Episode 2 of the Lilja and Lou Podcast is now available. I talk about the red carpet premiere of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.
I posted my review of The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli on the weekend. I finished reading Long Gone by Alafair Burke (her first standalone non-procedural novel) and started Flashback by Dan Simmons, which I’ve had on my Kindle for a long time but keep forgetting to read.
That was quite a season finale of Fringe. The observer’s prediction came true but the lemon cake from the week before provided the clue to the solution. Walter is such an amazing character. I kept worrying at the end that Olivia would have some sort of change of heart—again—something to prolong the will-they/won’t they with Peter. Glad that wasn’t the case. Looks like they’re setting us up for next season to be all about the incidents we saw in “Letters of Transit” a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if Rebecca Mader was cast because she could do that creepy thing with her eyes. Of all the things we’ve seen on this show, that had to rank in the top one or two on the creepy list. Brrrrrrr.
We finished season two of Downton Abbey this week, along with the Christmas special. Now we have to wait until the fall for the third season to find out what’s going to happen with Mr. Bates. Don’t you think that by the time they’re married and sharing a bed, Anna could stop calling him that? Good riddance to Sir Richard, by the way. “I won’t be seeing you any more,” he says to the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith). “Do you promise?” she shoots back. And Mary and Matthew finally get their signals uncrossed at the end, as the snow falls. Good to see Daisy getting a better handle on her situations. Not quite sure who the final Ouija board message was meant for: Anna, Daisy…or Matthew?
When Kim decided not to get rid of Chelsea when it came down to the final four on Survivor, I was sure she’d made a million dollar mistake. Then again, when she didn’t get rid of Christina in the final three. However, when the voting came around and they showed one written vote for Kim and one for Sabrina, I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. This time I was right: Chelsea got no votes whatsoever. I hadn’t realized that the other castaways found her cold and unemotional. She was the one who teared up at least twice during the final tribal. She played an interesting game, though she didn’t make the bold moves that Kim did. I have to think that Sabrina got sympathy votes, because she didn’t make any moves. No question Kim deserved to win, but I figured at least Jonas would vote for Chelsea after sort of flirting with her during the final tribal.
It’s hard to fathom, though, the way Christina just took the news she was out and didn’t do anything to fight back. As Troy-zan said during the reunion show, he got outplayed and out-dumbed. The big surprise of the final episode was Kat’s speech during final tribal. Where did that come from? Especially when you see the huge spat she and Alicia got into at Ponderosa the first night Alicia was there. Almost a cat-fight. Jonas was funny, too, with his introductory instructions: you will call me Master Jonas. They spent a lot of time with Colton on the reunion show—I wonder if he’s one of the three people who returned for the next season. His poor mother. And I’m not quite sure what that bit with Mayim Bialik was meant to do. It was funny to see Probst mess up and talk to one of the people evicted early about events that happened after he was eliminated.
The howling dogs next door woke us up. Apparently something about the approaching storm disturbed them. Traumatized, it sounded like. It was somewhere between two and three a.m. Once the thunder started and the rains came, they shut up, so we got back to sleep.
I think I know what I’m going to write about for my next Storytellers Unplugged essay. Except, before I write about it, I have to finish what I’m writing. So I can write about it. Get it? Me, neither. But I will. I hope.
We had a very wet beginning to the year, but it didn’t take long for people to start thinking about drought again when it didn’t rain for a few weeks. We had a brief but loud thunderstorm in the middle of the night and the promise of much more over the next few days, starting shortly. The weather radar shows a mass shaped something like the English Isles (and only slightly smaller) headed our way from the west.
I spent an hour on Skype yesterday with Lou Sytsma and Hans-Åke Lilja being interviewed for their next podcast. We talked about a variety of subjects and I believe the material will be used for two podcasts. This is the first time Lilja and I have spoken to each other, though we’ve been communicating via e-mail for many years.
I know I’m not really ready to write a story when I find myself going back over the section I’ve already written, editing it to death, without adding much new to the text. That’s the way things were with my work in progress this week. I don’t even have a title for the thing yet, which is never a good sign. However, I made one strong step forward during yesterday’s writing session, so I’m heading in the right direction, I hope. I have a few weeks to get this thing whipped into shape.
I hear a lot of people asking the same question: where the hell did April go?
It’s funny how you don’t hear about short story submissions for weeks at a time and then a couple of responses come back within an hour of each other. It’s like they’re conspiring or something. In this case, though, it was a rejection followed by an acceptance, so that’s okay. Better than the other way around. I don’t have a contract for the acceptance yet, so I won’t mention what and where it is for the time being.
Heard a funny Tom Petty anecdote on the radio this morning. He had a riff but no song. Kept playing it over and over again. Then he got the chorus, which ultimately became The Waiting is the Hardest Part, but nothing more. For a week he kept picking up the guitar and playing the same thing over and over again. Eventually (he said, probably in jest) people started pounding on the walls. Don’t play that any more.
I received my contributor copy of The Crane House from Cemetery Dance last night and finally got a chance to read the story. My contribution is Chapter 5, so there was a lot that happened after I passed it on to Brian Freeman. I really admired the way Ray Garton wrapped it up at the end. He went back to elements from Brian Keene’s opening chapter and used them in unexpected and smart ways.