Hec, what's this book about?

About 30,000 words?

(Sorry. That is the oldest joke....)

Tommyrot, the friend who I thought would be highly appreciative of the girdle website you linked to the other day? Is VERY highly appreciative.

Oh, goody!

I'm a nosey mother, but glad I am at the same time. I saw something sparkly on the table and wondering what it was I picked it up and read it. My daughter's roller derby team gave her an MVP award for the first bout of the season. They played the team that they lost to in the play-offs last season and beat them by about 10 points. And Alexia got MVP! And here the girl was afraid that they didn't think she was good enough because she didn't get as much skate time as the new girls during practice. I am so proud of her.

Alexia plays ROLLER DERBY!?!? She's my new best friend. I want to play SO BADLY.

Yayness for all the happy things going on in Bitchland.

I just spent $90 on black Rockport shoes which are not pretty. They are, however, quite functional, and they came with enough good service to actually get a proper fit. Had to plunk down another $30 on orthotic inserts to get truly excellent arch support, but those will work in other shoes as well. Having worn them around inside the crappy, almost dead, Nikes I bought a few months ago, I can say that the inserts are worth the money.

Shoe store lady says it is imparative that I have two pairs of usable shoes for work so as to alternate wearing them, and so MUST come back in a month or two after I have finished killing the Nikes for a second pair of decent shoes.

ETA: No, I am not letting you see a photo of the new shoes. They are ugly.

A pirate walks into a bar with the ship's steering wheel stuck to the crotch of his pants. The bartender say, "That must be annoying." The priate says, "ARRRGH! It's drivin' me nuts!"

t runs away

Hec, what's this book about?

It's part of Continuum Press 33 1/3 series. Inspired by the British Film Institute series of monographs on individual films, this will be me writing about Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones.

They've allowed tremendous latitude in the series for how the writer can approach the subject. Joe Pernice wrote a novella centered around The Smiths' Meat is Murder. Colin Meloy wrote a memoir about The Replacements' Let It Be.

Mine will not be a novella, nor a memoir, but it won't be a straight history of the recording either. I will cover the recording and bits of bio, but I really want to use view the record through sidelong looks at some other artists who intrigue me from Joseph Cornell to Edgar Ulmer (the German emigre director who specialized in very cheap, very potent B-movies like Detour and Black Cat) and George Herriman (Krazy Kat) - among others. It's about getting into the particular landscape that Waits creates with language and sonic textures.

There will be crows and mules.

Wow, it truly is a good day to be a Buffista writer.

Congrats, Hec!

Any details yet, Allyson? We're all dyin' here!

She's gonna get a billion trillion dollars!