Tales of the Trickster

Voting Reminder

Just reminding NC folks to get out there and vote.  If you don't vote, the Alliance wins, and we can't have that.

Happy May Day 2008!

Happy May Day everyone!  And to all my Wiccan peeps out there, happy Beltane!  I know, I know.  We don't really celebrate May Day in this country, but I think it's a damn shame.  It looks like fun.  Dance ye merry folk around a maypole.  Kinda like the merry folk in the ridonkuolously triptastic The Safety Dance video. 

By some funny coincidence, I was in a crazy 80's mood this morning and heard this song on the way to work, and then I was reminded of the may pole in the video, so now I'm subjecting you to the wtf?-ness of this little gem.  Yeah, I don't know why the lead singer thought he was in a goth band, but by the look on his face, he's apparently looking into the future and thinks he's Trent Reznor.  So sad for him.  I don't know what the blonde's deal is, but damn.  I remember my brothers and I laughing about her even then, and we were just kids.  Is she ditzy, or just insane?  Hard to tell.  And the rest?  Dunno.  All I can say is that there was probably lots of drugs involved in the making of this nugget of cinematic gold.  It was the 80's, after all.  In any case, I hope this puts a smile on your face this fine, flowery, and somewhat retro May Day.  Enjoy!

Fairies on the Brain

Not sure what it is, but I've had fairies on the brain for months.  Yeah, the comic has a lot to do with it, but now that I'm taking a break from the comic to write myself a little entertaining story, I go right back to writing about fairies.  Maybe it's a phase, like when I was in high school and I couldn't stop writing about vampires.  Of course, didn't we all have that phase in high school?  Heh.  In any case, it's a subject that always fascinated me because it's so delightfully deceptive.  Most Americans have this view of cute little Tinkerbell pixies like in Disney (never mind the fact that in the book, even Tinkerbell was kind of a bitch), but I've always loved the old school idea of fairies.  You know.  The fair folk that you really shouldn't fuck around with.  The "others" that don't abide by our rules, but have their own standards of how to live.  I love to dive into the psychology behind them.  Any yahoo who's read an Anne Rice novel can talk about vampires and sex, but fairies are a little more elusive.  They're wild, alien, almost sociopathic in a way. 

In any case, fairies and fairy tales are tons of fun to write.  I've always joked about how if you scratch the surface of some of our favorite children's stories, fairies or no fairies, you get seriously macabre tales.  (Okay, hello?  Willy Wonka?  There's just something not right about that man, I don't care what book or movie you're reading/watching.)  Some of the Grimm stories are just plain wrong.  You know what's even more twisted?  Some of the stories that the Grimm brothers based their stories on.  I'm serious.  Read this article on Snow White from the Endicott website and tell me some of that stuff isn't well and truly fucked up, I dare you.  Dead body in a glass coffin, and the prince falls in love with it?  Ewwwwww.  Bedtime stories as told by Anaïs Nin, maybe.  Put that in your psychology textbook and smoke it. 

Oh, and to bring the discussion around full circle, if you ever want to read an amazing story based on the Snow White tale, I highly recommend Tanith Lee's Red as Blood. You can find it in her anthology Red as Blood, or Tales from he Sisters Grimmer, or like I did, in a cheesy paperback collection of stories that's probably out of print by now called Vamps.  It's been my favorite version of the story since I read it in junior high school (you know, the start of my vampire phase), and it actually does have a vampire in it. Bonus.

Mission: Somewhat Difficult

Okay, okay, so the mission wasn't exactly "impossible," but it was still kind of a pain.  It seems that I'm down to the last chapter in book 3 of The Dresden Files, Grave Peril.  Since I work late tonight, this was probably the only day of the week where I could stop by the local bookstore and get books 4 & 5.  Sadly, I was already running late, so I had to grab a quickie lunch, call the bookstore to put the books on hold for me (after my cell phone died the first time), run to the mall while stuffing my face, dodge idiot mall traffic, grab the next two books in the series, and run out again with enough time to make it to work.  But in the end, I was victorious!  YAY!  Let this be a lesson kiddies.  Addictions of all kinds, even book addictions, can be hazardous to your health.  Dodging mall traffic is no joke, peoples.

In any case, if you haven't read any of the Dresden Files, you should.  They are really fun popcorn books.  I'm a little grumpy after reading them though, because there's a "fairy godmother" in the third book, and I have a fairy godmother in my comic, and now I'm afraid that people will think I ripped it off (even though the two stories and characters are worlds apart, I think.)  Insult to injury, apparently there is a new Dresden comic book.  Doh!  (Double doh, now I have to read that too!)  Oh well,the dangers of being a reader in similar genres, I guess.  As I understand it, Tori Amos refused to listen to Kate Bush for the longest time because everyone kept comparing the two of them and she didn't want to be influenced.  I'm not as strong willed or as talented as Tori, and I'm no Jim Butcher, so I'll just keep reading Dresden until he stops writing the series.  (Or until I get frustrated with him the way I did Laurell Hamilton.  Honestly Laur, we get it.  Anita Blake likes sex.  Can we get back to the plot please?)  In the meantime, you can get a taste of Harry through a couple of short stories that I just now discovered on Jim Butcher's website.  Apparently, he's letting us read them for free.  Wasn't that nice of him?  (Guess what I'll be doing next break I get?) 

As a bonus, please enjoy some art by a cool chick named Jennifer Rodgers, who did a great job at illustrating said fairy godmother (and more) for the Dresden RPG here.

A Restoration of Faith

Vignette

Library Police

AAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA!

Guess what?  There really is such a thing as the Library Police!  Apparently, the Library of Congress has their own.  Check it out, these guys can actually say stuff like "Library Police!  Put down the Hemingway and come out with your hands up!"  Oh god, that's priceless.  I so work at the wrong library.  How cool would it be to make friends with the Library Police?  Man, I could actually scare the crap out of some little kid, and have the fire power to back it up.  Could you make a TV show out of it, I wonder?  Kinda like NCIS, but with books?  What would it be called?  LPIS?  CSI: Library?  "Yes, Agent Grissom, it would appear the victim suffered blunt force trauma to the skull when all five volumes of the Library of Congress Subject Headings were dropped onto his head.  To add insult to injury, he was buried under the pages of the AACR2.  How very gruesome." 

Okay, it's official.  I've been watching too much crime TV.  It'll only get worse now that we switched to Showtime yesterday, and I got my first taste of Dexter.  I can finally see for myself what all the hype is about, since we have Showtime on Demand and I can catch up on the first two seasons.  Oh, what a dark, twisted little show that promises to be.

Damn it!  When did I start watching so much TV?  Curse you DVR and your convenient partner in crime, On Demand!  Curse you and your convenience, you evil seducers, you!  Curse you for being so bloody entertaining!  Curses!  Curses, I say!  *Shakes fist melodramatically.*  I so need to get out more. 

Right after I catch up with Dexter.

Vocabulary: Flagitious

I've probably been watching waaaaay too much murder mystery TV lately.  I love Medium, and between DVR and USA's constant marathons, I'm totally addicted to NCIS.  How have I not known about this show for so long?  It's like CSI, but funnier, faster, brighter, and just more entertaining all around. Abby is my hero.  Anyway, haven't done one of these for awhile, so here's your murder mystery word for the day.

Flagitious (fla·gi·tious) (fluh-jish-uh s) (adjective) - 1. shamefully wicked, as persons, actions, or times. 2. heinous or flagrant, as a crime; infamous. 3. Characterized by extremely brutal or cruel crimes; vicious.

Blogging

Blogging is weird.  It's the strangest thing, if you think about it.  Sometimes you're reading about a person's life that you've never actually met, and yet you feel like you know them in a way because you're reading what is essentially an online diary of their lives.  How odd is that?  Totally intimate, yet anonymous at the same time.  I find myself sometimes interacting more with people I've never seen face-to-face than with people I've known for years.  Hell, between IM, forums, and blogs, I talk more with complete strangers than I do with certain members of my family, and most of them live right here in Charlotte.  I wonder if it's good or bad?  I wonder if that's just a sign of the times?  I wonder if that's just the new form of therapy, to relate your life to people you may never meet just because you may never meet them?  Safety in distance?  Can you call them friends if you've never so much as spoken on the phone?  I've had an email or two really brighten my day, and they've been from people clear across the country from me.  Encouraging words are encouraging words, I guess.  Everyone can use some positivity in their lives.

Am I overthinking this whole blogging mess?  It is very possible.

In any case, I'm not saying I do this of course, but if you ever feel like venting to online friends about sensitive material that you don't want the whole interwebs to hear about, I highly recommend getting a LiveJournal account.  The problem with that is sometimes you forget to post on your real blog because you're too busy laughing over each other's miserable lives.  (It's more theraputic than it sounds, actually.)  Not that I have a LiveJournal account for such nefarious purposes, of course, but hypothetically speaking, if I did, that's what I would use it for.  And if any of my real life friends who sometimes amuse themselves with my blog would like to hear me complain about the more personal stuff in my life, they could, theoretically speaking, get a dummy LJ account for strictly lurking and/or commenting purposes (it's free) and then shoot me an email letting me know their account name so that I could add them as a friend.  But that would only be if I actually had one.  *whistles innocently.*

National Library Week 2008

It's National Library Week peoples!  What is National Library Week?  I'll let the American Library Association tell you, because they've been doing this kind of thing much longer than I have:

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support.

All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate.

More information is available on the National Library Week fact sheet

So go out there and exercise your right to read a book and not have to pay for it.  And hug your librarian today.  Poor, frazzled little thing probably really needs it.

Toby the Cute Puppy

I've got a new little brother!  (But not really.)  It's actually my mom & dad's new puppy, Toby.  Toby is a half-beagle, half-poodle.  I can't remember the cutsie breed name for it since it's one of those crazy "designer dog" breeds, which in the old days they called "mutts."  Anyway, there are new pics of Toby on my Flickr stream thingie, for those who just can't get enough of the cute.

Junot Díaz Wins Pulitzer

Have y'all ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding?  I love that movie.  Replace "Greek" with "Dominican," and that movie can be about my own family.  You know how the dad in the movie is always bragging about the accomplishments of the Greeks and how the Greeks invented everything?  My own dad has a little bit of that, in that any Dominican who does well for himself or herself needs to be made known to everyone who will listen.  So I get a call from my dad today because he's all kinds of happy that a Dominican one the Pulitzer.  I mean, he's downright giddy about it.  For real.  Of course, me being a librarian, and a book nerd, and his daughter, I just absolutely had to know.  Sad to say, as much of a bookworm as I claim to be, I'm not bookwormy enough and I live under a rock.  Until today, I hadn't heard of Junot Díaz, but I'm glad that he won the prize because it's nice for my people to represent, yo.  I also promised my father, who I love dearly and consider one of my best friends, that I'd spread the word. 

Now I have to put this book on my very large stack of books that make up my "inbox" of reading material.  Because I'm a bookworm and because I don't read as fast or as much as I did as a young'un (there are only so many hours in the day, alas), my "inbox" larger than I may ever be able to read in a lifetime.  I'll really try to get to this one, though.  The last book I read by a Dominican author was Before We Were Free, by Julia Alvarez, and I can honestly say that it really changed the way I saw my family, and specifically my parents.  I understand a little better now why they act and say certain things, and why they are so paranoid about government power after living under Trujillo.  Hell, going through all that, I'd probably still be a little paranoid too.  Anyway, if any of you get the chance to read Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao before I do, let me know how it is.  In the meantime, here are some articles about the man and the book.

Junot Díaz wins Pulitzer Prize  - Daily News Latino

Junot Díaz wins Pulitzer for 'Oscar Wao' - MIT News

2008 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music  - New York Times