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Weekend with the dragon tattoo

Saturday went by much, much too quickly.

It rained for most of the afternoon, and I spent it mostly playing with the dog and watching TV or reading. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to mail out issues of Kaleidotrope this weekend, though I did finally mail a copy of issue #8 that I’ve been neglecting to for a little while now. (A very little while. I’m usually good about that sort of thing.) I just wasn’t going to be able to have all them printed, folded, stapled, enveloped, and mailed. Next Saturday, fingers crossed!

Last night, I watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (on Netflix Watch Instantly), which I think I liked about as much as I did the book. Which is to say that I liked some of it quite a lot, particularly Noomi Rapace’s fearless portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, but found the rest of it a weird mix of padded tedium and gripping (if inelegantly structured) whodunit.

It’s also funny that so much has been made of how the translated title, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is inaccurate, that Laarson’s original, Män som hatar kvinnor (or Men Who Hate Women), is more apt. And it’s true, the book is more about misogyny (and family secrets) than about Lisbeth. Her tattoo gets mentioned, briefly, but it’s hardly important, and she’s hardly the main focus of the story. And yet if you take her character out of the book — and out of the movie — you’re not left with much else that works. Certainly nothing that’s half as intriguing. Rapace is riveting every time she’s on screen; but every time she’s off, you notice. And while the movie streamlines a lot of the book — for better and for worse — it’s still two and a half hours long. Laarson’s title is more accurate, but it’s boring and underlines what doesn’t work; the English title is misleading, but it focuses in on what’s best about the book.

The movie also had what I think is a pretty big spoiler for the next two books. I say think, because I haven’t read them yet. (I may at some point, but it won’t be immediately, even with the second movie now playing in the US.)

Apparently, there’s also a TV show (starring Rapace) in Sweden. I’m a little dumbfounded by the mass appeal of the books, but there’s something there.

Thursday swelter

Another average day, notable mostly only because there was no air conditioning on my train home this evening. And while it was slightly cooler today that earlier this week, thanks to a tiny bit of rain in the morning, the temperature was still hovering around 90°F all day. The air conditioning was still sorely needed. It meant that I got a seat all to myself, in a mostly empty car, as other passengers went in search of fabled (and possibly nonexistent) cooler cars, but it also meant that we were rolling along in a sauna for some forty minutes. Still, as I overheard one other passenger say, “If I move, it’ll probably be just as bad, and I’ll be crowded with a whole bunch of people. I’d rather sweat all over myself alone.”

Beyond that, I’m just trying to get the latest issue of Kaleidotrope together…and realizing that I probably won’t until next weekend. Electronic copies have gone out to some reviewers, but it looks like contributor and subscriber copies just won’t be ready in time to mail them on Saturday like I’d hoped. I’m pretty confident they’ll be ready next weekend, all collated and stapled, so they’ll definitely mail out in early July.

And if you’d still like a copy of the latest issue — or better yet, a four-issue subscription — there’s no time like the present to act on that. Your copy is just a PayPal link — or money sent directly to me — away.

Meanwhile, I think I’m going to close the zine to submissions again for awhile, starting likely in September and running to the end of 2010. I really do want to go back to only two issues for next year, and this seems like the best way to ensure that I’m not so overstuffed with accepted stories as to require three issues again. An extra issue this July hasn’t proved too onerous, but it is an added expense, and the cost of producing an issue — certainly of mailing an issue — can be considerable. Anything I accept at this point is quite possibly not going to appear until April of 2012, and that’s edging into the ridiculous. I don’t want to start telling writers I’ll print their stories, but not for another two or more years.

So I think instituting a reading period is a definite necessity at this point. Then again, given what I’ve already accepted, another July issue might also be needed.

We’ll see.

Summer in the city

My father had a doctor’s appointment this evening, so my mother and I picked him up afterward, and then the three of us went to our neighbor’s wake. I didn’t know too many of the people there, beyond recognizing his sons and other family who’d been visiting lately, but it was lovely to see the large turnout, including many of his fellow veterans. After we’d paid our respects, we grabbed a bite to eat at the nearby Azerbaijani restaurant we’ve ordered from often but never actually eaten in.

And that’s about all the excitement I had today. Mostly it was just back to work and skipping a whole bunch of not mandatory (and probably not useful for me) sales meetings.

I am reassured that, though today felt a whole lot like Monday, it was actually Tuesday, and the week is almost half over. At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself until the second half is done with, too.

Though, if this awful heat keeps up — hottest day in NYC since August of 2001, apparently, well around 100°F all day — that could be tougher than advertised.

Enter title here

Woke up this morning and discovered that somebody had left a TV on our lawn, right near the curb, in the middle of the night. It was gone by the time I got home this evening, so either the garbage collectors took it or, more likely, somebody else drove by and thought, hey, free TV.

That’s about as exciting as the day got. It’s oppressively muggy and hot, not particularly improved by frequent short-lived rainstorms, but at least there’s air conditioning.

I did update the Kaleidotrope website, with the table of contents for next month’s issue. It’s still a work in progress — as is the whole idea of doing a July issue — but I like the idea of running the whole thing off of WordPress, to make updating it considerably easier and all in one spot.

Anyway, that was my Monday, such as it was.

The longest day

Today is supposedly the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, but I can say as I noticed. It was mostly an unexciting day, despite its being my first back at work since last Thursday. I’m feeling a whole lot better, though I can’t quite shake this cough.

Today’s Forgotten English is “puthering,” meaning “pouring with rain,” but it was bright and sunny all day long, so it’s not exactly appropriate. Last Friday’s calendar page, however, offered “inexpressibles” as “a euphemism for trousers,” and I think I’m going to try using that more often in conversation. I think more perfectly innocent words like trousers should have euphemisms that make them sound naughty.

I am a little sad that tomorrow will have just a smidgen less daylight in it, but them’s the breaks.