Now that the Morbid Curiosity proposal is finally out of my hands, I've been filing away all the stuff I dragged out to inform the proposal-writing. There's a huge heap of reviews, flyers for readings, fan mail. I'm dividing it all up by issue #. After that, I'm not sure what I plan to do with it.

I've been thinking about making some kind of scrapbook. Then I could flip through it on days when the rejections are piling up and remind myself that I used to have good interactions with the outside world via print.

I already have a binder I was intending for a scrapbook. It's got three rings and a black cover with a big spiderweb across it. I was saving it for a portfolio, but haven't taken the time to put *that* together, so maybe I'll re-purpose it. What to use for the pages, though? Originally I envisioned something like the manila construction paper scrapbooks of my childhood, but I don't have that kind of pages. I have the white ones with the stick-um (so-called "magnetic" pages) that I use for recipes, but those aren't so appealing. They're hard to scan through, for one thing, and if you open their plastic covers, you risk getting stick-um on the scanner glass.

Because I don't know what kind of pages I want, I don't know how to proceed. Which means this is probably another of the half-finished projects that sits in a box in my breakfast nook/office and wears down my soul.

If I were truly a technological child, I'd just scan all the reviews and flyers and all and not worry about keeping the paperwork. But that runs counter to my archivist/pack rat tendencies: I can lay my hands on bits of paper from 25 years ago. I can't read electronic files from 15 years ago. Paper trumps electrons for permanence and accessibility.

Maybe I need to brave the dreaded craft store to see what kind of options for archival scrapbooking are available to me. Wish I had faith that I could focus on this project until I get it finished.

I've done three iterations of the Morbid Curiosity proposal in the last week. The final approvals went back and forth today. I think the proposal goes out into the wild starting tomorrow. This is a very exciting place to be.

So I've had my excitement and my post-excitement freak-out. What's my mission now? Now what?

I've got a couple of queries out, but no response on them so far. Time to walk away from those projects for the moment.

The first half of the Alondra book is still at Tor, but I'm guessing that's stalled since it was next on her to-read stack in March. I'm kinda okay with that for the moment. I think it's really too early to have shown that around.

I haven't revised The Dangerous Type yet, but I'm sort of waiting to see what will happen with the two novels that are out now. I'm not sure it makes sense to have a third novel in play yet.

I've got 19 more working days until Lenore is finished with preschool.

I mentioned the cemetery book to my agent (how strange it feels to type that) and she's interested. Not pressingly interested, since her hands will be full (one hopes) with Morbid Curiosity, but interested. I think it's time to pull the collection of cemetery essays out, dust it off, and see what shape it was in when I set it aside in 2005. Lenore was almost two then.

I think it's just a matter of reading through everything again, writing the history of cemetery vacations for the introduction, and updating the proposal. That doesn't seem like 19 days' work.

It would be great to head off into a two-week vacation in July with four books out.

Lots of good news of late, but I've been too busy to post it.

City Slab accepted the expansion of "The Drowning City." I believe it's going into their next issue, #13. That will be the fourth Alondra story in print. It's set in Venice, in the fog, with a canal clogged by corpses. I'm thrilled that they gave me the opportunity to tell the whole story.

City Slab also has the first of my new cemetery columns. I'm not sure if that's running in issue #13 or #14. Either way, it's great to be writing about cemeteries again. It's inspired me to dust-off the collection of graveyard essays and see if I can find it a home.

An agent has taken on the Morbid Curiosity proposal and hopes to start shopping it around this week. I'm so excited about that I can barely breathe.

And we've moved into the "free" refrigerator, for which we've been demolishing our kitchen. (It was too big to fit, without removing some cabinets.) Ah, lathe and plaster: what a lovely view from my desk.

Things are moving forward. Wonder what will happen next?

Someone has recommended "Sound of Impact" (from Sins of the Sirens) for the 2008 Stoker Award for short fiction. It's a long way to go to actually getting on the ballot, I know, but being contacted by the Stoker verifier does take the sting out of the last review of Sirens put up online. Thank goodness someone somewhere gets it.

Dear Sages of LJ (and beyond):

What nonfiction books (preferably popular, well-respected, and successful books) could one compare Morbid Curiosity to?

I started with Mary Roach's STIFF, Sarah Vowell's ASSASSINATION VACATION, Katherine Ramsland's CEMETERY STORIES, Thomas Lynch's THE UNDERTAKING, and Mitch Albom's TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE.

Help! I know I'm missing some of the more recent titles. Can you help?

Absinthe kisses,

Loren

One word review: Harrowing.

It is perhaps the best documentary I've ever seen. It wasn't comprehensive, didn't get into the Celsius readings or isolation of the mountains in terms of miles or effects of prolonged starvation on 19-year-old athletes -- things I'm going to need to research for myself. For the most part, the movie was simply men in their 50s speaking words that tore them apart and spilled out in torrents and trickles. Their honesty was humbling.

When their plane crashed in the Andes, they had no winter clothes, since they left home on a spring day. There was no food on the plane, since it was meant to be a quick jaunt over the mountains. I was stunned by how quickly the possibility of cannibalism came up: 5 or 6 days after the crash. At that point, they believed they would be rescued at any time and just needed to hang on. And then they heard over the transistor that the search had been called off on account of the weather and they knew they had been abandoned. 16 of them managed to survive 72 days.

Listening to the men talk about how they reached a decision to live was more touching than I expected. The most striking part is when one of them speaks of eating human flesh for the first time and "Nothing terrible happened. Nothing magical either." He was disappointed. He wanted it to be a bigger deal than it was.

In the end of the film, some of the 16 crash survivors return to the valley to leave tokens on the monument to the fallen. They've brought along their 19-year-old children to present them to the ghosts as evidence that the sacrifice of their flesh served the purpose of life. Evidence of gratitude and memory.

I would not have survived the ordeal, nor the media circus that descended on them when they were forced to admit how they survived. Their re-entry to society could probably make a movie in itself.

The dignity of these men, their words, kept waking me all last night. It's going to take a while to absorb this story.

Here's the listing again: http://fest08.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=81.

The San Francisco International Film Festival is in town again. I haven't been every year we've lived here, but most years I've seen a handful of films that I would have never come across elsewhere. Some of them were brilliant -- like Guy Maddin's Dracula ballet (Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary) -- and some where tedious -- like last year's Persistence of Vision winner Forever -- but I've always felt lucky to have the festival present me so many options.

Tonight I'm going to a documentary that may fall into either brilliant or tedious territory: Stranded: I've Come From a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains. It interviews survivors of the Uruguayan soccer team who survived in the Andes for 72 days with few provisions by resorting to cannibalism. (It's the same story as was told in Alive!) I want to see what the survivors have to say.

Here's the info, should you find yourself free early this evening and morbidly curious: http://fest08.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=81.

I saw a book at the Book Bay last week, but didn't pick it up. Mostly so I could swoop in past some heavy metal kid today and pluck it off the shelf in front of him. Score.

This is a vintage 1972 hardcover called "The Psychic World of California" by David St. Clair (best known for "Say You Love Satan"). I'm curious about the magical history of this part of the world. The 1970s seems like the perfect jumping-off point. There was a lot going on then, although if we'd started a little earlier, we could have had Charlie Manson on Haight Street. Maybe that's another book.

Anyway, I read the first dozen pages while waiting for Lenore's art class to end. As I closed the book to go pick her up, it bit me. It left a big curving gash on the pad of my right middle finger. It really stung. Hope there's nothing nasty living in that old paper.

We'll see if the book is worth it. It opened with a history of the rise and fall of Lemuria, before segueing into the mystical life of Junipero Serra. In his preface, St. Clair encouraged people who hate history to jump ahead to the modern stuff. I'm not sure where to put myself in that paradigm.

Last week, I took stock. Three books out, no forward movement. I couldn't get myself focused and down to work. The novel-in-progress had taken a surprising turn, which requires some thought about whether to proceed in the new direction or to unravel and try again. I've pushed as much as I'm comfortable on the other books, until I get some feedback. Everything seemed out of my hands or simply stuck.

So I told myself I'd take May off. I'd ebay the two bins of books stacked in my office. I'd sort out my file drawers and finally move the two file cabinets out of Lenore's room. I'd use the time to clean and organize and let the outer motion make space for the inner.

And then one of the books came unstuck. I had an exciting conversation today with the appropriate authority. She gave me some good guidance, lots of encouragement, and I felt as if she is on my side. So the cemetery column is due on Thursday, then I have a little work to do on this book. Then, with any sort of luck at all, it will rocket out of my hands and find itself a good home.

I am pretty thrilled about today's developments. Concrete details will of course be spilled when there are signatures drying. For now, fingers crossed.

We are back from our weekend in Monterey. It was pretty much heaven for a four-year-old girl, other than a two-hour ride each way. There was the best playground in the world, Chinese buffet with noodles, Mom playing fetch the hippo in the hotel pool, quesadilla dinner, sleeping in a sleeping bag in a hotel room, continental breakfast, the Monterey Bay Aquarium (thanks, seismic!), and Thai noodles for lunch. Oh, and tide-pooling with snails and clams and barnacles and sea urchins.

I got to see two varieties of sea dragons, which were pretty much the most wonderful thing I have ever seen, and a giant octopus, and cuttlefish. They were unfortunately only leopard-spotted, not the amazing technicolor strobing cuttlefish that hypnotized me on TV last week, but still. And there were hammerhead sharks and a rainbow of jellyfish and a sea turtle. And stuffed sunfish for sale in the gift shop.

It was pretty much a perfect pair of days, much confirming my decision that we as a family need to start having more fun together. Lenore and I used to have fun together all the time, before she started in preschool. Now she has playdates, so I get to have fun with moms while she has fun with her friends. This is a good thing, but it makes me miss just hanging out together. And Mason and I were pretty much dividing the weekends up between trying to do our grownup things and running errands. It's great to have been able to actually vacation together.

I hope we can do it again sometime soon.

I'm down to the last 8 copies of Morbid Curiosity #3, which featured stories on researching The X-Files, visiting Poland's Black Madonna, working in a vivisection lab, and finding your landlord dead -- all stories 100% true. Oh, and the photo above is on the cover. I took that in the ossuary at Kutna Hora on my birthday.

There's still time to order Morbid Curiosity #3-10 for $4 each, US postpaid. More info about the subjects and contributors in each issue are up at http://www.charnel.com/morbidcuriosity.

If you want a copy of #3, let me know. They're going fast.

At the seder, there was talk about the hostess' son, who used to invite all his high school friends over to copyright-cracking parties. The boys would apparently bring their Apple IIs and sit around the dining room table, passing games around, challenging each other to bypass the copy-protection. No one really wanted to play the games, which were considered lame. The challenge was in the hacking. That was 25 years ago. The son works for Apple now.

Today, one of Lenore's friend's moms was talking about growing up in San Francisco. She remembered when there were still San Francisco garter snakes living in the dunes. Mostly, she remembered seeing the neighborhood cats catching them and carrying them home. She thought they had probably become endangered because of the predation of housecats. The Zoo is breeding them now and reintroducing them to the areas they used to inhabit. (FYI: http://us.geocities.com/shavano08/sfgs.html)

There's a cafe around the corner from my house. It's not open for breakfast, when most cafes do the bulk of their business. It's not open for dinner. It's never crowded. The owner is usually on the phone. He never asks if you want anything. It's possible to come in, sit at one of the tables for a while, leave without ordering or paying. Often Lenore and I are the only people in there. He brings her extra cookies. A while ago, he brought me a slice of cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake, but it was free.

When we were there yesterday, he had to remake Lenore's order. He never brought my friend's latte, completely forgot about it. He didn't bring us extra cookies. He charged us $3.50 for two steamed chocolate milks and a Calistoga water and I had to hunt him down to pay. Other people came in to order and wandered out in disgust, because he wouldn't put the phone down to take their orders. One guy came in to look at the computers, but left after a whispered conversation with the owner.

I don't know what goes on in there. The place barely seems to do enough business to pay its rent, even though it offers gaily patterned medical scrubs and delicacies from Israel for sale, in addition to its 10-item menu. It's been there forever. It never has heat. The owner does beautiful calligraphy and paints wedding scrolls. Lenore really likes the place. She really likes him.

I wonder if we will ever really know the secret history of the place. It has a very dark living space in the back, although the owner claims to live elsewhere and commutes via BART. If it's a safe house, who needs protecting?

For the record, this gentleman wrote requesting a sample issue of Morbid Curiosity, along with a catalog so he could place an order. I sent him my standard "I don't hand out free samples" letter, which says that the magazine is no longer published, I never sent out copies for free and can't afford to pay postage into prisons, that often the issues didn't clear prison security anyway. He was welcome to order back issues at his own risk.

His response:

"I truly understand what it is you are saying. However, please allow for me to explain my current dilemma.

"Right now I am in prison on a most WRONGFUL conviction of a crime I did not do. I have NO outside support from family.

"I will be suing ____ state's ass off for the big chunk of my life Ive sat locked up. And alot of other stuff, I will in all honesty come out of this a VERY FINANCIALLY secure individual. I will not want to just sit around bored, I will be looking for something to keep me feeling young. I am WAY TOO high strung to be a blob. Who knows? Maybe I can work with you to revive Morbid Curiosity. I get the imppression that it went defunct was because of financial STRAIN. I am also a very imaginative man who can come up with ways to dig deep into scenerios and come up with alot of good stuff for a magazine. When I hook on to something that I enjoy, I dedicate myself to it.

"In the meantime, I TRULY WOULD LOVE TO OBTAIN ONE COPY OF EACH BACK ISSUE THAT IS AVAILABLE. Even if you can find some back issues outside of NUMBERS 3-10. That would be awesome. Please make an exception to the rule, please send back issues, back issues, back issues. Also, free free to stay in touch. If you teach me how a publishing company works, I'll get even more interested in it than I already am.

"Anyway, please send to me a copy of each of the still available back issues. It would truly be most appreciated as I really, really, really want to obtain them so utterly badly.

"In Goth We Trust..."

Not the scariest prison letter I've gotten by a long shot, but I'm not holding my breath for his investment in my magazine (after he sues the state and wins and gets out of prison and shows his family).

Let's paraphrase, shall we? Issues, issues, issues!

While I'm posting video links, here's a glimpse into my personal hell. At least the lights stayed on the whole time:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

...and narrated by Ewan McGregor!

Darn. They have a typo in their code and I can't get it to embed. You'll just have to go look. Thanks, stephen_dedman!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Nature-invented-the-wheel

I'm having a sale on all back issues of Morbid Curiosity. If you would like to complete your collection (or do your holiday shopping early), issues 3-10 are available for $4 each, US postpaid. If you need international postage, let me know what issues you'd like and I'll do the calculation. I accept checks or paypal.

Issues 3, 4, and 8 are down to the last precious few. If you would like copies of those issues, let me know so I can set them aside for you.

Information about each issue, including contributors and topics covered, is up at http://www.charnel.com/morbidcuriosity.

Oh, and please pass this announcement around, if you would. I want to get these beauties out into the world where they can do some good.

Thank you!

My favorite evidence* from the Dark Arts Pajama Party:




I'd stay up late to get a silk-clad hug from ladyeuthanasia.


*In nearly every other photo of me from the convention, regardless of the hour, I have my eyes closed. Typical.

Someone appears to be interested in a new column of cemetery travel essays from me. I need to pull a new piece together by May 1. I can't tell you how excited I am to have an excuse to poke around tombstones and drag out all my ephemera again!

More details when I'm allowed to share...

Or, if you know the answer, perhaps file under DUH*:

If the Greek gods lived on Olympus and were the Olympians, where did Jove and the Roman gods live? Surely, the Roman gods did not live on a Greek mountain?

I cannot find the answer in the internet. Can you help?

* This is what you get with a public school education.