kaleidotrope

Rainy day

It was a rainy day here, off and on, and so I went to see Super 8 at a local theater. I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. Roger Ebert calls it “nostalgia not for a time but for a style of filmmaking” — that style being early Spielberg — and I think that’s right. (As, probably, are his criticisms, although I think I minded less.

Other than that, I spent some of the day reading Kaleidotrope slush. Next year, I am definitely having shorter reading periods. Maybe January through April and September through December?

Tuesnesday?

Yesterday felt like a Monday, but it had the great benefit of already being a Tuesday. Today felt like a Tuesday, and it was actually a Wednesday, but that’s a whole lot less impressive, and by the middle of the week one day is pretty much the same as all the others. None of them, quite yet, are Friday.

I did get some really cool news via Twitter today: Maria Deira’s short story “The Giant of Malheur Park,” which I first published in the October 2010 issue of Kaleidotrope has been accepted by the fantasy audio zine Podcastle. This isn’t the first time an author from the zine has had work appear on one of the three terrific Escape Artists podcasts, but I do believe it’s the first time a story that first appeared in Kaleidotrope has appeared. My congratulations again to Deira — it’s a neat story, and I look forward to listening to it.

That, and the same-old-same-old at work, was pretty much my Tuesday-slash-Wednesday.

Sunny Saturday

I got a new cell phone today. I was due, and my old one has had a crack down the front for the past week. (I’m not sure how that happened, but I suspect I threw the phone on my bed, then something else like my bag or a book, that accidentally landed on the phone. Some such clumsy physics.)

That’s about it. I tried reading a little Kaleidotrope slush in the backyard, the weather just gorgeous here today, and I read through a few stories. More, hopefully, tomorrow. My reading period ends on August 31. I’m thinking next year, I’ll end it even earlier, maybe January to June.

Squirrely

Today wasn’t exactly what I’d call an exciting, or even particularly interesting day. Oh sure, somebody wrote a weird and nasty comment at the Kaleidotrope website, and then this evening I saw the squirrel in the backyard. It seemed to be having trouble getting out of the backyard, which is the only reason I bring it up. Either the squirrel was injured that I couldn’t see, or it was just too young to be skilled at climbing fences. (It was on the smallish side.) I had our dog with us in the backyard, so I had to make sure, at the very least, those two didn’t cross paths.

But, really, besides those two not very exciting things, nothing much happened today.

Saturday

Today, I mailed out contributor and subscriber copies of the latest issue of Kaleidotrope. I got a haircut. I cleaned a little. I wrote a little. I saw a little bit of the royal wedding, on repeat, finding myself more interest in the architectural grandeur of Westminster Abbey itself than any of the rest of it. (I wasn’t able to go inside when I was in England.) And I watched Birdemic: Shock and Terror, although I don’t think I could have made it through the film with a little help from RiffTrax.

So that was my Saturday.