gwynnega

My poem "50 Foot," inspired by Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman (1958), will appear in The Cascadia Subduction Zone. (Technical note: the poem is comprised of 50 poetic feet.)

In other news, we are now past the peak of jacaranda season. It was glorious while it lasted--though it will be awhile before the purple flowers are completely gone for the year.

I am hennaing my hair on a pleasant LA day, after a spate of unwelcome heat. Also unwelcome was the smallish earthquake that woke me (and half of LA) around 4 a.m. last night.

Yesterday was both Free Comic Book Day and Independent Bookstore Day. I somewhat failed at Free Comic Book Day. There was a line around the block at Legacy Comics on a blazing hot Glendale day, and I hadn't eaten yet; I eventually opted to forgo the free stuff so I could go inside the air-conditioned store (and then go home and make brunch).

My Independent Bookstore Day trip to Skylight Books was much more successful. I bought the new book of Kathy Acker letters. After the bookstore, I went next door to the Los Feliz 3 to see the very impressive and intelligent Ex Machina. After which, I got a delicious burger and fries from Juicy Burger (conveniently located between Skylight Books and the movie theater). Days like this are part of why I enjoy living in Los Angeles (in spite of earthquakes).

I took a couple of vacation days (today and tomorrow) to celebrate my birthday. (Oh, the joy of not having to drive across town!) Today I went to Skylight Books, where I bought Kate Zambreno's O Fallen Angel. Then I went to Cafe Tropical and picked up a Cuban sandwich, guava & cream cheese pastry and cafe con leche for dinner.

Tomorrow night I'll be having birthday dinner with friends, then birthday lunch with my mom on Sunday.

***

What did you just finish reading?
Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who (edited by L.M. Myles and Deborah Stanish). This made me want to immediately park in front of the TV and watch/rewatch hours upon hours of classic Who (especially the Third Doctor, for some reason).

What are you reading now?
Still reading American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath. This has lots of good material from letters (unpublished Plath letters and letters to Plath from friends). It's been a long time since I've read the earlier Plath biographies, but there's a fair bit of info new to me.

I've just started Seanan McGuire's Midnight Blue-Light Special.

What do you expect to read next?
Probably a General Hospital tie-in novel, Love in Maine by Connie Falconeri, which, according to Romantic Times, is actually quite good. (On GH, teenaged Molly wrote the book, then publishing magnate Kate Howard's alternate personality [!] Connie Falconeri stole it, added sex and got it published.) I suspect that when I read it, I'll keep remembering Molly's outraged editorializing at the book party: "Dear god, was that all one sentence?...'Grip on her hip?' It's like a nursery rhyme for perverts!"

It is Henna Day, and the cold henna on my head is helping to soothe my headache. (I think the headache's due to our wildly shifting weather. On Friday it was rainy and maybe 58 degrees, now it's warmish and sunny, and it's supposed to be over 80 in a couple of days!) Trying to adjust to the time change. I will enjoy leaving the office when it's still light out, but I will not enjoy getting up tomorrow morning.

Friday night I went to Taix to see Rough Church and Bell Gardens, and had much fun. Since then I've been having a quiet weekend of writing / reading / DVDs. Oh, and on Friday I watched Suddenly (1954), with Frank Sinatra as a would-be assassin and Sterling Hayden as a sheriff trying to foil him, on TCM. I think sovay recommended it? Anyway, a terrific, tense film with great character work by Sinatra and Hayden.

The draft of the Jo book (actual title: Can't Find My Way Home) is done-ish. Which is to say, it's done, but I still need to listen to the spoken text file this week to be sure.

Word count: 89,122

Page count: 320

Yaaaaaay!!!

Also, yesterday I went to Skylight Books for Small Business Saturday (bought The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson and a Moleskine notebook), and one of my favorite soap opera actors, Matthew Ashford, was there. He was engrossed in a book, so I refrained from going up to him and blathering about how Days of Our Lives shouldn't have killed off his character.

Well, I still haven't seen The Avengers, but I have seen the new Dark Shadows film.

I had long looked forward to this film--until the first trailer came out, when I began to worry that this might be yet another charmless remake of a classic TV show. Many old-school fans were rubbed the wrong way by the jokiness of the trailers (and by some less-than-respectful comments from Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter). I had already purchased a ticket for a special screening for fans, and I wondered if it would devolve into a hate-fest, with disgruntled old-school fans booing. But the screening was at the Vista Theatre (five minutes from my apartment), so I couldn't very well not go--and I'm glad I did, so I could be won over along with, as far as I could tell, pretty much the whole audience of hardcore Dark Shadows fans.

Dark Shadows the movie is about 1000% better than I was expecting. The tone is just right--there is humor, but there is also depth. Johnny Depp's Barnabas is as complex as Jonathan Frid's, and he captures the essential pathos and fish-out-of-water discomfort (along with bloodlust, romantic yearning, and love of family) of the character. In fact most of the cast did a great job of making the characters their own. I particularly liked Chloe Moretz's hilariously sullen take on Carolyn Stoddard. ( spoiler ) Helena Bonham Carter almost made me forgive her snide comments with her marvelous performance as Dr. Julia Hoffman. (She may think the acting in the original Dark Shadows was "borderline bad"--but I think she channeled Grayson Hall!)

The only weak link was Eva Green as a very one-note Angelique the witch, with none of the layers or charisma Lara Parker brought to the role. (And okay, I may be biased because Lara Parker is a friend of mine, but still!)

The script did some unexpectedly witty things with canon. The TV show had often used the characters Victoria Winters and Maggie Evans interchangeably (with waitress Maggie ending up with Vicki's governess job when Vicki left the canvas), and I had assumed the film would simply include either Vicki or Maggie and drop the other. Instead, Maggie Evans uses "Victoria Winters" as an assumed name.

To my pleasant surprise (and relief) the film feels true to the spirit of Dark Shadows, and it has quite a bit of charm in its own right.

TV Guide (Michael Logan): The Scoop on Dark Shadows From Tim Burton, Helena Bonham-Carter and The Original Cast

NPR: 'Dark Shadows': The Birth Of The Modern TV Vampire

Dark Shadows News Page: Lara Parker On The Dark Shadows Movie

As of about an hour and a half ago, my neighborhood finally has power after nearly a day and a half without it. Wednesday night I had a hair-raising drive home from work through high Santa Ana winds. I had to dodge palm fronds, capsized trash cans, a fallen tree in the road, etc. But that was just the beginning. When I got home, the power briefly went out a couple of times. Then, around 1 a.m., it went out and didn't come back on. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and LA County (among other local areas) declared a state of emergency.

I stayed home from work yesterday, because the howling wind had kept me awake much of the night. This turned out to be a good move, because traffic was snarled by all the debris from the winds, and lots of traffic lights were still out. (There was also supposed to be more dangerous weather ahead, but that didn't seem to materialize--it was windy, but not horribly so.) Hanging out in my electricity-less apartment got old fast. Fortunately Gelson's had power, so I had coffee. Plus Hard Times Pizza somehow had power, so I had pizza for dinner. But then I huddled in my cold apartment and read A Monstrous Regiment of Women by flashlight.

When I woke up this morning and the power STILL wasn't back on, I was pretty aggravated. But when I went out to get coffee at Gelson's, I saw workmen working on the power lines at my corner, and I took heart--plus the traffic light by the Trader Joe's was finally working again, and TJ's was open again. Sure enough, just as I was walking back home with my coffee, the traffic lights at my corner came back on, and everybody cheered!

Then I went home and had a hot shower. Hooray!

I spent much of the weekend working on the Jo book, getting ready for WFC, reading the first half of The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy (loving it), re-watching Dark Shadows (John Karlen as freaked-out Willie Loomis is a joy to behold), and catching up on episodes of Revenge. (While ABC is hell-bent on destroying the last vestiges of their daytime serial dramas, they seem equally committed to fostering their nighttime ones, and Revenge is a very good one.)

This afternoon I went to Skylight Books for Kate Beaton's book signing. I was late to the event because I was endlessly circling, looking for parking, and when I finally got there, the place was way more packed than I'd expected. beatonna gave a great talk and showed slides (though I couldn't see 'em too well because of the crowd). I did manage to purchase Skylight's last copy of the Hark! A Vagrant book. I didn't try to get it signed, what with the crowd, but I did stop by Skylight's annex and bought Alice Bag's new memoir, Violence Girl.

I only have to go the office two days this week, what with WFC coming up!

I find I have nothing to say about 9/11 that hasn't already been said and said and said. So: today is Henna Day, and the henna is on my head.

Later I will go to my beloved Coffee Table for the last time. (It closes tonight.) I had brunch there yesterday with Carolyn and Dave. Also yesterday I went for the first time to Mixto, the brand-new restaurant around the corner which replaces Burrito King (an old school but not very delicious Mexican place over which I will shed no tears). I had a soft chicken taco, cheese tamale, and Mexican chocolate bread pudding, and it was good.

I found out last night that my beloved Coffee Table is closing, because someone has bought the building. Apparently the building may be torn down and replaced with condos. Gah! A few years back some other company had planned to build condos there but reopen the Coffee Table after construction, but that deal fell through.

It's a very personal loss to me. The place is a block away from where I live. I've spent countless hours there with friends over the years. I've picked up countless breakfasts and lunches and dinners and coffees for myself. It's my Beloved Neighborhood Place.

I was already planning on having lunch with a friend there this weekend before I heard the news. I suspect I will spend a lot of time there between now and when it shuts down on September 12th.

The other Coffee Table restaurant, in nearby Eagle Rock, will still be open, and I will go there from time to time, but it won't be the same.