I have completed the following:

• bought a 6 ft aluminum ladder to change a light bulb
• written three chapters of the new original fic (what can I say?  It's bright, it's shiny)
• watched incessant repeats of SYTYCD-C, because, yes, Nico Archambault does own my soul
• missed three days of work because of stupid snow and a transit strike (combined with present insane Canadian politics, it's really a sign of the impending Apocalypse)
• watched Dr. Phil because I am that lonesome without the Pinks
• seared some scallops and served them up with a lovely chardonnay only to eat in front of my new BFF, the TV.

But, most of all...I HAVE A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR YOU ALL (if, of course, you want it)

Thanks to the amazing skills of morgandawn and smilla02 , I can now point you in the direction of my web site where you can download volumes 1-3 of Single White, Double Yellow: The Red Series.  That's a shitload of re-edited, reformatted fics, with scans of handwritten notes and maps, photos, a brand spanking-new foreword, and an amazing set of covers that smilla02 made for me because she is truly amazing.  Morgan did a fantastic job of not only putting up with my constant barrage of 'change this, no wait, I liked it better the way it was before!', but she made the whole project look easy.  Originally, we bound the volumes and offered them via Sweet Charity, but now you can enjoy the fruits of all our labours.  Ho-ho-ho.  Note: the PDFs are formatted for easy-printing on standard letter (8.5 x 11).


*does spazzy dance of sheer unmitigated joy*

Hi everyone! Now I'm in Toronto! Isn't it amazing how I get around?

Since I'm so footloose (not in the Kevin Bacon way), I thought it best (for philanthropic reasons) to remind Folks That Give a Crap that the closing date for the Sweet Charity auction is tomorrow! That's right! Tomorrow!

I'm auctioning off two bound copies (each a double volume set with hundreds and hundreds of pages) of Single White, Double Yellow: The Red Series. This set contains all the stories I consider to be in the Red 'verse: Red, Dazzleland, DNR, Fire in the Hole, Verbal and The New Deal. All have been re-edited solely for this edition. The set also contains EXTRAS: an essay about how Red came about and what I Think It Means (god, could I sound more pretentious?), a missing scene (from The New Deal), personal notes for Red, Fire in the Hole and Dazzleland taken from my notebooks (no one's seen these before, trust me), a diagram from Dazzleland, location photos for Dazzleland, Red and The New Deal, as well as mondo new colour covers by our miss smilla02.

Sweet

Yeah, you want this. I retain all rights, of course, and I may reprint at some point if I get around to it, but right now? This is the big kahuna.

Yep. That's right. I've put together all the fics in the Red 'verse, had them edited, bound, designed, added to with miscellaneous goodies (like one missing scene, notes, photos, etc.). It's a two-volume set! smilla02 has designed new covers! It's called "Single White, Double Yellow" and it's yours...if you bid on it.

All proceeds go to Sweet Charity...good cause and all that. Am-scray! Doitdoitdoit!

I'm in Halifax for work right now, so email responses may be sluggish! Carry on!

Go on, last part, wrap things up…

( Part 4/Things that Go Boom )
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What on earth are you waiting for?

( Part 3/Bump in the Night )

See? Next part, as promised!

( Part 2/The Old Switcheroo )
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OMG, yes, it's new fic. And it's complete. You won't have to wait around, except as I fiddle with the links, I suppose.

Summary: Sam and Dean get reacquainted over art films and sex and a cursed film theater.

What it is: A complete Season One fic in 4 parts, drama, humor, slightly cracky. I think I can still call this gen. Probably. Rated…PG-13? Maybe more? R seems excessive and yet?

Warning number one: This contains some naughty bits. I’m giving you fair warning, I hesitate to even describe what the hell this is –there’s tons of swearing and goofy boy banter and bonding. And probably bondage. And sex (eventually) with things that aren’t even, like human. It’s TENTACLE fic, God help me! A Sweet Charity contribution for extraonions, who has waited altogether too damn long for this. No need to feel squeamish about tentacleporn, girl! It’s great prompt. (Erhm, that said, you’ll likely find this suggestive rather than raunchy)

Warning number two: Hey, the first one wasn’t enough? This warning is about spoilers for movies that you may not have already seen. Those movies are: Le Retour de Martin Guerre, Spirited Away, Paprika/The Host, and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Some of these are my favorite movies EVER, so I really suggest that you see them.

Thanks to lemmypie for listening to me jabber on and on and on about movies, and to sasquashme for the cogent and gentle edits. Together, they make me make sense. Thanks once again to extraonions for her patience and her imagination.


( Part One/Melodrama )

Yeah.  So anyone been watching HBO's Generation Kill?  Why the fuck not?  Now, some of you know my excitement about The Wire, the best television series of all time (say that without a bit of irony, will you?).  Folks from The Wire (Ed Burns, Executive Producer, David Simon, both writers) are involved in the new seven-part series -- it's great.  Hard, as was The Wire, profane, disturbing, never taking the predictable or easy road (not unlike the so-called protagonists).  It's a million shades of grey.

It's about a Marine recon unit in the first wave assault on Iraq in 2003, as seen (mostly) from the eyes of a Rolling Stone reporter embedded in the unit as it moves into territory that is terrifying and boring and badly-managed.  The Marines are racist sexist assholes and you STILL (mostly) root for them.  For a leftie like me, it's profoundly disquieting.  Luckily, I quite like being off-balance.  Based on a book written by the Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright (who is a writer on the series and played by Wire and Oz regular Lee Tergesen...ETA: I messed up Homicide and The Wire...Tergesen was in the former, not the latter), the guys swear and shit and shoot their way towards Baghdad, killing the 'wrong' people, killing the 'right 'people, and engaging 'the enemy' with candy bars and admonishing them to 'vote Republican'. 

Oh, and all music is supplied by the actors, who sing country, rock, hip hop, '60s protest songs -- all badly!

Funny AND dark, my favourite combination.

What?  That's not enough?  Okay, you force me to bring out....

It was like having a limb cut off. But the laptop's back and I have some catching up to do.

Want to help me?

Give me your best spn spoiler (true or entirely fabricated, I so don't care), but instead of 'Sam' or 'Dean', insert 'Zac' and 'Vanessa'. Or any other Stupid Celebrity Couple that you like. That way I can pretend that I'm not spoiled.

Thanks.

ETA: Obviously, spoilers in comments...unless, of course, the spoilers are really about Zac and Vanessa. In which case, spoilers for some other reality.

Another fabulous day in Québec.

Last night, saw The Weakerthans at la Place Francophonie, and you know? I knew most of the words, but the crowd was there for Pascale Picard (which is fine and expected), yet somehow everyone can still sing along to the chorus of One Great City! and who can't when the words are 'I hate Winnipeg!'

Tonight was Stars (from Montréal) and Feist, so the crowd was bigger and more enthusiastic. How can you not buy into a band whose big hit starts with "When there is nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire?"

I wake up thinking that some days.

On the down side, I waited with Chas for 45 fucking minutes (and they were upgraded from merely 'minutes' to 'fucking minutes' at around the 34th minute) for a crème glacé molle because he wasn't waiting in the shorter line up for the vanilla...IT HAD TO BE CHOCOLATE. I felt like suggesting that he set himself on fire, but that wouldn't have been very maternal of me.

Sigh.

Being a mother sucks some days.

Tomorrow, we leave for Métis-sur-Mer, and I'm hitting every damn fromagerie I see.

p.s. internet access may be spotty.

I can hear Van Halen from my hotel window. If God was ever gonna cut someone down, it would be Diamond Dave on the Plains of Abraham, tonight.

Just nipping in quickly this Canada Day (yippee! Free poutine for everyone!) to recommend smilla02's lovely and haunting and hurting (and long, written for spn_j2_bigbang) piece, Ten in One. First off the bat, I have to confess that I got the chance to read and comment on it a couple of times while in process, but I honestly didn't add much, so I don't feel a twinge of guilt in reccing it. It's an AU season 4 fic, the first one I found totally believable, both in terms of how Dean coming back from Hell could happen and the very real consequences of that.


Here's how Smilla describes it:

Title: Ten in One
Genre: Gen. Drama. Angst. Case file.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Word Count: 36,000
Rating: R for language, violence, and adult situations.
Spoilers: up to and for 3.16.
Summary: A hiker's body is found mauled in the Oregon woods. While investigating, Sam and Dean stumble onto an itinerant sideshow, whose members are the primary target of the same creature killing across the American west. The case alone would be difficult enough, even if Sam and Dean didn't have to deal with the strained consequences of a trip to Hell and back.


So, if you're looking to curl up with a long, plotty read, perfect for summer, here's your chance.

Hi everyone! For reasons that quite escape me, I find myself answering to "Hey You!" over at spnroundtable's Ask the Author this go 'round.

It's going to get really, really embarrassing if no one asks me anything. So ask me. Anything. Over there.

Okay, my summer addiction is So You Think You Can Dance. It makes me happy and occasionally you see something pretty extraordinary.

Like this: Snuggle Bear Happy Dance

I'm left wondering how to integrate this into Season 3's Bear Hunt. The mind boggles.

ETA: I think it will involve sasquashme in a giant Snuggle Bear costume and an inopportune visit to a Starbucks. And maybe the Timberland trailer park.

Chapter Eight/Last Train to Glory

I ain’t a man of constant sorrow: Nebraska isn’t where Dean wanted to spend his last February on earth, but an angry Depression-era ghost complicates things
I ain’t seen trouble all day long: COMPLETE — Gen, Season 3, early February. Set in the Red ‘verse, this time with direct references to events (spoilers, even!) in Dazzleland and Fire in the Hole, but I think you’ll be able to follow along even if you haven’t read those ones. But maybe you’ll want to read them now! </hucksterism>
We are only passengers on the last train to glory: PG-13 for the cursing.
That will soon be long, long gone: A whole lotta thanks are due, and I’m afraid this is going to be longer than a screenwriter’s Oscar speech. Firstly, many, many thanks to all the folks that wished me a birthday happiness…I’ve been traveling around BC, so I wasn’t as on the ball as I might have been in showing my gratitude (I’m lookin’ at YOU, riverbella). Many people have been AWESOME at helping with the visuals, including meret and the always amazing, amazing smilla02for the awesome covers! Smilla and may7fic and catsbycat supplied me with iconage. sylvia_bond went above and beyond to provide me with site photographs of the locations I was talking about. extraonions? Next up, your Sweet Charity fic! As always, I don’t do this without the betas, sasquashme and lemmypie. They are, quite simply, Kings of the Road — I don’t leave home without them.

Read previous chapters

( Read the Last Damn Chapter! )

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