A theater friend of mine in MA has asked me to announce to the Somervillains and any other interested persons (he doesn't know y'all personally, but knows of most of you through me) that he's in the Wellsley Summer Theatre production of Wilde's An Ideal Husband, opening tonight and running through June 24th. Apparently it's a rather spiff production of which he's quite proud, and he has unlimited free tickets to any performance this week. If anyone's interested, ping me and I'll ping him and there you go.

Full info on the theatre and the current season can be found here.

For those of you (both of you?) who subscribe to the podcast of my radio show, MIT made some changes to their server recently that may have caused you to have trouble downloading. If this is the case, you'll need to resubscribe with the following xml link: [link]

I'm having a party the afternoon of June 10 in honor of FAQWife's hat trick:

• PhD!
1. Green Card!
2. Married (to me!) for one year!

If you didn't get the evite, it's not that I don't like you (probably). Just drop me an email and I'll send you the deets.

Ok, Buffistas! Dust off those sewing machines! Pull out those needles, thread, and that leftover pink fabric that I just KNOW you have lying around. We need your help!

My local quilt shop is participating in Quilt Pink!, and I know you wanna help.

Tonight at my monthly quilt binge party (officially known as the Monthly Magic Mystery Tour), my quilt shop owner told us about Quilt Pink. Our shop is one of many that is participating in this fabulous fundraiser. But, since this is mostly just known in the quilting community, I thought others might want to have the opportunity to contribute. You can help in a couple of different ways:

1. Make a pink or pink and white quilt block—either 9 ½ inch square or 12 ½ inch square (it totally doesn’t need to be anything elaborate). Send it to me, and I’ll make sure it gets included on Quilt Pink Day (September 30, 2006) at my quilt shop. We’ll be sewing together quilt tops that day (and probably for a few days after that too). Or, if you’d like to be more involved, you can do a search on the website and find a quilt store near you that is participating. I’m sure they’d love to have you help on Quilt Pink Day.

2. Start saving your pennies. Once the quilt tops are put together, they’ll be sent off to machine quilters who have donated their time and talents to put these together. After they’ve been machine quilted, they’ll come back to the shop, and quilters like me will bind them and get them ready for auction. Then, next spring, all of the quilts will be sent off to the Quilt Pink organization and listed for auction on ebay. I’ll be posting links to the auctions of quilts that we (me, my mom, and other Buffistas) worked on, so you’ll have a chance to bid on one of these quilts. Net proceeds will benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

My grandma died of breast cancer when I was 10. Mom just had a really bad scare, which thankfully turned out to be nothing. But, this is something that has really hit home, and I know it does for a lot of you as well. This is a fun way you can help. I just thought you’d like to know.

E-mail me at my profile addy or ask in Bitches if you want more information.

Thanks!

We are requesting pitches for articles to appear in The High Hat #7 (www.thehighhat.com). We hope to have articles on all the usual subjects (music, comix, literature, politics...) but this issue will feature a special section celebrating the career of director Robert Altman. We welcome pitches on all aspects of his career, from individual movies to career retrospectives. Pieces questioning his reputation as one of the great American filmmakers are also very much welcome.

As always, we will consider all manuscripts, but we would like to encourage greater concision with this issue. Extremely lengthy pieces will be accepted only if they are of astonishing quality.

We'd like to thank Dana Knowles and Tom Block, who originated the idea of a section devoted to Altman, and we'd also like to welcome Paul Hernandez to the editorial board this issue

Email for pitches: highhatsubmissions at gmail dot com. The editorial board is still debating the deadline, but we'll post that sometime reasonably soon (please note: this editorial board defines "reasonably soon" in terms usually reserved for geological events).

After nine long months, You'll All Pay #41

"Roll 'bama!"

[link]

The latest issue of the magazine I work on is at [link] Yes, I did write an interview in it, but I'm equally proud of spotting Jill Khoury's poetic talent in the slush I read and I think the editorial on "disability culture" is also well-written. If anyone here could donate and make me look like a fundraising hero, I'd appreciate it, too.

Wanna help welcome Shrift to Chicago? We will be gathering at Sizzle on Broadway [link] [link] this Saturday at 7pm. A few more details can be found here. If you haven't been in the loop but you'd like to attend let me know (profile addy) so I can get the reservation number correct.

Ecoutez, Boston and environistas!

I'm going to break with tradition this year by premiering the latest book in the Haunted Ballads series on the east coast, instead of the west coast.

Cruel Sister is scheduled to kick off with a reading, signing, and very probably a costume party, at Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, Friday, 27 October 2006, time to be officially determined but probably 7:30 PM.

Discuss? F2F thread? Email? Something?

So, because I SO needed to have another non-paying thankless hobby, I requested a column/blog for the Girl Wonder project.

My introductory entry is now up: [link]