From Shaun Usher at Letters of Note, a fascinating blog about letters:

"This is how Maurice Sendak sometimes sent his letters. Just imagine getting one."




Maurice Sendak died yesterday, and I'll miss him. I love those few of his books that I own, like a Grimm's fairytales collection he illustrated, and I've given Where the Wild Things Are to any number of friends with babies.

That's pretty much the only book of his that's available in the Netherlands, more's the pity; I still haven't gotten my hands on Outside Over There, which I want for myself, not least because it's a clear source of inspiration for the movie Labyrinth: it's about a girl who goes to rescue her younger sister from the goblins that have stolen her away.

Actually, it's not quite true that I've given Where The Wild Things Are to any number of people.

I've given them, necessarily, the Dutch translation, which is memorable mostly for its title: Max en de Maximonsters.

ARGH.

It's true that the original title is untranslatable, but please.

This cutesy pun seems to me exactly the sort of thing that Sendak would have hated, and Neil Gaiman posted about a terrific two-page comic strip convo between Art Spiegelman and Maurice Sendak that bears me out.

"Childhood is cannibals and psychotics vomiting in your mouth!"

Now there's a quote to go out on.

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Wislawa Szymborska died yesterday. She was 88, she won the Nobel prize for literature, and was one of my favorite poets in any language.

I will now revert to the present tense, because her poems have not died. They are thoughtful, funny, delicate, mordant or gentle, and very precise but not fussy. They are poems about dinosaurs, about terrorists, about the soul, about losing your umbrella in the tram.

This is one of my favorites:

( Cat in an empty apartment )

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I had a blast writing two stories for Yuletide this year:

The Tough Guide to Fantasy Cities for jjhunter.
Gen, 2800 words.
Fandom: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. I love that book, and there were some great stories for it this year.

Summary: You will not encounter any rustic taverns, bards, or bowls of stew on these tours! Instead, expect nightclubs, rock singers, and lots of gourmet coffee.

1000 Advocaten op de Zeebodem for jae.
Het, 1900 words.
Fandom: Pleidooi, an outstanding Dutch television series written by Maria Goos. This one was a real challenge, because I wrote it in Dutch. Sure, that's my first language and all, but I've never written fanfic in it! Another Yuletide first, and what fun.

Summary: Ga bij me weg op een stralende dag.

And my Yuletide gift was a lovely creepy-but-not-too-creepy Hercules and Iolaus story, Bearing Gifts, by jessikast, yay!

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marthawells's fantasy novel The Cloud Roads is a free Kindle ebook today.

That is excellent news, particularly as this is her first book in a new series, with book 2, The Serpent Sea, coming out in January.

The Cloud Roads is a spectacular fantasy. It's entirely its own thing: I can't easily point to another book or genre and say "that's what it's like", which is praise in itself. The landscape is unique, the characters come in all colors and shapes -- the main character, Moon, is a winged shapechanger who has never found anyone belonging to his own kind, amid all the people with gills and tusks and scales -- and it has all the Martha Wells trademarks of deep worldbuilding, clever, competent and witty characters, and a ton of plot.

Mostly, what I keep thinking as I read this book is: I want Miyazaki to film this. I want that SO BAD. He would get such a kick out of the flying people and airships and floating sky islands and cities built like giant wheels. *flails*

Note: the free Kindle ebook isn't available in Europe (at least, not to me, snf) but it should work just fine in the US.

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Hi! Yay, you share at least one of these wonderful fandoms with me, and I’m so glad you chose to write them. Have an excellent Yuletide! And please do not worry about the tl;dr below: optional details are optional, and only there in case you’d like to have something to kickstart your story.

Things I love, in general
I love happy endings, especially after tense, difficult situations. Some of my favorite story tropes are hurt/comfort, A sacrificing himself for B, and "A thinks B is dead, but he's not really". I also love light, funny stories, plot, snark, missing scenes, understated longing, ordinary domestic days in the life of the characters, epistolary stories, and stories written from an outside point of view.

Things I love about these particular fandoms:

( The Lost Room, Burn Notice, Vorkosigan Saga, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys )

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Gorgeous, gorgeous fairytale art in the kidpix comm, which I found through astridv: large scans from the book Legends of Ancient Kazachstan.

The post is in Russian, but it's all pictures, and I'm saving them all.

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The current OTW election wank has me sick to my stomach, and I like what morgandawn said:

My prescription: do something for fandom today: send feedback, leave a kudo, write some code, make a Fanlore entry, post a drabble.  Remind yourself - and others - why you love fandom - and fans.

I don't love everything about the AO3, but I love some things about it very much. The download-story-as-ebook feature is a godsend to me, as someone who reads books on three different e-readers as well as the iPhone.

So I thought I'd post this short guide on how to save AO3 stories on your iPhone to read offline. This can come in handy when you want to save your phone's battery, or when you're in transit and don't have an internet connection, and I use it all the time for longer stories.

You also don't need to use iTunes for this particular way of downloading ebooks.

( How to Read AO3 Fanfic on Your iPhone Without Being Online )

I really hope this is useful, and please comment if anything's unclear!

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O mysterious magical person who gave me a DW paid account: thank you very much! This was kind of a crappy week so far, and you have improved it hugely, <3!

I clearly need to get back into the habit of posting, because while I do still read and comment on DW and LJ, I just don't talk much, I guess. If anyone has anything they would like me to talk about, now's a good time to comment. :-)

Today I will leave you with this video under the cut, which I've been playing on loop for a while now.

( Sunshine of Your Love )

I love Ella so much, you guys. This song, if you don't know it, is originally by Cream and IMO is your average droning, vaguely creepy stoner rock song, sung by guys who are much better at guitar playing than singing. And Ella takes that song and kicks it out of the park, over the roof and straight down the highway.

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Vidder: marycrawford
Music: "Mystery Dance" by Elvis Costello
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Length: 1: 47
Description: Birds do it, bees do it -- surely a starship captain can figure this out.
Notes: This vid premiered at Vividcon 2011, as an auction vid for the fabulous thefourthvine.

Download from my website: Big (.mp4, 38 Mb) | Medium (.avi, 23 Mb ) | Small (.avi, 14 Mb) | Lyrics | Subtitles

( Streaming version below )

Feedback extremely welcome, the critical sort included!

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So after the Comic Con trailer for Legend of Korra (thanks, elynross!) got me all excited, I saw this:

Comic Con Legend of Korra Panel 2011 Transcript -- SPOILERS GALORE if you go here.

This is the creators discussing character sketches and the premise of the show. There's video links for the panel as well, but I love that there's a transcript, as I personally hate watching people talk when I could read them instead. The transcript also has pics of all the character sketches, which is great, especially seeing them morph from rough ideas into final versions.

It's looking awesome, and I can't wait to see the show. (We'll have to wait a year, just fyi. "Mid-2012" is all I know.)

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