eat · the · meatball

"I curse and bless Engraving alternately because it takes so much time and is so untractable, though capable of such beauty and perfection."

William Blake

For those of you in New York, the Morgan has a terrific William Blake exhibit.
For those of you not in New York, how about the terrific online exhibit?

From "Sympathy Bouquet" by my friend Justin Howe(justinhowe) available for download at Ruthless Peoples Magazine.

"All I want is the other half of my brain back, the half that's sealed up in this plastic tub. A blank spot in my cognition, like a severed limb, an absent spouse."

From "Starlings" by my friend Michael J. DeLuca(boonofdoom) available to read at Abyss & Apex.

Okay, they're really about more than mud and tubs. 
You'll see.  Go check 'em out for yourself.  They're well worth your time.

I was on the road (playing Elmire in Tartuffe) and so sent the contracts in from out and about. 
Marvelous to return home, for many reasons, among them a lovely note from Shimmer's Editor-in-Chief Beth Wodzinski, accompanying my copy of the signed contracts. 

Also, courtesy of Elizabeth Hand and theinferior4 some fascinating? beautiful? worrisome? shimmering clouds, as reported by Wired.

Great cause, great series, and you get to be part of Team Dragon. 

the_slow_train 

Mr. Lightman read excerpts from his current WIP and also Einstein's Dreams.   Ms. Le Guin read a poem, and excerpts from Lavinia.
The readings were terrific and in the Q&A afterwards, both authors were funny and articulate.

• "First to create difference -- to establish strangeness -- then to let the fiery arc of human emotion leap and close the gap: this acrobatics of the imagination fascinates and satisfies me as almost no other."   Ursula K. Le Guin
• "It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope."  Ursula K. Le Guin
• "Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but is noble to live life and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case."  Alan LIghtman, Einstein's Dream
  

oh, you who are young, consider how quickly the body deranges itself
how time, the cruel banker, forecloses us to snowdrifts white as
     god's own ribs
 

corydon & alexis, redux
by D. A. Powell

And speaking of cruelty and favorite things I've run across recently...in case you missed it, check out

tinaconnolly

Yep, out and about. 
In St. Louis for a production of Miracle Worker, playing Helen Keller's mother, Kate Adams Keller.
Profoundly inspiring story and it's been fascinating to reacquaint myself with the historical facts of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan's life. Absolutely extraordinary individuals. 

To date, what's most caught my imagination is how deeply intimate her relationship to language was.  
Of course, more radically than for most, language was her entry to the world. 

For all you writers out there, two quotes from Helen Keller's first book (she wrote four!), The Story of My Life.  Fascinating read, by the way.
Here, Helen's trying to explain how an early unintentional plagiarism came about,("The Frost King" incident.)  She was only 11 at the time (!), but horrified when she found out.  Unintentional plagiarism aside...
I think what she says here speaks beautifully to the glorious problem of writing:

Oh and holler if you want to meet me in St. Louis. ;) 

Toasted ravioli anyone?

How can you tell him?  On every urgent page, in every book born of human need, however flaccid, puerile, slight, or wrong, there is at least one sentence, one where the author is bigger than the writer, one that sheds the weight of its dead fixations and throws off the lead of its prose, one sentence that remembers the prisoner in his cell, locked away nowhere, victim of the world’s shared failure, begging for something to read.”

Richard Powers, Plowing the Dark

from Josh Marshall's TPM:
Lotta Fun

When you see this, post in your own journal with your favorite quote from The Princess Bride. Preferably not "As you wish" or the Inigo Montoya speech.

***
INIGO
You seem a decent fellow ... I hate to kill you.

THE MAN IN BLACK
You seem a decent fellow ... I hate to die.

Bigfoot: I Not Dead

Check it out, if you want:  Minerva:  daily upsweep

One of my favorite moments included the Q&A afterwards. 
The emcee asked Mr. Crowley something along the lines of, what's the difference between writing historical fiction and writing fantastic fiction?
His answer (forgive the paraphrase, his real answer was cogent & charming & clear): 
The challenge is to have historical fiction convey a sense of the fantastic, and for fantastic fiction to convey a sense of history.