Spent much of the morning answering interview questions about animation and transmedia and I remain shocked – and grateful – that, 11 years after it came out, I'm still answering questions (and capable of answering questions) about a 300-page book I wrote in five months (distilling a lifetime of experience, of course) in my grandparents' basement with much of my research material (comics and big sheets of paper) spread across a pool table while dealing with the foreclosure of my first house, quitting smoking, and the general upending of my life and identity up to that point. Back to it.
“(they) hated my guts – and i loved that”
Awesome video of Danny Elfman talking about his scores for Tim Burton, from BEETLEJUICE to WEDNESDAY (and his collection of hands):
pondside space update
(Backyard) work in progress continues: new rug and K’s flourishes added to the space to make it fully her own. Curtains (orange) ordered and incoming.
Current read; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here.
RED MARS (Robinson, 1992)
Robinson hooked me (and many others, it seems) with MINISTRY OF THE FUTURE's near-future (and getting nearer every day) climate apocalypse bureaucracy and doom and solidified it here: RED MARS is sci-fi and worldbuilding at its most intriguing – and prescient.
The closest analogue to MARS I can conjure is Mervyn Peake's GORMENGHAST series, that rare fantasy series which captured my heart and mind (and reminds me I need to procure the other two) with limited characters – as well-drawn and real as flesh and blood – and excruciatingly detailed worlds not my own (indeed, much of my own frustration in my current WIP is that I'm not seeing the world well enough yet, small and tiny though it may be); Robinson made me feel, with each page turn, as though I was there with that first hundred, uncertain of my allegiances, celebrating and mourning and building and destroying with them. Unflinchingly human, all:
Robinson once said in a City Arts Lecture that you don't write novels as a tool for self-expression but as a way to inhabit the lives of others: RED MARS takes you not just into the minds of deeply drawn and deeply flawed people, but into what feels like each and every dust particle on the red planet; this is a towering achievement. BLUE and GREEN on the docket, but I need to catch my breath first.
My complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here.