I just ordered the Gormenghast trilogy. There's a BBC 4-part series airing on PBS -- in DC it'll air again on Saturday. It's beautiful. Look at this for a hint. All right, so I haven't read the books yet, but I'm working this in now to say that if you get a chance to see it, do so. Stephen Fry and Ian Richardson and Christoper Lee are all in it! And the kid who plays Steerpike is amazing. I'm betting the books are better, because that's the way of things (and I'll let you know for sure when they get here), but the series is really lovely.

No all-nighters were necessary. Weekends are nice. American Gods was good. Puffed Kashi is gross. Sorry, that last one isn't actually relevant, but it seemed to fit the rhythm I had going.

So, the book. The premise is that a lot of old gods came to America along with their worshippers, but times for them are getting rough as belief in them is replaced with belief in the media, television, cars, and so on. So a war is brewing, and Shadow, the main character, is tangled up in it. Lots of mythological references ensue.

I was impressed by Gaiman's style shifts in the novel. When I read the first chapter, I thought it was vaguely reminiscent of Vachss' books -- much lighter in tone, obviously. And some of that may just have been because when a book starts with a taciturn guy getting out of prison and dropping straight into some bad shit, I automatically think of Burke. But then there are other voices and styles -- I really loved Mr. Ibis' stories, and wish there'd been a couple more of them. There are other examples, but basically I thought that for the most part, Gaiman did a good job of managing the different characters and keeping them distinct. Given how many characters there are, that's a tough thing to do.

I think the book wobbles a bit in the last third or so -- nothing in particular I can point to right now, but when the tension should be building as the characters race to the climax, it doesn't feel as exciting as it should. Maybe some editing would have helped, I'm not sure. I feel as if I should have been racing to find out what would happen, and I was interested, but not as involved as I'd felt in the first third, when I didn't know what was going on. I still liked it a lot, though.

There's also some very fun off-hand remarks. I particularly enjoyed this exchange:

"Back in my day, we had it all set up. You lined up when you died, and you'd answer for your evil deeds and for your good deeds, and if your evil deeds outweighed a feather, we'd feed your soul and your heart to Ammet, the Eater of souls."

"He must have eaten a lot of people."

"Not as many as you'd think. It was a really heavy feather. We had it made special. You had to be pretty damn evil to tip the scales on that baby."

Since the book did just come out, I'm trying to dance around plot points a bit. Especially since I'm a little vexed that Michael Dirda's review in today's Book World pointed toward one minor "surprise," and I'm curious if I would have thought about it otherwise. On the other hand, the "revelation" about the reason for Lakeview's prosperity struck me as Stephen King-ish, somehow. It made sense in terms of the story, it just seemed like an odd addition that wasn't really necessary. Maybe if it had involved one of the "new" gods instead, it would have felt more meaningful.

I was a bit sad that Gullveig never turned up, since I used to use that as a login once upon a time. I guessed who the Buffalo-headed god Shadow saw in his dreams was, so yeay me. And I was happy with the final explanation for what's been going on, since I'd been wondering for a while how Gaiman could get out of the problem he'd set up. I mean, his sympathies are more or less with the old gods, but I didn't think they'd "win," at least in the sense of reviving old beliefs. Anyway, that winds up very satisfactorily. Now I need to go back and do research to identify all the mythological references.

Oh, here's a link to Neil Gaiman's new site. Apparently there will be a space for everyone to contribute annotations for the book there eventually, and it's also got Gaiman's journal and some other goodies.

My copy of American Gods arrived today. I've already read the first chapter, since it was online as a promotion. I'm poking about the site, correcting some typos and assorted goofs that I've noticed lately, and then I have to watch Farscape, but somewhere in there I'll start reading it. Stay tuned to discover if I stay up all night reading (unlikely, since I'm tired, but this is me, after all).

I meant to mention this before... since I keep blathering about how much footnotes entertain me, I should mention a particularly fun one in The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of. While complaining about Le Guin, Disch mentions that she wanted to anthologize a story that he'd written but was less than proud of. She wouldn't take any of his substitute suggestions, and he finally said that he "would as soon be represented by my Aunt Cecilia's recipe for lemon pudding." And the footnote to this story is simply the recipe, which he heartily recommends trying. That made me laugh. Okay, that's all, I just felt compelled to share it.

Some things in Sunday's Post caught my eye.

Item: Yearbook Entries Scrutinized for Badthink

Turns out I was rather prescient in guessing that the caricature of a teacher being tortured I drew in my yearbook would cause some trouble these days. Thomas Jefferson Middle School, in Arlington, is one of many local schools teaching kids to narc. Oh, I mean, trying to ensure "that what students write in [yearbooks] is free from threatening language, racial slurs, sexual innuendo and plain old school yard nastiness."

At Jefferson, students were asked to sign guidelines indicating that "inappropriate comments should be brought to the attention of a teacher or administrator immediately." [Emphasis original.] Surely I'm not the only one who finds that unspeakably creepy? "Inappropriate?" And at a school named after Thomas Jefferson, too. Remember how Jefferson said, "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." That was a pretty cool thing to say, wasn't it? Well, turns out he was just kidding.

Principal Docca of Argyle Middle School admitted that some students think their yearbooks, which they paid for, in which they are writing private messages, are, well, private. Docca disagrees, on the grounds that "they are doing this in school, and they are sharing these books with one another." Listen up, kiddies. The same applies to every conversation you have on school grounds. You're expressing an idea in school, and sharing it with someone. Written, oral, sign language, pig latin, doesn't matter. Principal Docca discovered, through devices not mentioned in the article, that a student had written profanity about a teacher in one yearbook. There's no indication as to whether the owner of the yearbook objected. But the student was not allowed to participate in the eighth grade "graduation" ceremony as a result (and originally the kid was suspended).

Yet another principal said that the policy was justified because kids don't want to have their parents see inappropriate things in a yearbook. Wow. My parents didn't look at my yearbooks unless I was showing them something. The hell? Sure, my folks paid for the damn thing, and if they'd wanted to look at it I wouldn't have objected. If they'd wanted to spend an hour perusing the notes my friends left, I would have, though, because they were -- say it with me -- personal. They were to me. Nobody's business but mine.

The executive director of the Student Law Press Center notes that, unless a message in a yearbook proved disruptive to the school, there's not much chance that a school could make such policies hold up in court. But what high schooler is going to go to court to defend their right to say Mrs. Pratt is a cranky old bitch? So I'm pissed about this, in case you couldn't tell. I'm most pissed that the Post plays it soft. The article starts and ends with an anecdote about how, as a result of this policy, one girl wrote a standard "keep in touch" message to a girl she really didn't like much. How heartwarming. A newspaper sure doesn't have any reason to feel nervous about the erosion of free speech rights in this country. I'm going to move on before my head explodes.

Item: Jewish Humanists

Apparently there's a growing group of "Jewish Humanist" congregations. The congregations focus on Jewish culture, heritage, education -- and skip the bit about Yahweh. There's no prayer, no worship. The president of the Bethesda congregation said, "We all believe that it is human beings who have the power and duty to make the world a better place. We are not looking to someone else to help us."

Congregations vary as far as which traditions they continue. One group has altered the Shema to say, "Hear O Israel, our people are one, humanity is one." I don't have any great insights about this, I just think it's neat. A nice way of keeping the social & traditional aspects of religion (which I don't get, but I understand they have some appeal) while ditching the "My god can beat up your god" aspects. So, yeay them. I'm sure my endorsement will mean a lot.

Item: God's All in Your Mind

Heh. You just know that someone at the Post wanted to use a headline like that, and the ombudsman shouted them down. It seems that researchers are narrowing down which parts of the brain are responsible for this pesky search for a supreme being. One scientist in Canada has developed a helmet that creates a weak electromagnetic field which affects key areas of the brain, causing the wearer to have, well, religious experiences. Eighty percent of people who wear the helmet report something wacky -- "Some weep, some feel God has touched them, others become frightened and talk of demons and evil spirits."

Other experiments have determined which areas of the brain are affected by meditation. Apparently the parietal lobe, which helps you orient yourself in space, shows decreased activity, which might explain why meditating creates a feeling of "oneness with the universe."

Needless to say, some people are irritated by this kind of research. They insist that there's more to it than gray matter. I particularly love the quote from a theology professor at Georgetown: "Religion is helping widows and orphans." I bet all the other professors made fun of him for that one. Poor guy. He does say some other things, so yes I am being unfair in quoting that bit in isolation. But he's still wrong, so bite me.

For no good reason, I'll also mention that the word "spirituality" bugs the heck out of me. This all goes back to a late night conversation with some friends, during which I tried for several hours to get them to explain what, exactly, the word "spirituality" meant. Not a dictionary meaning -- these were people who use the word "spiritual" as if it was distinct from "religious" but when I tried to determine what the difference was, they couldn't explain. And I guess I felt like I was deficient for not understanding the distinction, even though they were the ones who couldn't explain it. (I'm not hostile toward them about this, it just irritates me, particularly when they didn't seem to think they should have to explain it, I should just know what they meant... Okay, perhaps I'm a tiny bit hostile about it. I just hate it when I don't even understand the premise of a conversation.)

Item: Parents Against Bad Books

Let's return to the theme of adults who are afraid to let children form independent thoughts.

So there's this new group in Virginia, called Parents Against Bad Books In Schools. I just took a peek at their website. I just can't believe this shit. The main page says that "Bad is not for us to determine. Bad is what you think is bad for your child." Excuse me, but doesn't that suggest that, if you don't like what your kid is reading, maybe you should, oh, I don't know, do your job as a parent and get involved with your kid? And let other parents take responsibility for their kids?

Okay, go check the site out for yourself, because I just can't take it. I got as far as the part where they tell you that, "Yes, they are corrupting your child. The schools and elected officials like the School Board should not have the power to violate your God-given, natural, and constitutional rights as parents." I can't read any more of that. Once upon a time I'd have been amused, now it just pisses me off. (In case there's any doubt, homosexuality is included on a list of objectionable content, along with gang rape and necrophilia. 'Cause those are all equivalent.) Oh, okay, I did skim a bit more. And saw the part where they list as "bad news" the fact that some parents don't even care if their children read these books. Those must be Bad Parents. We should ban them, too! Oh, unless they have a God-given right to decide for themselves what their children read.

You have no idea how hard it is for me to be this coherent. I read a sentence on this site, start writing here, and then I can't type fast enough and end up ranting out loud at my poor iMac, which isn't responsible for any of this. I'll just give up on looking at the site and declare that they're a bunch of assholes. It's not particularly insightful, but I feel better for having said it.

I'll also mention that looking at the "adult verification required" portion of the site, where I assume they keep excerpts of the racy bits from Of Mice and Men, crashed my computer.

According to one member, "There's no lack of books that deserve to be challenged." Well of course not! Once you're looking for "bad books," they're easy to find. Just as it's easy to spot the number 23 popping up everywhere if you're looking for it. This reminds me of an article about censorship I read years and years ago. What sticks in my mind is that one woman was quoted as saying that her child's classroom was like a library, with shelves and shelves of books. She said this like it was a bad thing, of course. Books! Full of ideas! That might be different! Fuck. You. What pisses me off the most about these people, and the "keep evolution out of textbooks!" morons, is that they're the same ones who complain about how students in the U.S. score so badly compared to students in other industrialized countries. Maybe because the teachers aren't allowed to teach? Nah. It must be those Ken Follet novels.

Item: Reagan Fans Still Crazy

Oh, no, dear Washington Post. I can't take any more. I've always been so faithful to you, so supportive. Remember how I kept your special millennial ediiton of the Style section, which scooped everyone else in the world by choosing a "Man of the Millennium" back in 1995? [If you want to know who it was, you'll just have to ask, because damn it, I want fan mail. Or hate mail. Whatever. I'm an egomaniac, okay?] Haven't I dared to claim that Carolyn Hax is as funny as Breakup Girl? Do I not aspire to be as pointlessly mean as Tom Shales is when he reviews Kathie Lee? Okay, there's the Hunter problem, but I only complain about him because I know you can be so much better. Dear, sweet Washington Post, why must you destroy my faith in humanity?

What? I never had any faith in humanity? Oh. Good point.

And that's why it doesn't bother me at all to learn that there are still Reagan fanatics out there, and they're still trying to name everything in the world after their clueless leader. Apparently naming an airport after the man who fired the air traffic controllers wasn't ironic enough. I don't even know what to say about this. They're crazy. Hello, Iran-Conra? Hello, Ed Meese? Yeah, he was a great president. Woo. Hoo.

I did happen to tune into C-SPAN this morning -- they have a morning call-in show and were discussing this article. I only heard a few callers before I had to leave, but at least two people suggested that maybe we should just rename the entire planet after Reagan, since apparently that's the only thing that will satisfy his followers.

I get the Sunday paper to relax me, you know. And this is what I get. No wonder subscriptions are down.

Picked up the latest issues of Just a Pilgrim, Transmetropolitan, and Midnight Nation. Since I've been bitching about art, I wanted to mention that I really like Gary Frank's work on Midnight Nation. It's still got the glossy colors, so I was trying to figure out what made the difference, and I think he's working with the color, instead of counting on the color to cover up crappy art. The pictures would still look nice if they were black & white; the color is just adding more to it. Maybe that's bad, maybe the two should be equal. Maybe I'm too damn picky. I dunno. But I thought I'd mention it, since it's one of the few comics I'm reading that I find pleasant just to flip through and look at.

There's one more issue of Just a Pilgrim and I have to say I'm glad. I wanted to like it, and it's okay, but I think I enjoy the letter column more than the story. The senseless violence and gore just isn't as fun as it was in Preacher, for some reason.

And Transmetropolitan is cool, if you had any doubt. I'll buy the TPBs when they come out, which vexes me now that I'm caught up and shouldn't buy the single issues, but I can't not buy it when it's sitting there in front of me.

I went the library yesterday and on the "used books for sale" rack, found a copy of The Glass Teat. I spent years looking for the damned thing, finally ordered it and The Other Glass Teat off of eBay, and now I find a copy for fifty cents. Grrr. I picked it up, of course. What if my other copy spontaneously combusts? Or something. Well, now I've got a loaner copy, at least.

So I'm rereading the Sherlock Holmes stories now, partly to prep for the new book I ordered, and partly because I thought after I was done I'd add a supplement to my rambling that explained why I enjoyed the stories, instead of just babbling about all the cool Sherlockian merchandise that exists. And then I think it's about time to reread Vachss' Burke books in preparation for the new book coming this fall, and hopefully somewhere in there Gaiman's American Gods will arrive. That's the plan, but I'm sure something will derail it.

I think it started in fourth grade. I was in a big dog-story phase. You know: you start out reading dinosaur books, then you move to horses and read everything Walter Farley ever wrote even though it's really the same story over and over again (except for The Black Stallion Legend, a book so damn strange that I reread it every few years just to be sure I didn't imagine the whole thing). And then it's dogs. I remember a whole series of sad dog stories. Lassie and Lad and Kavik and Big Red -- the absolute worst was called Scruffy which was essentially a gothic horror story. Scruffy's a sweet mutt, and goes from abusive owner to stray to pound and is finally rescued at the last minute. No wonder I'm warped. Hey, when I said "you" read these things, did you agree, or did you think, "No, Strega, only you had this freakish progression." I'm just curious. I remember everyone else reading horse books and dog books, but maybe that was just the kids I knew.

I'm digressing already. So, fourth grade, I'm looking through the fabulous Scholastic Books order form, and there's a book that, from the blurb, seems to be about a dog. Okay, it's a ghostly dog, but it's still a dog. Something about a dog wandering the moors, whatever they are. I suspect I needed to order three books to get a free poster of some kind, so I picked this one as the third. The book I got was The Hound of the Baskervilles. Yes, I really, truly didn't know it was a Sherlock Holmes story until I started reading it. When I realized that I'd been tricked, and that this was about that old detective and not dogs at all, I felt a bit silly. But it was a book, so I read it. And, in a rapid succession, I read the rest of the Canon. So I forgive you, Scholastic Books, for tricking me with your misleading blurbs.

Unfortunately, I didn't read the stories in order. I think that the next book I got was The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which meant that I found out that Holmes had survived Reichenbach before I found out that there was any reason to believe he'd died there. Oh well. (And if you email me because I just spoiled things for you, I will laugh at you.) As I said, I read them all. And I watched the Rathbone movies. And then I found out that there were pastiches, and I read The Seven Per-Cent Solution, and pretty much everything else I could lay my hands on. I also got into mysteries in general because of that, although now I tend more toward the hard-boiled genre. Somewhere along the line I was able to meld my love of games with my love of the Sherlockian, and got a copy of the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective game. (Oh my lord. I just looked at my copy, and it would appear that I got this game when I was 11. Then I realized how Very Old I am, and then I lied down on the floor and withered away to dust.) I still have the original game, along with two of the supplements. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I haven't actually finished playing them all. But they're really more fun to do with other people, so you can talk about the clues you've found and figure it out in a group. Hm, maybe that's why Holmes kept Watson around. I may have to make Katie play it with me this weekend.

Not that I'm comparing Katie to Watson. Or myself to Holmes. I feel obliged to say that upon rereading this as I put it on the site. Wow, so, so not what I meant at all. To the point that I think I didn't play the game with other people much because I worried that they'd figure everything out immediately and I'd feel stupid. I'm just a bit more secure now, so I think I could handle playing it with other people. Anyway.

Let me explain the game. It's essentially a very complicated version of those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. You pick a case, and read the opening, in which you're one of the Baker Street Irregulars, listening in as someone brings a case to Holmes. Then you decide where to look for clues. There are some standard options, like Scotland Yard, and some that are case-specific, like the murder (or whatever) site. You find the address for wherever you want to go, and look it up in a notebook. Then you read whatever's there and (ideally) find some more clues. You can also look in a "newspaper archive," which is extremely fun just to read through -- there are news articles and marriage notices and all sorts of fun things which may or may not be useful. You keep doing this until you have a theory about what happened, but the goal is to do it in as few "turns" as possible. When you think you've solved the case, you look in the clue book, which has a dozen or so questions about what happened. You check your answers and see how you did, then total up your points based on your correct answers and the number of turns you needed. Holmes, of course, always scores 100. It's very cleverly done.

Andit came with a subscription to Sleuth Times, which was, essentially a fanzine. But a neat one. Sherlockians are just as insane as other fans, but I think the Victorian style at least gives them a classier sheen. (You'll excuse me for calling them "Sherlockians," which I feel geekier than usual for using, but it's an awful lot easier than typing out "People who really like stories about Sherlock Holmes.") Unfortunately, it came very irregularly. (Sometimes puns can't be avoided.) Although I can't blame them too much: the first issue I got had a notice mourning the death of one P.L. Fagan. Since he was listed as the editor, typesetter, designer, and one of three contributers to the 'zine, I can see why they might have had problems keeping it going. I did end up getting five issues in total, over the course of... hell, I can't find a copyright anywhere... probably five or six years. But that's fine -- it was always such a pleasant surprise when a new issue arrived.

The other thing I must brag about here is that my collection of the original Doyle stories is beautifully contained in a two-volume set of Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes. If you aren't into Holmes, you have no idea how big a deal this is. When I started reading the stories, a friend of mine mentioned that her father had a copy of the Baring-Gould set. And we sneaked into her house to carefully page through it, not even reading, just marvelling at it. The fact that her dad kept it in pristine condition, in a place of honor in the living room, contributed to our awe. As did the onion-skin pages, which made it seem as if we were paging through a family Bible. It's gigantic -- something like 1500 pages. For 4 novellas and 56 short stories, that's a lot. It has articles and minutes from the original fanclub, the Baker Street Irregulars, which first met in 1934. Alexander Woollcott once attended a meeting as a guest, and later made fun of them, which frankly I can't blame him for doing. Anyway, this is the version to have. There are the original illustrations from The Strand, and articles about everything from the movies to the chronology to the inspirations for the stories. It's lovely. The first issue of Sleuth Times I have has a short catalogue, and prices a set of these books for $40. I found mine for much less at an open-air used book sale in Chicago -- well, actually a friend I was with found them, and pointed them out to me because he was amused at the price. He couldn't imagine why someone would pay $10 for some silly Sherlock Holmes books (most everything at this sale was under a dollar, and he had no idea what he was looking at). The dust covers were shredded, but I really don't care, and you can't imagine my glee, or the surprised look on the face of the friend who thought I'd giggle along with him instead of gasping and snatching the books away before anyone else saw what he was pointing at.

I also have some other books and short story collections. One notable volume is The Oxford Sherlock Holmes: His Last Bow. It's just Doyle's stories again, and normally I'd get rid of it because I've already got this collection in the Baring-Gould set. But this one is annotated, too. And the annotations are demented. They take up seventy pages. Some of them are helpful, I suppose, if you don't have a dictionary at hand (does anyone really not know what "pole-axed" means?). And some just suggest a bored English major at work, as when the use of the word "relic" inspires the editor to quote from Vachel Lindsay's poem, "The Congo," for no good reason. So I couldn't get rid of it. It also contains an appendix containing three pieces by P.G. Wodehouse, which is actually reason enough to hold onto it.

Then there are the movies, and television shows, and radio shows. I'm sorry to say that I never liked the BBC adaptations with Jeremy Brett. Brett was fine -- odd, but I don't mind that. I just couldn't stand how they kept insisting that the stories were so faithful to the originals, not like all those other versions. They weren't. They shifted things around, they showed you the crime ahead of time, and I really couldn't watch any more when Morarty started turning up in random episodes. I don't know; if they hadn't claimed to be so faithful, I probably would have enjoyed the series, but I felt as if I'd been misled. A lot of the story changes were made because the show was an hour long, and the stories aren't really long enough to fill that time. So I understand, but I still didn't like them.

My favorite Sherlock Holmes movie is Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. It manages to deconstruct the character without damaging the stories, somehow. A lot of Sherlockians seem to dislike the movie because it makes fun of Holmes, but it makes fun of him with such affection that I think they need to get over it. I wish they'd release (god help me) a director's cut version -- it was originally over three hours long, with all sorts of goodies and references that had to be cut for time in the final release. Maybe people who don't normally like Holmes would enjoy it more, since it makes him more sympathetic and human (which is probably what the fundamentalist fans object to).

[There is a DVD release now, which I'm sure I'll grab at some point. Apparently there are extras about the cut scenes, but most only exist as stills so the whole thing may be lost to the ages. Sigh.. -- Oct. 2005]

Which brings me, at long last, to the item that inspired all of this. I just found a copy of Simon Goodenough's Hound of the Baskervilles dossier. See how cleverly circular this has turned out to be? Goodenough did three "dossiers" (I'll explain in a second), but the only one I have is the one for "A Study in Scarlet." It's... hard to describe. Especially if you don't know about Sherlockians.

First, you need to understand that there's a conceit that the stories are true: Watson did write them, and Conan Doyle was simply Watson's literary agent. It's easier to do this since the stories happened in the past; you couldn't do this sort of thing with Star Trek. The other important fact is that one of the nice things about Sherlockians is that they play with the stories, not against them. Now, there are loads of contradictions to be found -- for one thing, most of the stories have dates, and contemporary references, and this makes it fairly easy to note all kinds of flubs. But to Sherlockians, this is a challenge. SF fans find these kinds of things and feel morally superior (hello, Nitpicker's Guide) because they noticed contradictions that the writers didn't. Sherlockians notice them and then come up with convoluted explanations for the contradictions. They find creative answers. And then argue about them. This is the kind of nitpicking I can get behind. (The Baring-Gould version arranges the stories "chronologically," and some of the footnotes are there simply to explain why this story had to have happened before that one.)

So, the dossier. It purports to be a collection of the original notes and documents that Watson passed on to Doyle, so that Doyle could edit the pieces together into the story we know as "A Study in Scarlet." It has records of Watson's service in the military, pages from The Times, diary entries, letters -- in various handwriting, on letterhead or notepaper, as appropriate. There are telegrams, a copy of Holmes' monograph on tracing footprints, and, best of all, annotations by Holmes in the margins of Watson's notes. It also has a contemporary map of London, which I wish I'd remember I'd had when I was reading From Hell. Although I think I'd need a magnifying glass to make out the street names. Oh, and stapled into the cover are items like one of Holmes' calling cards, and one of the fatal pills found at the scene of the crime. It also fills in the blanks on some items, such as explaining why Watson's pet dog never turns up again in any of the stories. So it manages to play along with the "all is true" idea, smooth over a few continuity glitches, and add cool bonuses. Yum.

Simon Goodenough, who put this together, did two other dossiers, for The Sign of the Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles. And today I found a bookstore selling the latter for $20. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to do a little dance of joy now. For years I looked for this book, until I finally forgot about it, and tonight I happened to remember it existed and found it within minutes. Bless the internet.

I think I'll spend the weekend re-reading the original stories in preparation.

I read The Basic Eight earlier this week. If you liked Heathers, you'll love this. Is the satire heavy-handed at times? Yes, but I don't think it's meant to be subtle. Are elements of the plot obvious from the start? Yes, but that's not what you should read it for. If you're willing to revisit the traumas of high school, it seems pretty accurate to me. Most teachers mean well, and manage to be totally oblivious at the same time. I liked it a lot. For the record, Monty told me to read it. Johanna said that she thought it was okay, but not great. Between this and the Hellblazer fiasco, I'm starting to wonder if I should trust Johanna any more. Maybe she's been replaced by an evil robot who wants to make me read bad books. That would be sad.

Should've gone with the other Ennis collection. Hard-boiled prose is harder to do than it looks, and I'm not liking Delano's attempt. I could swallow it from Constantine, barely, but the narration has bits about guns which "flail the trees with their leaden ejaculations." Let's put it this way: too many metaphors, too many similes. And also, too many places where I had to puzzle over which panel to read next. It's a pity, because I like the actual stories, but I'm still struggling to get through Hellblazer. I'm saving Black Orchid as a reward.

Another trip to the comic book store? I'm so bad. It was Johanna's fault, though. So I finished The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of. Have I mentioned that I'm still reading The Other Glass Teat? All the political stuff was depressing me, so I had to put it aside for a while. Now it's my bedtime reading, which means it's going a lot slower because I tend to go to bed several hours after I'm actually tired enough to sleep, thus I only read a page or two before I'm unconscious.

Right, so I got an old copy of Tomorrow Stories that I don't have -- I only started picking it up recently, which is nice since there's nearly always one I've missed on the racks. And after debating for a while whether I should get the first Hellblazer collection, or the other Ennis-authored collection, I let Johanna convince me I should just commit myself and get book #1: Original Sins.

Digression: again I ask, am I missing something, or are most comics terribly ugly? I've been trying to think of artists I like, because lord knows it could be that I'm expecting too much from the format. I don't mean that condescendingly; given the monthly format it's not fair to expect perfection from an artist trying to beat a deadline. I know I can't expect everything to look like Dave McKeon's work, but even so. Unfortunately, the art I really liked tended to be in graphic novels (Jon J. Muth's art for The Mystery Play is stunning) or a limited series (Duncan Fegredo on Enigma, a comic I loved). And those aren't really fair comparisons. I do think Sandman made huge improvements in the art as it progressed, which cuts both ways: obviously good art can be done on a monthly comic, but on the other hand, maybe you have to have the budget that only a best-selling comic can afford.

Oh, and I also got Black Orchid, finally. I started reading it once upon a time in a dorm room in Chicago, and didn't finish it, and there's always been something else I'd rather buy when I considered picking it up.

I did not get Fray though. In case you wondered. I might've, if I'd seen it, but I suspect it was sold out and I didn't care enough to ask. The only Buffy comics I've gotten were gag gifts, and I don't see any reason to buck that trend now.

I'm just about done with The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, by Thomas M. Disch. It's sort of the history of SF literature, and sort of an examination of how it has influenced pop culture and society, and occasionally it's just fun anecdotes. I don't recall reading anything by Disch, although odds are high that I've read his short stories in anthologies. I just thought it looked interesting, and I recognized his name. Plus, the back of a book had a blurb from Harold Bloom.

The book wanders a bit; it's not a piece of scholarly criticism with supporting evidence. But I prefer nonfiction that's chatty, so I liked it. Plus, it gave me some more reasons to avoid reading Ursula Le Guin -- I know she's supposed to be great, but just looking at the chapter titles in The Left Hand of Darkness put me to sleep. Disch spent a couple of pages discussing how Le Guin tends to put her political agenda ahead of anything else. As far as I can tell Disch is evenhanded -- he discusses Heinlein's tendency toward right-wing propaganda as well. The difference is that Heinlein is, y'know, readable.

I do disagree with Disch's dismissal (say that three times fast) of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as one of the foundations of SF. He makes a good case for Poe's contribution, but come on. Yes, Frankenstein is melodramatic, yes it isn't read much today. (Unlike Poe's The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, which Disch spends several pages on?) But it also examines the consequences of experimentation, and questions whether a scientist is morally responsible for his creations. Those are pretty basic science fiction themes. It's not just about a "monster who runs amok," which is the other reason Disch seems to be unimpressed by it.

But I agree with a lot of what Disch says, and now I'm interested in reading some of his fiction. I like authors whom I disagree with occasionally -- it lets me know my brain's still working.

Had to do some shopping yesterday. Didn't have to go to the comic book store, but I did anyway. On my way, I started wondering how much money I spend on books in a year. Then I decided I didn't want to know. I don't regret spending the money, but I might start to if I was aware of what it totaled up to annually, so it's better I don't know. Thank goodness for the library, and for the library's used book sale racks, where paperbacks are fifty cents and hardbacks are one dollar. Of course, because they're so cheap I buy books that I wouldn't normally consider paying for, which is why I end up needing to buy bookcases, so it's probably not as budget-friendly a move it appears to be at first glance.

The point is that I went to the comic store and bought Transmetropolitan: Filth of the City. I don't need to bother saying it's good, because, duh. I would like someone to sell a poster of pages 18 and 19 so that I could put it up on my wall. In case you were wondering. And I got the Hellblazer: Tainted Love TPB and Just a Pilgrim. Both of these are by Garth Ennis -- I think I'm going through Preacher withdrawal. I'm still not sure what I think about Just a Pilgrim -- the little kid narrator is not doing much for me, and I suspect he's there to be the likable character. On the other hand, it's got futuristic pirates, so that makes up for a lot. In related news, I'm starting to develop problems with the ultra-glossy colors that seem especially typical of Image (and Just a Pilgrim has the same effect). Yeah, it's pretty, but after a while it reads as a lot of shiny plastic, and my eye starts sliding off the page. On the other hand, what I don't know about comic art is a lot, so maybe I'm missing something.

Okay, moving on... Last night (or early this morning) I finished The Club Dumas. I'm sure I would have gotten more out of it if I'd actually read The Three Musketeers. Or anything else by Dumas. Sorry. I was there for all of the Sherlock Holmes references, though. I would have liked more of them, for purely selfish reasons, but I guess the ratio is fair since only four of the Holmes stories were published as serials. Favorite line: "What a lousy world. Even Lucifer has to resort to the small print." It's all very fun, with characters quoting the same lines that the author uses in chapter epigraphs, and illustrations from Dumas books which are referenced when a character is reminded of the book by what's happening around him.

The movie (The Ninth Gate, if you're having trouble keeping up) didn't really spoil anything, since it almost completely drops the book's major storyline. Hence the difference in titles. And some of the jokes are even better in the book -- it's funny to watch for two hours as Johnny Depp drinks constantly and never eats a thing, but it's funnier to read 300+ pages where Corso drinks constantly and never eats at thing. Maybe that's just because I love a running gag.

I also read Rumble Trumble, another of Lansdale's books about Hap & Leonard. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the others. A large portion of it is, essentially, a road trip as the boys try to track down the troubled daughter of Hap's girlfriend, collecting other interested parties along the way. It starts feeling like one of Westlake's caper novels, only without the same amount of funny. I guess what I'm saying is, it drags a bit. I still liked it, but it wasn't as fun as the other books were.

Oh, and one more thing about House of Leaves: Salon has some recordings made by Danielewski, Poe, and company. If you've heard the "Hey Pretty" single, you get the idea -- one of the downloads is actually an earlier version of it. The second one is particularly creepy, in a "Revolution #9" kind of way. If they did a whole album like this I'd get it to play at Halloween parties.