Countdown to Launch!

I'm back from San Francisco, where the book was received VERY warmly! If you want to read about the conference (which was stellar), please follow this link.

The launch I'm talking about is the book launch. I’ve just gotten confirmation that my book will have its official launch on Monday, April 14. Please – if your schedule allows it, join me at CCC for this event. (C'mon, you know your taxes will be done by then!) The shindig will begin at 7 p.m. in the Keeter Auditorium where I’ll talk a little bit about the project and why popular culture is worthy of serious examination in the first place. I’ll discuss a bit from the book - and where else can you go to talk about vampires on a Monday night in Shelby? Also, a reception will follow. Hopefully, strawberries will be involved for any Kaylee fans out there and it is my sincere hope that no malevolent Chumash spirits will crash the party.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and, if you ask nicely, I’ll sign your purchase. Heck, I’ll do that if you ask harshly! But please take Giles’ advice and do not speak Latin in front of the books.

Again, mark your calendars! Monday, April 14 at 7 p.m. in the Keeter Auditorium at CCC. Tell your friends and better yet, bring them along!

The Luck o' the Irish!

As John Belushi once said, "More like the BAD luck of the Irish!" Potato famine, failed rebellions (including the Easter Rising of 1916), civil war, etc., etc. (Although he was Albanian, so what did he know?) Nevertheless, today is the traditional wearing o' the green; a day where otherwise sane Americans go around talking like the Lucky Charms mascot.

I've been in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day - very different. Not better, not worse - just different. And Dublin's only kinda/sorta Irish these days. I guess it depends on what "Ireland" you want. Dublin is more European - if you want the romanticized stone walls, green fields dotted with sheep, harp and pennywhistle music floating out of a pub - go west, young man.

Let me make it clear: I love Ireland. I love the moodiness of the weather, the poetry of the speech pattern, the sense of history being right there, and the boundless optimism in the face of odds that would have long ago made most people tuck their heads down. And the Celtic Tiger of Ireland's financial success and growth was centuries in coming. As for being Irish-American, well, it's a doubtful claim for me at best. While I can legitimately claim Celtic ancestry (as can most Southerners; the Scots-Irish were the primary settlers out this-a-way), it's so far back that I'm just plain ol' 'Merican and I like it that way. Still - there's something about the Irish.

The band Black 47 (named after the worst year of the potato famine - which wasn't a "famine;" there was enough food in Ireland to export. It was a deliberate starvation) writes some great stuff. Some of it's loud and raucous, like the ri-ra of a good Irish ceilidh, some of it's mournful, and some of it's angry. If you really want to observe St. Patrick's Day (he was Welsh, anyway), check them out.

I'll be off to San Francisco for the National Popular Culture/American Culture Associations conference beginning tomorrow and I expect to be posting about the conference, the attendees, and the city over on the other blog; the one that's devoted to academia and Joss Whedon. Please follow the link and bookmark unfetteredbrilliance.

From W. B. Yeats poem about the failed Rising of 1916:

I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Faith and Choice

Hallelujah and pass the chocolate! Not only is the book done, I've held my baby in my hands! I nearly tripped over the square box - writing has not made me one lick more graceful - and I tore into it like a five-year-old on Christmas morning. I didn't post immediately because I had a nefarious scheme afoot to thank my fine, tireless, and noble editors/proofreaders/
cheerleaders/wardens for all their efforts and I wanted their copies to be surprises. Keeping the secret was nearly fit-inducing and that plan almost worked - we had a great time regardless. In all honesty, I can't thank them enough for all their efforts over the past, oh, let's say eighteen months.

I know I'm biased, but I have to say, it's beautiful. By the way and for heaven's sake, don't bother to point out any typos you may find; I've already come across a couple and I've decided to view them as freckles. When God created the world, He looked at His work and proclaimed it very good, He never said it was perfect. Therefore, a couple of typos are in keeping with that general theme.

I'm not sure what happens from here - it's not like a parade is planned (although I'm fully in favor of that idea, but only if they have elephants. Have to have elephants in a parade). Official publication is still set for June; I simply got advance copies. McFarland is sending me copies of notices that are running in publications such as Booklist, which is pretty cool. WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD! Of course, you don't have to wait until June to buy your very own copy - while Amazon has the book available for pre-order (I think I'm listed at something like Number 2.1 million, but hey! I'm on the list!), you can buy now if you order directly from the publisher. Go here and tell 'em Dale sent you. I hope to have a book launch at the college in about a month (after spring break, at any rate - plans are very preliminary at this point) at which time I'll talk about why popular culture is worth the bother of studying in the first place. Then the biennial international Whedon conference (Slayage 3) in June nearly coincides with the official publication date, so I'll probably be stalking the crowd. (I know, nearly pitiful, but hey! it might be a l-o-n-g time before I do this again.)

It's been a long, uphill climb and I skinned my knees a couple of times clambering over the rocks, but I have to say that the view's spectacular from up here. Hey, look! I can see my house . . .

Calling for the Check

It seems that there are any number of pithy phrases regarding stress. There's the one about the two-ended candle, the one about recompensing the piper, and so on. Well, it seems that I delayed payment as best I could, but that finally my bluff that "I never got that, so I shouldn't have to pay it; can't I at least have a few extra days; oh, that - that's in the mail" was called by The Powers That Be. I've been revealed as an inept juggler who tried a couple of balls too many.

In short, I'm a stress-puppy just now. I've been one for the last week or so and probably will be for another week or so. I know some people thrive on pressure and I do tolerably well, but it's not something I actively yearn for. My friend Stacked Librarian has a theory that this is just delayed stress from the book-writing project bubbling up to the surface. I'm not sure, but I think that no one is indispensable and right now, I'd really like to take about three days off to test the theory. Alas, I teach and that's just not an option. I like teaching, so I don't want to not be there - substitutes never do things quite the way I want them done. (Did I mention my tendencies toward control-freakism that are also plaguing me just now?)

Sigh.

Oh, for a late-February snowstorm. As it is, I'd better dig out the karmic checkbook - that piper's starting to glare at me.

Callooh, Callay!

While I don't think I've actually slain the Jabberwock, it may at least have been the Jubjub bird. So please - join me in a moment of well-deserved celebration. The book-beast has been delivered unto the publisher, properly updated and indexed (which is sort of the publishing equivalent of the twelve-pointer being trussed and wrestled into the bed of the pickup). Yep, the final edits in manuscript form are done and everything is indexed and even (mostly) cross-referenced. Never having put together that sort of index before, I can tell you with confident authority that the alphabet is harder than you might think it is.

But it's done. Sent by me and received by the publisher, so now it's a waiting game. I won't actually believe it until I hold the final product, bound in a shiny cover (and yes, I've seen the cover art. Squeee! I'll say no more), but it seems I'm an author now. How can I work that onto my business cards? I don't want to give up "Notorious Adventuress" but perhaps something will suggest itself. Maybe "Loquacious Wordsmith."

Hmmm. Maybe not. Well, I'm open to suggestions.

I appreciate that not many people in the world give a rip about this project - it's hardly likely to be a best-seller or a "beach read," but by golly, I'm pretty proud of my baby. And if you're going to be so much of a sheep as to live by the standards and opinions of the rest of the world instead of trusting your own lights, well, they might as well make a sweater out of you.

Yeah, I know. Easy to say, hard to do. Still, at least for the moment - Callooh, Callay!!!

A Rhetorical Question

. . . that's been bugging me for the last few days.

Why do all things electronic seem to resent me? I'll admit, I don't understand binary code as a primary language, but I know enough to identify the slidy-out-thing as a place to put a CD or DVD, rather than thinking my computer comes with a handy cupholder.

Alas, it appears that more is required of me. At this moment, my home computer is poxed with - well, something. Whatever it has, it's got it bad. It'll try to connect to Windows, but will then give the computer equivalent of a death rattle and - well, it's bad. Further, my laptop (it's work related; I travel for my job) will, for some freakish reason, hop on a wireless connection with no problem, but really doesn't want to connect through a cable and my house doesn't have wireless. So I'm at the coffee shop. I've been updating student rolls and announcements (long story that really isn't interesting to anyone who isn't me, so I'll spare you), but decided to post a "why me?" sort of thing.

Sigh. I know February isn't really out to get me, but some days it looks that way.

No picture this week - it's just one more chance for something electronic to go screwy.

There's good stuff going on, too, but I'm sticking with my theme here. I know I have some sackcloth around here somewhere . . . woe, woe, woe!! (Rending of garments, gnashing of teeth. Repeat as necessary.)

The Shortest Month

I must confess that February is not my favorite month. Oh, sure, on the calendar, it's the shortest. But in the real world, February has a nasty tendency to stretch out far beyond what is decent and acceptable in polite society. That said, I'll still admit that the groundhog (aka "woodchuck") is sort of fun.

In my part of the world, February is a trickster. Think of it as the Joss Whedon of months. (Ignore the part in parentheses if that last sentence confused you.) We'll have days that are warm enough to make you wish for a convertible. You're walking along with a spring in your step, taking note of the optimistic crocuses and jonquils poking their tender little heads up above the once-cold earth, providing a visual promise that spring is a-coming. (Look, Fred and Wesley are finally getting together! Yay and it's about time!) Then, just as your heart is thawing toward the minx of a month, WHAMMO!! Three days of cold, miserable, steel-grey rain will come slashing down. ("Why can't I stay?" followed by "Yes, please.")

Sigh.

Well, there's no way out except through it. And it's not all bad - the underdog Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl in a game that truly separated the boys from the Manning. (Rimshot!)

So it's time to find out, once and for all - how much wood can a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?