Well,
yes, it's been a while, more than three weeks actually, but the chaos is drawing
to an uneasy close, like one of those wars that ends in a long
miserable drag-out where everyone is just trying not to be the last
official casualty. The old office is evacuated, with just a few of
the hapless Embassy maids and cooks falling from the helicopter
skids, the new office is getting set up at a rate for which "glacial"
would be a compliment. Opening night for the play I've been in
rehearsal for is tonight, I'm caught up in my paid blogging for
various technical and business websites, I've had some sleep and
showers, and I'm back at work on The Last President,
which is the third Daybreak novel.
So
this entry is just sort of a catch-up, and herewith a few links:
I've
sent out email notices and changed account addresses to everyone I
knew I had to, but those of you who regularly deal with me via
streetmail (especially the couple times a year collectors who prefer
streetmail, and any of you lovely people who mail out checks) might
want to drop me an email if I've overlooked you.
The CiderHouse Rules, in which I am an actor, opens tonight, at the VintageTheatre, 1468 Dayton Street, in Aurora. It's a long play -- there's
a Part I and a Part II -- and this weekend we're just opening Part I;
next week we'll go on the schedule of Part I in the matinee and Part
II in the evening, so Friday and Saturday, today and tomorrow, are
your chances to see Part I at night. First time I've walked onto a
stage (except to build a set, check a light, or throw rehearsal
furniture at actors) in 19 years. Details about the show and ticketshere; I can feel two to four 3000-Word Ramblers impending about it,
but since I don't know how soon they'll swim up from the unconscious,
or really what they'll be about (I usually don't know till halfway
through the first draft) meanwhile, go see the show.
For
those of you who still wonder what a statistical semiotician does and
how it differs from the semiotics or semiology that your English or
art history professor might have talked about, recently one of my
editors at UBM was foolish enough to ask me that same question, and
published my answer. Contains no numbers or graphs.
Over
at Metafilter, cgc373 noticed my I Hate Snark post from
December, and provoked a very interesting discussion of it, of
exactly the type that I can enjoy reading because I'm not the least
bit responsible for maintaining or policing it, and therefore feel
fairly little desire to comment, defend, expand, etc. myself. But if
you've been wanting to say something about it, a bunch of civil and
smart people (some of whom I agree with more than others, obviously)
are talking about it there. Also, in his blog, Joshua Miller posted something so interesting that in a week or a month or whenever I know what I think
about it, I'll probably say something in this blog, so go read his
piece and watch this space.
The
RNC is now history, which means that Raise the Gipper! (still available free by
clicking on the link off to your right) is now alternate history.
Interestingly, sales hit their highest spike just before the
convention, which I think was a case of people preferring an
imaginary world where the Republican nominee was a decaying
brain-destroying corpse to a real world where it's Mitt
Romney, and, on balance, who can blame them?*
I
now plunge back into the mountains of boxes and furniture; there's an
office in here, I'm pretty sure, if I just keep moving things to
where they belong. More much sooner than lately.***
§
*Stray
observation: before the convention I thought of old Mitt as an
amiable doofus pathetically trying to reach above his doofushood, so
that's how I depicted him in Raise the Gipper!. Nowadays, to me, he looks more like a
doofus who is willing to be vicious, but to remain mired in his
doofushood, as long as he gets to stand up front and look important.
Doesn't it seem like the Republicans revere Reagan so much that ever
since he retired they've been nominating people who make him look
somewhat better in retrospect? I mean, at least once a month during
both Bushes, I found myself beginning a sentence with, "You
know, even Reagan didn't ..."**
**there
has now been a footnote, and a metafootnote. This entry is therefore
complete, though short by my odd standards.
***the more I look at that phrase the better I like it. I must have bumped my head sometime this morning. Hope I bump it again.
