John Teehan — More Than You Wish You Knew

Did You Know?… Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown was the first Christmas special to air first in Antarctica before being broadcast in the US. This was not intentional, but due to an accidental entry of routing codes which sent the broadcast to the Amundsen-Scott Research Station instead of a much-needed weather broadcast. Despite three deaths and five severe frostbite cases, the special was given rave reviews.

Did You Know?… While it’s well established that Torchwood is a spin-off of Doctor Who, few realize that there is also a connection between that show and the 70s show Barney Miller. Take careful notice of the backgrounds, in particular, the sign-out board behind Yanto’s desk which lists the names  Yemana, Harris, Wojciehowicz, and Fish.

Did You Know?… When first broadcast, The Jetsons was set in the future year of 2010. We are now officially in the Jetsons era. Disappointing, ain’t it? Current broadcasts and DVD releases have been edited to push The Jetsons‘ in-show year as being 2025.

Did You Know?… The soap operas The Days of Our Lives and As the World Turns were actually the same show. No one really noticed.

Did You Know?… Happy Days was thought to be Fidel Castro’s favorite show. Through intermediaries, he offered several times to perform a guest role and, at one point, was scheduled to portray Fonzie’s long-lost father. Diplomacy fell through at a crucial stage of negotiations.

Did You Know?… Gilligan’s Island is the only multi-season television show to have been recorded in both English and Esperanto. Due to copyright agreements with the United Nations, the Esperanto editions will not be made available to the general public for another 25 years.

Did You Know?… During the 1950s, the FCC did not allow any television characters to wear the color red. This was to avoid any associations with communism. That most televisions only broadcast in black and white did not seem to make a difference.

*   *   *

And it’s back to work. Turned in a couple of revisions yesterday. Today I’m hoping to finish a photobook/bio layout and a poetry book layout. Then for the weekend, it’s editing articles for the medical journal.

No rest for the wicked.

Or me.

Actually, we’ll see if’n we can’t take a little bit of time for oneself. I have a couple of painting projects I want to keep working on. I’ve been working on the preliminary warm-up pieces. Experimenting with some processes that will go into larger works. A couple of trial-and-error lessons that can only be taught by doing it.

Now I’ve done did it, and so far, so good.

Cheers!

I’m tempted to write about our recent hurricane experiences, but compared to the experiences suffered by other fine folks I know, we got off easy. Yes, we were out of power for a couple of days. We lost some food from the fridge. The dog was not a fan of the darkness policy at night (nor of the weather in general). But some folks are only just getting their power back now. Some are still waiting. Some didn’t have the option of charging an iPhone in the car, or going to a WiFi spot or a place to leech laptop battery juice for the price of a cup of coffee. We learned a few new things about our home when it comes to hurricanes. Next one will be a breeze–so to speak.

Instead, what would be much more interesting to write about would be the topic of some of the book projects I’m involved with. Despite winds and rains, I manage to complete galleys for two new Merry Blacksmith titles, The Eden Retrieval by Matt Howarth and A Giant in the House & Other Excesses by Daniel Pearlman.

The former is a skillfully rendered meeting of science fiction adventure with classic Cthulhu horror. I’ve seen a lot of modern writers attempt to capture the Lovecraft feel while still be accessible and enjoyable for the modern audience, but so few can pull it off. Matt Howarth is one of those exceptions. The story, the characters, and the writing will blow you away. I suspect it has something to do with his four decades of experience writing horror-SF comics (of which we may be seeing some in the near future).

Daniel Pearlman’s book is a heady collection of twelve stories perhaps best categorized (if one must do so) as “the literary fantastic.” Each story is finely crafted and presented. Each story is a suckerpunch of feeling, recognition, and a bit of wonder. These stories previous appeared in a number of lauded publications such as Spectrum, The MacGuffin, and Nemonyous.

Add to this a couple of poetry books, and we’re keeping quite busy.

On the BearManor Fiction side of things, I’m about finished with the next round of edits on Jules Verne’s The Count of Chanteleine: a Novel of the French Revolution. This is fascinating reading with some unique historical insight. I’m also working on Charlie of Nob Hill by Gene Arceri–a charming story of a cat that looks like Charlie Chaplin. I’m putting finishing touches on The Screeching Door: Three Spooky Tales by noted children’s author Jan Wahl. And to keep things varied, we have a thriller in the works by Steve Hayes and David Whitehead entitled Under the Knife.

For BearManor Media, I’m nearly finished with the Ida Lupino book. Then it’s on to a book about werewolves on film. Good stuff. And more projects lined up after that. For Intellect, I had some edits for one book to finish while a second is out for proof. Then it’s on to a book on Italian theatre.

And then there’s the next issue of the medical journal.

So, yeah… keeping busy. All great stuff, all the time. And now that the pesky, nasty little hurricane is history, I can really get some work done.

Cheers!

Goddam hurricane has knocked out our power and internet. While coffeeshops with wifi still exist, you can’t stop the signal!

Regular broadcasts will resume when I can see what I’m doing.

Time to open up the mailbag and answer reader questions. This isn’t me just doing my part to contribute to society and the betterment of humanity. It’s court-appointed.

Q. I’m considering signing up the National-Novel-Writing-in-a-Month challenge. Any advice? (Ollie O. Oxenfree, Hide-and-Seek, AZ)

A. Yes. For each word you fall short of your daily quota… add an angry bee to your household.

Q. I’ve heard you have to wait half an hour after eating before swimming. Is this true? (Tauxeth O’Malley, Grade 6)

A. No. Of course common sense dictates some moderation in how much one eats prior to swimming. What you should be asking is if it’s safe to eat half an hour after swimming. The answer is, of course, that it’s perfectly safe, but I find not enough people consider asking that.

Q. How does the city bus service justify higher fares with decreasing service? (Former mayor Richard J. Daley’s ghost, Underneath the El)

A. While it seems the obvious answer is pointing at the economy and budget crises shared among cities all across the country… but this would be too easy. I suggest the justification is based in scripture. If you look long enough you can find jusitifcation for almost anything in scripture.

Do not mess with this dude. He created Groo the Wanderer.

Q. Who would win in a fight? Don Martin or Sergio Aragones? (Chris Reilly, behind you)

A. This is a planted question. Chris recalls full well how we both watched Martin and Aragones square off in a cage match at MAD Magazine‘s annual Arbor Day celebration. Sergio Aragones won… but only by a margin.

Q. By a margin? I don’t get it. Is that supposed to be funny? (Women everywhere)

A. Yeah, kind of. Look, not all of these are going to be winners. Not even most.

Q. Is this real reader mail? I mean… are people really sending you these questions or are you just making them up? (President George W. Bush, Yeehaw, TX)

A. Absolutely. Thanks for asking.

*   *   *

And off we go to finish another week. Friday is clean-up day. I try to tie up as many loose ends as I can so that the weekend is relatively free. I think I’ll still be putting in some work this weekend, but I can at least try to minimize it.

I have a couple of paintings I want to focus on a bit over the weekend. One is nearly finished… just a few more layers. Another is… well… not turning out the way I hoped. I’m considering just painting over the whole thing and trying something else. Then there’s the one with a stronger design element. That’s the one I’m going to be concentrating on, I think.

Oh, did I mention I have a new car? Well… an new used car. Just bought it last night. A 1991 red Volvo 740 SE wagon. Drives great. Looks awesome. Hipster as hell, but I think I can take that polish off. It needs to be insured, registered, and inspected before it can be street legal, but I should be able to get that accomplished within the next couple of weeks. It’ll be nice to have access to a car during the day. And it looks like it’s in good enough condition to handle a few long hauls, so I’m hoping it will make getting to more SF conventions easier as well.

Okay, enough of this. Back to work.

Cheers!

This is just one of those days where there is not going to be any time to compose something special for today’s entry. Too much work to do to spend a lot of time on thoughtful thoughts and meanings full of meaningfulness, yet not to busy as to ignore posting something altogether.

We hit Borders one last time last night. We came home with over $200 worth of books for less than $80.  Margaret loaded up on fiction. I picked up the Wilson book by Dan Clowes, and Art of McSweeney’s which has a lot of great pieces I want to steal be inspired by. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot else to choose from in the art section. Even the typography books I had been considering were gone.

But that aside, I’ve come to a decision of sorts. I think I’m going to go e-book when it comes to works of fiction. It’s cheaper. It takes up a lot less space. I have absolutely no problem enjoying reading a book on my iPhone. I’ll still be buying plenty of books, but those will likely be the nonfiction books. The books on art and design. Essays. History. That sort of thing. And comics, too. Not ready to read those electronically.

But fiction? Yeah, I can e-read those. Mind you, it’s not a binding decision. There will be exceptions. Out of print books, for instance. Cheap used copies of titles I wouldn’t mind taking up shelf-space. Special editions of certain authors’ works. I mean, if I find a dead-tree edition of a piece of fiction and I want it, I’ll get it. My decision is more like with books that I might consider more dispoable fiction, e.g., Dan Brown, Preston & Child, Clancy, will be e-books. Folks like, say, Gaiman or VanderMeer or Bujold or Resnick I’ll still get hardcopies of because I know I’ll re-read them and want them on my shelves.

Just thinking.

And on that note, going to wrap this up. Finishing up a book on teaching writing to artists, then it’s back to various BearManor and Merry Blacksmith titles.

Cheers!

I was talking with Margaret last night who told me that we apparently have one more chance to take advantage of our Borders Reward card before the whole kit ‘n kaboodle goes belly-up. This will mean getting books even more cheaply than we had before and, needless to say, we’ll be descending, vulture-like, on the spoiling corpse of the iconic bookstore chain.

 

 

And it led us to further discuss, to beat the dead horse so to speak, on Border’s demise. One of the key arguments made in explaining why Borders went down was due to their lack of selection. This is why we tended toward Barnes & Noble for a while when we had to choose a box bookstore of preference. Then the B&N selection got stale. It became impossible to find what one was looking for, and one bought books purely by the luck of random browsing, and even that wasn’t working out as well as it used to.

Which was why we went back to Borders a few months before their closing was announced. There, we started to see some variety in their offerings, and had better luck finding the sort of books we were looking for.

Ironic how Borders got its act together just in time to go up in flames.

Here is the point…

I hope Barnes & Noble is paying close attention to everything involved with the Borders closing. I’m not just talking e-books, or online sales, or discount cards. I’m talking, as in the last time I wrote about this fiasco, listening to employees, listening to customers, and focus on selling a wide variety of books and less of the dross and novelty crap. Aside from an embarrassingly small number of independent bookstores that deal in new stock, Barnes & Noble is going to be the only game in town, but if they think a monopoloy is going to protect them from demise, they’re dead wrong.

What would be nice is if there was some more competition in the area. Not necessarily another book chain store, although I’ll take what I can get. What we need are more bookstores in order to offer more variety and more book culture. Hey, the customers are there. I’ve yet to see an empty parking lot in front of one of these places.

But B&N… my message to you… be humbled, and attempt to learn from this whole mess.

Okay, I will try not to waste valuable electrons on this topic any longer.

*   *   *

Speaking of books… has anyone looked at a Star Fleet Technical Manual from the original Star Trek series lately? Anyone notice how most of the readout displays use CRT-style displays. No flat screens. We’re getting to the point where our reality is surpassing out science fiction. Of course this is nothing new. I remember reading Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy in which the computers on board interstellar spaceships relied on paper tape. No video readouts whatsoever, and no keyboards… just switches an paper tape readouts.

Go figure.

Cheers!

You know they’re out there… conspiracies, dark secrets, people and plans that direct the motion of everyone’s lives behind a veil. Knowledge is power and I bring you power. Trust me.

It’s true! There is no such flavor as “blue.” Those blue-colored slushies you get in the market are supposed to be raspberry, but in truth, raspberries have no flavor which is why so-called “natural raspberry flavoring” is actually apple and pear juice. Why blue? Food scientists determined that it was easier to accept an unnatural flavor if presented in an unnatural color. The American Raspberry Council settled on cyan blue and lobbied Congress in 1917, the same year as the Russian Communist Revolution, to forbid any other coloring to be associated with raspberry. It’s true! Communist conspiracy? We’re not saying so, but we wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s true! Netflix is a shadow government data mining project which has garnered more personal data on users than any other method of data mining currently known. Data extracted determines everything from local elections to the cost of postage stamps. None of this is really considered a secret aside from the fact that the shadow government is not American.

It’s true! American Idol is not nearly as popular as the network would have you believe. Actually, it’s one of the lowest-rated shows on television in terms of actual viewership. All media hype and coverage is orchestrated by the network, and allof the contestants and audience members are non-union actors flown in from eastern European countries.

It’s true! That’s not peanut butter. Never has been.

It’s true! The FBI kept extensive files on MAD Magazine. It is commonly thought that due to its counter-cultural appeal that there was a anarcho-communist connection. In reality, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was just a really big Don Martin fan.

It’s true! We’ve had a manned base on the dark side of the moon since 1955. In 2000, in response to the “election” of George W. Bush, they severed all contact with Earth.  In 2009, a robot probe drilled into the lunar habitat and found it had been long-since deserted. In late 2010, NASA began to receive radio signals from Ganymede consisting of recipes for apple cobbler and raspberry parfait.

It’s true! There is no such country as Lichtenstein. How gullible can you get?

It’s true! When postage stamps switched from adhesive backings from glue that needed to be licked, the number of sick days taken by postal employees dropped 60%. Because this interfered with scheduling procedures that have been in place for over a hundred years, administrators began spitting into random pay envelopes until the sick day counts returned to their previous state. With the onset of electronic bank transfers replacing pay envelopes, postal administrators are now considering knifing random employees out back behind the loading docks.

It’s true! Secret sauce? Month-old mayonnaise. Russian dressing? Mayonnaise and ketchup.

And now you know.

*   *   *

Back to work! the SFWA Bulletin is safely off to the printer. The medical journal is nearing so. A book on European identity is off for another proof. Today it’s more Ida Lupino, a BearManor Fiction book, some Merry Blacksmith books, some advertising layouts, and some poetry books. Busy, busy day.

Busy.

Cheers!

There was an interesting blog post on the Publishers Weekly website in which a soon-to-be former employee of Borders discusses what he believes to have been the fatal error that led to the bookstore’s demise. In short, his thesis is that Borders upper management did not place enough value on the experience, knowledge, and loyalty of the everyday staff. Rather than listening to what floor employees who talked with customers regarding what they’re interested in buying (such as, you know… books), Borders instead hired “experts” who told them to get books off the shelves and promote toys, novelties, and other useless knick-knacks. Rather than invest in a wide, quality selection, Borders pushed a limited number of titles more than others, and sacrificed a diverse stock. Yes, their late and flawed entry into the e-book market was another nail in the coffin lid, but if Borders had placed value on employee experience and willingness to be its biggest promoters, they instead held their employees in disdain and contempt. I mean… if they were so smart, why would they be working for such a pittance?

I think a lot of companies suffer from this. Outside experts are rarely as expert as they claim. They can pull out numbers and statistics but what reality do they really reflect? They rarely have any direct contact with the consumer. They rarely have any direct contact with the employees who know from experience, from actually witnessing what works and what doesn’t. I’ve seen this happen in the printing world. We’ve seen it happen in the bookstore world. Hospitals? Who do you think they listen to? Patient consumers? Or board members who wouldn’t know a scalpel from a bedpan?

Banks. It’s a wonder some of them are still in business. Why people haven’t burned Bank of America down to the ground yet is beyond me as they’re not only the worst of the worst when it comes to dealing with customers, but they also don’t have a great record in dealing with their low-to-mid-level employees. You know, the ones who have the most direct contact with the customers.

They say (and rightly so) that many lawyers are more trouble than they’re worth, that they make things more complicated than they need to be, and get paid too much for it… so it can be said for these “expert” consultants who give companies bad advice in exchange for obscene amounts of money which result in things like… well… look around.

I don’t imagine any captains of industry are reading this page, but should one stumble across it let me just say this to you…

Before paying out for some expert who is not in touch with your customer base… see what your employees have to say. Look for someone in middle-management or below. Seriously. Take them out to lunch and pick their brains. Don’t be turned off by their payscale (which is your doing anyway) but consider that nobody wants their workplace to go under due to lousy management and misplaced priorities.

They’ll likely tell you exactly what you need to do to boost business… for free.

But don’t be a dick. Pick up the lunch tab, and put something nice in their pay envelope.

I’m just sayin’.

*   *   *

Had a good weekend. Friday we visited the Washington County Fair. This is always fun. I’ve been going to this since I was a kid and when Margaret entered my life, I started going again, this time with her. Always fun to check out the goats. I love the food (Irish salt potatoes, chowdah, clamcakes, corn on the cob, keilbasa, strawberry shortcake, fresh squeezed lemonade, etc). It’s just a fun day out.

Did a little prepwork on some paintings over the weekend. The two canvasses pictured here are just the beginning underpaintings. They’re going to be two very different sorts of pieces. Can’t wait to get cracking on them.

Also hit a yard sale, took Daisy out on various adventures, visited Margaret’s mother in Newport, and generally had a nice weekend. Even got some work done.

But it’s Monday, and work doth beckon. Lots to do. Can’t hang around here all day.

Cheers!

I laughed when I heard they were remaking Dirty Dancing. It’s not a movie that holds any significance for me. I’ve seen maybe the last ten minutes of it which, I think, were all you really needed to see. The news was just further proof that Hollywood is not the land of ideas. News of Ridley Scott doing another Blade Runner movie isn’t so amusing. The 1982 movie could not be made in today’s Hollywood. My advice to you, Mr. Scott, and this is based on what I’ve seen of the last decade of your films… keep Blade Runner out of the Hollywood system. Produce it independently. Find non-studio investors. Don’t let some maniac executive producer who wasn’t even born when the original movie came out have anything to do with a new Blade Runner movie beyond getting your coffee. Even then, check to make sure the little creep didn’t give you chai instead. You’ll thank me later.

News that Seth MacFarlane got the go-ahead to produce a new Flintstones series is not the Biblical end of times, but if it comes out next year, then it could mean those Mayans were on to something. In all seriousness, though, I wish him luck. A lot of people forget that MacFarlane got his start in kids cartoons. And The Flintstones, like for a lot of us, was a part of his childhood. I’d honestly be surprised if he tried to screw with that.

We didn’t need another Conan movie. The last one pretty much perfectly captured the feel of the source material. The only problem was that they forget to call it Conan. You probably know it better as The Scorpion King.

I don’t want to subscribe to Hulu+. I already have a Netflix account. I already pay for FiOS. I don’t mind watching ads. Just drop the plus thing, willya?

America’s Got Talent kind of snuck up on us this year. Is there anyone worth watching and rooting for like we did for last year’s Prince Poppycock? Points, though, for bringing back the guy who so savagely roasted Piers. I may tune in again. Or not. Don’t seem to care much this year.

Hey, SyFy… I know the name-change a couple of years ago probably knocked a few brain cells off their shelf, but cancelling Eureka? Come on! Warehouse 13 and Haven are okay, but Eureka is the reason people sit down to watch your channel in the first place now that BSG is gone.

*   *   *

It’s Friday and I’m continuing to work. The Sherlock Holmes book went to the printer this morning. One more proof of the SFWA Bulletin went out and I imagine that will be off to the printer by Monday at the latest. I’m building a color section for Signifying Europe and am getting ready to lay in photos for the Ida Lupino book and the Artist-Scholar book. By Monday, I’ll have started on a werewolf book for BearManor. On the Merry Blacksmith side of things, I’m nearly done laying out Matt Howarth’s The Eden Retrieval, and have started on an excellent short fiction collection by Daniel Pearlman entitled A Giant in the House & Other Excesses.

Painting-wise, I’m still playing with the acrylics. Still getting the feel for different mixes and types of paint and surfaces. It’s fun. I’ve been working with relatively small canvases, but I have a couple of 24×36 inch canvases waiting and I already have ideas on what to try on those. the problem is that my workspace is still pretty small. I need to continue working in the basement to give myself more room to work. With the weekend nearly here, I imagine I can find some time for that.

Cheers!

So I’ve been playing a lot lately with acrylic paints. I came across a bunch off tubes that were bought years ago for some unknown reason while working on the basement and decided to give them a try. After some research, some reading, and picking up a few cheap-but-needed tools, I decided to dive right into a bit of abstract composition.

The result? Well, let’s just say that I’m not about to become the toast of the art world. But like with doing the watercolors, I find the process both engaging and relaxing. A kind of release from general tensions. And with the abstract acrylics, I actually feel a bit freer to experiment–partly because (I think) it’s easier to paint over something awful with acrylics. With watercolor, if you mess up, it takes a lot more work to fix it–or you just have to start over.

My goal is to get better at general techniques, and then try to work in some mixed media. Acrylics combined with watercolor and charcoal and screen printing and image transfers. Maybe even a touch of collage. It’s fun stuff, and an interesting approach to free-form creativity compared to more structured forms like writing or music.

I’ll likely continue. I have little sketches of future paintings. The three I’ve shown here are only my very first.

Should be fun. Should be interesting, too, to see how they develop over time.

*   *   *

In other news–news that I’ll be posting to the Merry Blacksmith site later today–Tim Pratt, author of Broken Mirrors is coming out with a sixth Marla Mason novel and has agreed to let Merry Blacksmith Press be its publisher! Broken Mirrors was the very first original title we came out with, so I’m extra-pleased that Tim has been happy with his Merry Blacksmith experience and allowed us to continue with this series.

As with Broken Mirrors, Grim Tides will begin as an online serial. After the online version has been completely uploaded, the printed version will immediately become available for order. The serial should begin in January, and the book available by early spring. Don’t worry… I’ll make some noise about this again as we get closer.

Cheers!