The Mouth That Roared

All Hail the Immanence of the Book!

I managed to resist starting this until after Thursday night's rehearsal. 
I did not resist finishing it in one go, ending at 4:30AM. 

That may sound abnormally slow for me, but that is because this book is just so darned much fun that I kept rereading short passages, some of them out loud, just so that I could enjoy them more.  As usual, Seanan's characters are impossibly witty and wonderfully insane, and I wish my life had their dialogue.

To nick a comparison from one of the many reviews I think I read, this book is a tale of what happens when Lawful Good (with an out of date playbook) meets Chaotic Good.  The Lawful side is represented by Dominic DeLuca, scion of the Covenant of St. George, an ancient order dedicated to protecting mankind from any creatures not ordained by God, whether mankind wants to be protected or not.  He knows his mission is righteous - that is until he meets chaos itself in the form of Verity Price, descendant of a family declared traitor by the Covenant for sensibly asking whether mankind really needed this protection.  Verity is a cryptozoologist, cocktail waitress, free-running expert and aspiring ballroom dancer, and she proceeds to merrily turn Dominic's life upside down by making him actually THINK about what he is doing.  And there isn't a lot of time to do so, because cryptid girls are disappearing and there may be something ancient and asleep under New York City...

I wouldn't call this book Great Art, but it's a cracking good romp, full of wonderfully-realized characters who may look human but have different biology, motivations and social structure.  I'm not sure I can explain the glee with which I greeted Istas, whose humanoid form is a curvy Inuit-looking Gothic Lolita but whose other shape is an enormous wolf-bear-OMGRUN thing.  Her species is solitary and has sensibilities that often appear odd to human social norms.  By the time she tells someone that she "will play skipping games with your intestines while wearing your lungs as a hat", you don't even bat an eyelash, because that's just the way she is.

And then there are the mice...  I would cheerfully pay to have access to an Aeslin Mice Devotional Calendar, complete with e-mail reminders of celebrations and festivals.

reedrelay is next in line for my copy, or you can get one yourself in either dead-tree or Kindle formats.

In other news:
A few more entries up at Behind The Red Door.  I didn't write the one about having your dog in your wedding....

I've also taken on another (unpaid) project - this time as a copy editor.  I know someone through the Steampunk community who is doing OK at self-publishing short ebooks on Amazon.  I read SteamDrunks, which is a delightful romp through actual period drink recipes with snarky commentary and occasionally tasty revisions.  The text, however, made my eyeballs bleed.  The inconsistent capitalization, slightly-wrong-word-itis, etc made my brains hurt.  So I sent her a nice note that said "Loved your book, it was very funny, umm...would you like a copy editor?"  She is actually quite excited at the idea of her work looking better, and I have yet another easy answer for when prospective employers ask me "So what have you been doing since your last job?"  I finished the edits this evening, and she can go over them and then upload the corrected copy.  She plans to have a new work out every 3-5 weeks, and they are of such a length that I can bang them out in an afternoon. (The link is for the uncorrected edition)

I'm having my occasionally-annual Zombie Easter Party (He rose from the dead, but he wasn't alone!) on Saturday April 7th.  This year;s afternoon of candy and blasphemy will feature Season 1 of The Walking Dead.  We start around noon, and bring something to eat or drink please, as I'm still unemployed.

I'm now a more-or-less regular player in the Tuesday night Irish Seisun at The Celtic Knot in Evanston.  Merry Measure is playing from 12-3 on St. Patrick's Day at Durty Nellies in Palatine.  (Note that the schedule on that page is for the Music Room only - we are playing in the new Whiskey Bar area).

A bit of a project from hell this week - I did some custom stuff for a faire performer I know from waaay back.  He needed a new jerkin and pants that work with his acts (juggling, slack-rope, close-up magic), and had a particular color scheme in mind.  Of course, as a performer it was really important to keep things on a budget. He was off the road for a while but now that his kid is 13 he can do more traveling again.

He gave me a pair of pants to copy for size, a hat to match/coordinate the color scheme, and a pattern for the "secret magician thingies" that the vest needed, which helped immensely.  He wanted teal, yellow and burgundy, and we talked about the physicial needs of his performances (wide armholes for movement, size and placement of pockets)  as well as the look he wanted (dressed-up peasant style rather than faded-down nicer style).  Since I've been out on circuit more recently than he has, I was also able to identify another variety act for him that uses yellow/burgundy as their primary colors (The Tortuga Twins) and make sure that his jerkin was teal with the other colors on pants and trim. 

I had a homespun-looking upholstery fabric that I'd been given at one point, with multi-colored threads in the weave.  I cut the jerkin out and overdyed the pieces with teal in a pot on my stove.  The lighter colors mostly picked up the dye like I wanted them to, while the darker ones are just enough to provide a nice depth of texture.  Some of the colored threads didn't take dye at all, so there are hints of other colors in there as well.  It really came out nice.

It took longer than I'd estimated - which was entirely my fault.  Partly because I screwed up the lining at one point (working in the secret magician stuff) and it tore while I was fixing that, so I had to hand work a patch over it.  He's leaving Tuesday morning for Florida, so re-doing that section just wasn't an option.  Also partly because I slightly misunderstood how the secret magician thingie worked and didn't realize that there was another piece in there that also needed to be inserted by hand.  But I am chalking that up to a learning experience and also figure that the knowledge of how that works to be part of my pay.

Its REALLY hard to talk about this project without getting specific about that thingie!!!  But I'm trying to be respectful, so I hope this makes sense.

He came by this morning to pick them up, and I watched him "vanish" a roll of tape so we know it works.  The pants have pockets exactly where he wanted them for props. I used a fabric with a bit of stretch even though they are loose-fitting so that there is no danger of them binding anywhere, and cut them to exactly where he wants them for his rope-walking.  He definitely has the clown look he wanted, but distinct and not at all modern, with a bit of texture rather than flat swaths of color.  Since part of the goal of this trip is to get updated photos and video, I'll post them when I get them. 

I find this kind of work really satisfying.  I have a pretty odd and specialized skillset, and this job played to that.  I was able to give him exactly what he needs to do his job, and so that he doesn't have to think about his clothing while he works.  Everything is precisely where it needs to be - the pockets sit exactly where his hands naturally fall, and are big enough to hold what he needs them to.  He has the look he wants and that can't be confused with anyone else currently working (at least in the upper midwest).  I was up too late, and have needle-fingers, but I'm really happy with the way it came out.