World Fantasy Report (late)

So, after having gone on my odyssey to Internet Librarian 2009, I drove up the California coast on highway 1 to Santa Cruz and then over the mountains to San Jose. A great drive, other than the fact that it was after I'd had a flat tire, which was a long and tiresome bummer (I got a tan, though, hanging around waiting for the repair man.)

I had also gone to the Monterey Aquarium (I may have mentioned that before). It was cool, but I think, to get the most out of it, you really need a kid there with you. Two grown adults wandering around don't tend to linger on much of anything, so it's an expensive hour.

World Fantasy this year, I tried a different tack than I have done in the past. I only went to readings. No panels. I saw a lot of great readings, too. Carol Berg, Guy Gavriel Kay, Jeff VanderMeer, Patricia McKillip, Peter Straub, and more. Good stuff.

It was great to hang out with my old friends, like Paul Genesse and Brad Beaulieu. I also met a bunch of cool new people (writers and industry folks), like Barbara Webb, Vince Jorgensen, Martin Cox, Joseph Vasicek, and others that I'm sure I'll remember when I get that one part of my brain back from the shop.

Like all cons where you have something "at stake", it varied from, "this is so great," to, "I'm terrified and alone." Totally worth it though. I felt very unprepared this time, and I didn't really pitch anything. Doing two cons in a row is probably a bit much. Still, the stars aligned, and I had to go for it.

I'll talk more about WF in later posts. Thanks for dropping in.

Bending Nails!

Hey, Folks,

I recently became aware of the "grip strength" world, a place where being able to tear playing card decks, phone books, and so on is looked on with great importance, a place where bending big nails is the order of the day.

My friend and co-worker, Josh Hanagarne "The World's Strongest Librarian" got me into this stuff. It's his fault. No, I suppose it's mine, really, for being a sucker for weird exploits like this.

In any case, I just wanted to crow about bending my first 60D "Sixty Penny" nail. These things are six inches long and big enough that they'd send you looking for a larger hammer to drive them in. Not quite tent stakes, but not far off.

...and I bent one of them. With my hands. No bracing, no tools, just me, some padding to keep me from developing accidental stigmata, and a lot of grunting. If you know your way around the "short bending" world, you know what I'm talking about. If not, you probably think I'm a loony bird. It's possible that both contentions are equally right.

Signing off..

Pics from Monterey

Hey, Folks,

I'm a little behind, but here's the flickr page featuring my photos from Monterey, when I was at Internet Librarian 2009 last week.

Flickr feed of Monterey Pics

Expect my run down of World Fantasy tomorrow or the next day.

Cheers!