I think Anne's book organization stuff is golden. Mine is much like hers, except for the idea about turning pretty covers face-out, which I have to do now. I have a couch placed in front of the Wall of Books, so the ones I don't access often are on the bottom 2 tiers, because I have to move the couch to get at them. Obviously I could probably get rid of all those books, but you never know what you might need someday. The Human Anatomy book is useful sometimes, but the Introduction to Physics book: no.

Do you say "Mis-UR-ee" or "Mis-UR-uh"?

The former, as I spent my formative years in St. Louis.

More common than those, even, is the mangling of "-shire" at the end of a place name.

Is it supposed to be pronounced "-shr," almost as if there's no vowel? That's how I've always pronouced it.

What's really fun is listening to the way natives pronounce "Baltimore, Maryland."

I say MissourE, unless I'm at a family reunion or likewise, and then I revert back to childhood MissourAH.

Someone a while back asked it there was a term for when the Amry slapped two word together, like "humint" and there is. It's called "blending."

Hey, I learned something this semester! Whoda thunk it?

Someone a while back asked it there was a term for when the Amry slapped two word together, like "humint" and there is. It's called "blending."

like "sitrep" (situation report)

I get violent when people say "Mis-UR-uh" and, particularly, "Cin-cin-AT-uh."

There's an "I" on the end, people! Not an "A"!

So what's your feeling about the S at the end of Illinois? (I say "Mis-UR-uh." I lived in St. Joe in the fifth grade, and I assume that's where I picked it up.)

You can spot a non-Georgians by the pronounciation of Albany. The town in Georgia is pronounced "ALL Benny." There's also the pronounciation of Taliaferro County (Tolliver). Native Atlantans kind of slide over the second T in Atlanta.

Native Atlantans kind of slide over the second T in Atlanta.

And Midwesterners transplanted to the south slide over both.

Mark of a true Wisconsinite -- can pronounce "Mukwanago" without pausing.

The water version is "Slew" most certainly. Slew, in fact, is an alternate spelling, and is the "Slew" in question in the name "Seattle Slew".

Yet, in literature, it is the watery "Sl-ow [like ow!] of Despair" (Pilgrim's Progress)

I offen say ofTen. Nope, on thinking, just ofTen.

Edinburgh, Deb. I'm weeping at a true believer "borough"-ing us.

t winks

Big ass Guy Kay post coming up in a minute. I should probably hack it in bits to avoid dingoes.

I had the good fortune to be at Guy Kay's Harbourfront reading last night. There have to be benefits of living in a place like Toronto and one of the best for me has been that one of my favourite authors lives here. I've been lucky to hear Guy speak and read over the years, often at Ad Astra, but memorably also in the Byzantine section of the Royal Ontario Museum for Lord of Emperors.

Last night was a good night, like that evening at the ROM. I headed down early and bumped into some friends, headed that way. Like-minded folk, and it is always added enjoyment to share fun unexpectedly. I got to make a friend there from a mutual acquaintance and that's something else to thank Guy for. I saw Martin Springett on the way in and said hello. He plans to play at Ad Astra (in two weeks) so I'll see him again there. The Bakka-Phoenix folks had a table with copies of Martin's new CD, Bright Weavings (a shout-out? Couldn't be). I got one and will give it a listen this week.

We got seats near the front. It was a good-sized room, the Brigantine. I don't know what the number at stake was in the bet between Debby dG and Guy, but the seats were as close to full as I could tell and there must have been around a hundred people (roughly, I didn't count). I'm guessing Debby wins again.The lights dimmed. The candles on each table was a very nice touch by the Harbourfront people. After an introduction, Guy and Mark Askwith took the stage in a very Masterpiece theatre-like setting. Mark has been a major contributor to the Toronto and Canadian SF scene with his work on Prisoners of Gravity and Space: The Imagination Station and could be counted on to have done his homework. Mark got Guy talking about some of his key themes and inspirations. GGK talked about his view on "identity theft", privacy incursions of authors writing about real people and how writing about characters and places that are inspired by historical events frees him delve into the details of his fictional characters' lives and relationships, rather than being pinned to what we don't know about historical figures. Mark asked his long-awaited "how cool was it?" question about Guy's work on the Silmarillion and Guy said that the greatest asset he took away from that experience was the demystifying nature of the work. He said that the awe seeps away after working, elbows-deep, with the many drafts and rewrites, and that experience freed him from any intimidation of working in the professor's field when other eminent fantasists (like Charles deLint and Jane Yolen, for example) of GGK's generation went in other directions and stepped away from high fantasy to avoid being in the shadow of Tolkien, or just as much, caught up with the imitators who followed. I thought that was a very illuminating comment.

Mark then said that he had always been confused that Guy had followed the Silmarillion work, not by launching into his writing career, but rather, law school. Guy said that it had been a pragmatic choice while waiting for his thinking about what he was going to write to coalesce in his mind. He said that if you launch a career as a Canadian writer of fantasy fiction while planning to raise and feed a family, without a backup plan, then you aren't ... from Winnepeg. Mark commented that it was an odd experience attending at the old Queen street location of Bakka for a Fionavar signing and finding the place full of lawyers. Not the usual crowd there, for certain (in spite of the old Street Legal location next door).

(continued in Nilly/Firefly-like fashion)

After some good questions from the audience (I didn't take any notes, this is from memory, and I would love to see a transcript), Guy prepared to read the young people in the meadow sequence. He prefaced his remarks with the now-familiar threat (he would say "invitation") that any reference to his reading glasses (he used a phrase like insidious instruments of incipient senescence, but his was better) making him look distinguished would lead to a misspelling of one's name at the signing.

Guy described himself as slow to come to realization a couple of times during the Q&A and during this reading, I finally realized (after reading him since the Summer Tree first came out) that as a writer, he is an unabashed purveyor of delayed gratification. This might also explain his proclivity to engage in blood sports like teasing with people like Mark and Debby, often to his peril. Guy loves to craft scenes that build like this: innocuous setting, nature and peace. A threat slowly intrudes and grows. A confrontation, which then pauses. Time passes very slowly as the reader is drawn deeper and deeper into the scene with detailed description of the surroundings and/or key instrument. Sweat drips. Suddenly the tension is resolved, but obliquely. (What, what? says the reader) Detailed gentle description follows (birds chirp) as the reader agonizes over the resolution while lingering over the sensuous details. Pushed and pulled at the same time. The young people in the meadow scene is emblematic of the sort of scene that Guy writes so well and a technique he uses so effectively. I love his execution but it has taken me 20 years of reading to come to the slow realization that Guy just loves to tease. In life, and as a writer.

It seemed like half the room lined up to get a book signed and we were duly handed sticky notes to have the spellings of our names handy, and I discovered I was a thorn amongst roses, between the Two Tanyas, waiting in line. Guy signed for the ladies, and some wag pointed out that everyone else's book would be signed to "Not-Tanya". I paid my respects, noted I had been enjoying following his exploits at Bright Weavings, and Guy said that the weblog was ending, for which he was in a sense grateful because he was concerned that it risked becoming writerly, or that the experiences would bleed one into the other, the consciousness of the audience.

So it was a very enjoyable evening. I'm glad to hear the book is doing very well. Gone to reprint in both the US and Canada two weeks after publication.

I think the most amusing college freshman regional dialect experience I had was with my neighbor from central California, where apparently there is no difference between the soft "e" and the soft "i." People in the dorm spent hours trying to convince the poor girl that "ten" and "tin" or "pen" and "pin" should be pronounced differently. She couldn't even *hear* the difference, let alone reproduce it.

I'm like this, and I think Betsy has copped to it as well. Caught me quite a lot of teasing since I attended Kenyon College.