Yes, I’m making a modest proposal that you click away from my site (take a screenshot, this may never happen again) and go over to David B. Dale’s blog and read his heartwarming Thanksgiving story, destined to be an instant classic.

Why? Because…well, here’s the first line:

She was our youngest and tender-hearted (tender, in fact, throughout) and therefore hard to eat.

On October 27, APPSolute Media and Lush Life Productions launched Happy Houred, the first free iPhone application designed to find your next drink and save you money. Happy Houred is one of those “now why didn’t I think of that” creations: a simple concept, executed well, that fills a need. Until Happy Houred came along, imbibers had to rely on their own savviness to find a happy hour near them. Now, users can easily search a nationwide database for deals by bar, type of drink, kind of bar, and distance from any location in the country.

Happy Houred differs from other bar search apps in that users are encouraged to add bars, photos, reviews and happy hours. “This ensures happy hours are as up-to-date and accurate as possible via a user created and monitored community,” said Alex Libkind, CEO of APPSolute Media, a publisher for next-generation web and mobile devices. To start the database, bar and happy hour information was added for major urban centers including: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Miami, San Jose, Portland, and New Orleans.

“Happy Houred is an app for drinkers by drinkers,” said Lindsey Johnson, CEO of Lush Life Productions, the premiere social media and digital PR agency for the beverage industry. “While we’re constantly updating bar information, the app was built to encourage users to add happy hours, reviews, and pictures. We want to know what you’re drinking.”

What's Hot? Happy Houred, that's what.

This fostering of community seems to be working: soon after its launch, Happy Houred entered the “What’s Hot” section of iTunes, and has remained there since. From my own experience with Happy Houred, I’ve already noticed a jump in the number of L.A. bars listed. I know I’ll keep adding my own favorites to the list, how about you?

Happy Houred is available now for free at the iPhone App Store, or you can search for “Happy Houred” from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iTunes to download the free application.

Happy Houred for the iPhone

• Created by APPSolute Media and Lush Life Productions
• Sponsored by Don Q Rum and Tito’s Handmade Vodka
• Free download at the iPhone App Store
• happyhoured.com

To promote the launch, the Happy Houred team is embarking on a nationwide barnstorming tour. Stay tuned for details on West Coast launch events!

Update: On Wednesday, November 11, Happy Houred is hosting a launch party at Cantina in San Francisco. Details here: http://twtvite.com/jm0ood

No surprise here. And if you say there IS one, I’ll … go Dorothy Parker on your ass!

Truly, there is no justice in a world in which such a dynamite tale of romance hasn’t been made into a Bruce Willis movie (am I showing my age? okay, fine, Michael Bay movie, then. happy now?). I’ve stolen this tender, yet explosive vignette from a 12-year-old copy of the Tatler, and will here retell it in my own words, both because I like the sound of them and because who knows whether or not this Gerald Harper person may have a particularly aggressive intellectual property lawyer.

So, this Gerald Harper actor-sometime-magazine-writer-person tells a story he heard from a certain John Mills, artist-person. Who I also hope is unpossessed of an aggressive intellectual property lawyer, because these days you can’t even gossip about YOURSELF without somebody suing you for invading your own privacy and, well, you just can’t be too careful.

Not that I’ve ever tried.

In any case, howeversomeitbe, if it pleases the jury, this is what said John Mills told said Gerald Harper, and then Harper turned right around and got one pound sterling a word or thereabouts for it, which proves the pecking order of the arts world and the pen is mightier than the brush, or at least has a better agent, don’t it?

Mills was a navy officer whose job did not, surprisingly, involve a lot of time on boats. He was, you see, a demolition expert, and those people are not really so much in demand on the open ocean because, that famous whale notwithstanding (and it couldn’t even withstand a couple of hot days on the beach, and you can watch the video yourself if you doubt me which you should never do unless I say I’ll pay you by Thursday and then you get what you deserve) there are not a lot of explosive materials or substrates right handy once you get out at sea. There’s a lot of water, a fish or two, and far too many smug, retired couples who insist that you call their glorified dingies “yachts.” Which, however much you may want to blow them up, you couldn’t, because they probably play bridge with some retired relative of yours who’d be annoyed at losing a pair of easy marks.

So, despite being a naval officer, this Mills person spent most of his time on terra firma, rendering parts of it significantly less firm and, not infrequently, airborne. This has to be some kind of elaborate prank of the navy’s on the army, surely? In any case, it’s a heck of a job description and I can’t think of many pleasanter ways to spend your career if you’re the kind of man who grew up reading exciting Boy’s Only books and rigging snares and messing around in the basement trying to make your own guncotton and feeding seagulls fish stuffed with baking soda (not that I know any men like that, no indeed, and I would have turned them right over to the Society for the Preservation of Shithawks if I’d met any, of that you may be sure). Most particularly if you find yourself in the navy and you don’t really like, you know, boats and stuff.

So Mills was trundling across Europe, blowing up whatever the powers that be wanted blown, and speaking of which, he met a girl.

It so happened that he had a little time off, and he and his fair lady spent many a pleasant hour picnicking and partaking of other pleasures on a particular little hillock somewhere north of Rouen. Now, a note to those of a pedantic turn of mind: you might as well close that tab you opened on Google Earth. You won’t find it. And why not?

Because, on their last evening together, lying on the little hill, the lady leaned in and sighed, “Oh my darling Jean, I ‘ate to zink zat anybody will use our ‘ill.”

So the next day, he blew it up.

Who says chivalry is dead?



Celebrity tweets, treated to dramatic reading. This one features Courtney Love, Tila Tequila, and Jessica Simpson.Verified accounts, all. Sounds like a party!

You just know those poor actors are going: for this, I went to COLLEGE!

• 10/10: Gebhard Ullman Basement Research zorgde voor een prima concert in De Werf, een combinatie van hechte thema’s, grooves en momenten van vrijheid. Een paar koppels zijn wel vertrokken tussen de sets. Abonnementhouders, veronderstel ik. Verslag.
• 11/11: Heel mooi: de lezing/voorstelling van folkicoon Shirley Collins, om 16u ’s middags voor een bescheiden publiek (oude knarren, geitenwollensokken, duffe musicologen en ander volk dat niet door had dat het feestje van The XX in de Botanique te doen was) in de AB Club.  Collins was charmant en vertelde een kleurrijk, nostalgisch en ontroerend verhaal met gewéldige geluidsfragmenten. Later die avond: supertalent Stephanie Hladowski, die het deed met enkel haar stem en bijna bezweek onder de zenuwen, en Alasdair Roberts, Schotse folkie met een eigenaardige, maar indrukwekkende zang- en gitaarstijl (en een PATAT van een accent). Verslag.
• Tussen de lezing en de concerten Lapin à la Kriek gegeten in de Fin de Siècle. Konijn is lekker, lauwe groenten iets minder. Tegenvallen doet het echter nooit, daar in de FdS. Fijn gezelschap ook.
• Intussen ook de hand kunnen leggen op nieuw werk van Vandermark 5 (Annular Gift, zowaar besproken in De Morgen van vandaag) en het Han Bennink Trio (Parken), plus werk van Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone (Thin Air), The Black Napkins (s/t) en Os Meus Shorts (s/t). Later ongetwijfeld meer daarover. Net als over de nieuwe plaat die me al een paar keer tegen de muur kwakte van verbazing. Ook in 2009 wordt geweldige muziek gefabriceerd.
• Weinig tijd om te lezen: Lush Life (Richard Price) wordt in kleine dosissen geconsumeerd. Al goed dat het een klepper is.

NP: Vandermark 5 – Annular Gift

This explains so much about Imaginary Boyfriend #2 (see Imaginary Boyfriend #1 here) former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

• 2/10: William Elliott Whitmore maakt fijne muziek en speelde een vrij lange en evenwichtige set, maar hij leek wat op routine te teren. Verslagje.
• 3/10: De band speelde een degelijke set in het obscure Dorne. Danny Buckskens was luid, chaotisch en fun (zaterdag 10/10 mag u voor hen gaan supporteren tijdens voorronde 2 van Limbomania – JH XL – Herk-de-Stad). U was er trouwens niet.
• 4/10: Kinky Friedman is een boeiende figuur, maar zijn concert was niet het verhoopte mirakel. Plezante zondagavondkost, maar weinig verrassingen. Zijn gepasseerd: “Ride ‘Em, Jewboy”, “Before All Hell Breaks Loose”, “Sold American”, “Homo Erectus”, “Autograph”, “Wild Man From Borneo”, “Waitret, Please Waitret” (“Eatin’ ain’t cheatin’!”), “Pretty Boy Floyd” (W. Guthrie) en een resem anderen. Afwezig: “Peope Who Read People Magazine”, “Something’s Wrong With The Beaver”, “We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To You” en, helaas, “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore”. Verslag.
• 5/10: Kloterij: voornemen om op de trein een nieuw boek te kraken (Onzichtbaar, P. Auster), maar het nergens vinden. Op de trein stappen en beseffen dat het in de auto ligt. Maar intussen wel begonnen aan Lush Life (R. Price), dat meteen imponeert.
• Van een brave man de The Story Of Anvil DVD meegekregen. Daar ga ik vanavond naar kijken, als ik niet in slaap val tijdens Het Journaal of zo.

NP: Ellery Eskelin, Andrea Parkins & Jim Black – The Secret Museum

I’ve had quite a week.   I’ll go ahead and skip the parts about me being in a foul mood, questioning just what in the heck I’m doing with my life, experiencing the worst burn ever imaginable on the roof of my mouth, dealing with a serious case of road rage and having just unbearable cramps.  Wait,  did I just write that all down?  Ok.  I guess the secret it out.  I’m not happy all of the time.  Big deal.  I’m human.  What do you want from me??  Fine, I get it.  This is a blog about “happiness.”  I shouldn’t be some Debby Downer.  I’m sure there are plenty of people out there writing about how angry and pissed off they are.  That’s not my job.  I’m here to make you happy.  But gosh darn it, sometimes, I just wanna wipe that smile off of your face.

However, even in the midst of being a total grump, there are always happenings in my life that make me feel good.  And right now is no exception.

Monday was Labor Day which means not only are not you not supposed to wear white until Memorial Day 2010, but also that most people are lucky enough to get a three day weekend!  Which, how can that not make a person happy??  I spent the day with the windows open, enjoying the breeze and reading “Lush Life,” which I thought was just absolutely brilliant.  That Richard Price is quite a writer.  After I did that, I watched a silly movie, cleaned out my closets, listened to some music and spent some really quality time with my ass glued to the couch watching Law & Order reruns.  It was fantastic and I will not lie, this lazy day made me very, very happy!

On Tuesday, I got to witness just the coolest thing ever.  I’ve shared this everywhere, so why not keep adding it to the internet universe on this blog as well?  It makes me so happy that I have to watch it like 16 times a day.  
http://blackeyedpeas.dipdive.com/media/76361  (copy and paste this into your browswer)
I get goosebumps and tear up because it’s such an amazing thing to experience.  The energy of that – you just can’t top it.

On Wednesday, I was introduced to my good friend’s four week old little girl, Edith Jo.  She is precious, the most well tempered baby I’ve ever met.  And if being around a baby doesn’t make you feel good, there is something wrong with you.  So innocent, so new, so perfect.  Her mom Betsy and I caught up and ate sushi, which was great, but just watching Edith being content made me the happiest of all.  It’s like a reminder of all that is good in people.  Which I think sometimes we adults tend to forget and need to work on remembering.

Not only did those three big things bring me big happiness, but I also found joy in discovering the best salad bar this side of town at Gourmet 47 in the West Loop, in enjoying this fantastic weather we are finally having, in discovering some new music – ie The Airborne Toxic Event, The Gaslight Anthem and Justin Townes Earle, in writing up fun and creative ideas for my job, in learning that my brother passed the Missouri State Bar Exam (Joe is very, very smart) and in celebrating my parents 36th wedding anniversary (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD).

Pretty good week all around.

Heavens to Betsy, a Hodgepodge of Happy makes me happy.

Good Day – Luce

A side note or two:
Today is September 11 and while I promise to try to be happy, I also promise to never forget. I never worked harder or cared more about anything I’ve ever done in television than during that time. Loved ones lost and their friends and families are in my thoughts today.

A co-worker of mine is in the hospital right now and needs all of the positive thoughts, energy and prayers you can muster. He’s such an optimistic, outgoing, good time guy and we need him back in the edit bay.

Everyone says that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but of course we all do. Presented with an overwhelming array of options, a reader has limited ways to figure out which book on the shelf is worth $20+ – not to mention hours of precious time. The best covers, I think, reveal much about the tenor and style of the book while stimulating the browser’s curiosity.  (Recent covers that spring to mind include Lush Life, by Richard Price; Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert; The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski; and memoirist and book designer Julie Metz’s cover for her own book, Perfection.)

Some of my own book covers have been more successful than others. “Cover consultation” is a standard part of most writers’ book contracts, which means, essentially, that the publisher presents the writer with one or two options, and if the writer strenuously objects they may be willing to try again. Ultimately, though, the publisher usually makes the final decision, saying – with justification – that they have more experience, understand the market better, and are, after all, in the business of selling books.  With my own covers, I won some and lost some; usually there was some kind of compromise. (You can see the covers here and judge for yourself. Which ones work best?)

When my editor and I began talking about the cover of Bird in Hand, I didn’t have a specific thought in mind. We’d recently changed the title, and I was still stuck on ideas that had to do with metaphorical representations of a four-way stop.  So without any input from me, they came up with this option:

Isn’t this a beautiful image?  The saturated colors are lovely; the typeface is strong but simple, and the picture is arresting. But I felt that it was too, well, female – and perhaps a bit literal (yep, those birds are indeed in her hands).  My editor wrote, “Our sales force likes this jacket very much; they feel that, as a marketing tool, as a way to catch people’s attention and get them to pick it up from tables at bookstores, it’s very effective.” And I completely understood that. But I still didn’t think it was right for this book.  Bird in Hand is about four people with complex and clashing emotions, and I wanted the image to convey unrest.  The sales force disagreed, but my editor was willing to go back to the drawing board. (This image is now the cover of the international edition.)

The next three covers they sent were wrong for all different reasons:

I understood what they were doing here: four characters, four relationships, crossed wires. But as a friend asked, “Is this book about a concentration camp?”  Here’s the next one:

My novel takes place in New York and its suburbs.  To me, this looks like a bucolic Midwestern building in a field.  And then there’s this:

Which I admit is a bit better. The problem, ultimately, was that these covers struck me as generic.  They didn’t convey anything in particular about my novel.

What often happens is that the writer may not have a clear idea of what she wants at first, but being presented with ideas that don’t seem right clarifies her opinion.  (This is, of course, no fun for any art director.)  So after getting all these options, I put some hard work into figuring out what I did want, as opposed to what I didn’t.  Bird in Hand is about the dissolution of a marriage (among other things), so I wanted to picture a domestic scene with something slightly awry.  I envisioned a marital bed in the foreground—but with an unsettling component, something “off.” I imagined a window with a surprising view or an odd picture on the wall.

I was inspired by two paintings that hang on the walls in my study:  “Beginning” by Laura Tryon Jennings, a rendering of the room I stay in at my parents’ house in Bass Harbor, Maine, in the summer – and “Rumpled Sheets” by Jessica Dunne, which depicts a bed at the VCCA, the artists’ colony where I met this wonderful artist.  (She did this painting while we were there.)

After discussing all of this with my editor, she went to the art director.  Several weeks later, they came back with this:

I knew immediately that this was the one. It retains the color palette and typeface of the first cover but has a whole different feel. I love the bed, with its carefully folded back covers, as if someone got up and out. These sheets clearly aren’t rumpled in passion.  I love the odd little Audubon-like photo-realist picture high on the wall.  (What’s it doing there?) I love the juxtaposition of the soft orange blanket with the cool, shadowed sheets. This cover, to me, has mystery and drama and strangeness, and perfectly conveys the mood of my novel.

But what do you think?  I’d love to know!

Okay, so my friend Nicole’s excellent and awesomely titled blog is celebrating it’s first birthday and I can’t get my shit together enough to post even vaguely regularly. Oh well. I still haven’t read Wetlands, so I can’t follow up on that, but what I can tell you is that you should read Aleksandar Hemon’s The Lazarus Project. The way information is revealed, the way the seemingly incongruous threads are stitched together to form the whole is amazing. Mr. Hemon got a MacArthur “genius” grant a while back, and I’m beginning to think these MacArthur clowns really know what they’re doing. Oh, and I’m also reading Richard Price’s Lush Life, which feels like I’m reading an episode of The Wire. Or what I imagine it would be like to read an episode of The Wire, because I haven’t watched a single one yet. (I know, I know. I really need to watch The Wire.)

Anyway, go wish Nicole’s blog a happy birthday and while you’re there, tell her what your favorite book’s been lately. Deal? Deal.

Start shaking your head now because every idea you ever had about Hollywood being a Josie grossy effed up palace of trying to nail your daughter is true. The Huffington Post ran a hot item about Ryan O’Neal telling a charming story about accidentally (?) hitting on daughter Tatum O’Neal at his girlfriend Farrah Fawcett’s funeral. Farrah is not amused, O’Neal.

I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me,” Ryan told me. “I said to her, ‘You have a drink on you? You have a car?’ She said, ‘Daddy, it’s me–Tatum!’ I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it’s my daughter. It’s so sick.”

“That’s our relationship in a nutshell,” Tatum said when I asked her about it. “You make of it what you will.” She sighed. “It had been a few years since we’d seen each other, and he was always a ladies’ man, a bon vivant.”

“Bon vivant?” Oh sweetie. Your Dad tried to put his John Thomas in your ass. At the mother of his son’s funeral. It’s kind of a problem, and that’s not even bringing up the fact that he couldn’t recognize his own daughter. Cuz, hi – time to ease up on the martoonies.

Tatum doesn’t exactly have all her marbles in the bag, either. She was busted for having a crack attack in June of last year and trying to score. She claimed it was “research,” which is the excuse I use when I face plant on the bar or try to steal your boyfriend. Just don’t ask research for what.

Anyway, Ryan ( who refers to Tatum as a “bitch” – guess she should have taken him up on his offer of post-burying Farrah funsies) apparently opened up viciously about how he never should have had children to Vanity Fair in an upcoming issue, and came forth with this gem.

O’Neal is brutal on the subject of his parenting and his children, telling Bennetts, “I’m a hopeless father. I don’t know why. I don’t think I was supposed to be a father. Just look around at my work–they’re either in jail or they should be.” He doesn’t talk to any of his kids except for Redmond, whom he visits in jail. “I was in touch with them for years, and I was a mess,” he says of the others. “I’m not in touch with them now, and I’ve never been happier.” When asked if he’s sorry he had children, he nods, Bennetts reports. “A couple of them I would take back,” he says.

Thanks, Pop. Redmond, his son with the late, great Farrah, is currently in jail on drug charges. Ryan was once arrested alongside him for possession of tina back in Sept of last year. This family has a bond. And that bond is drugs and trying to fuck each other. These people are the reason why Farrah was painting with her ass at one point. I would, too if I had to be associated with this trash.

Vou postar um excelente disco de um multi-instrumentista que até pouco tempo eu desconhecia. Ken McIntyre é o nome deste ótimo músico do avant-garde que foi bastante comparado com Eric Dolphy com quem chegou a gravar um disco. McIntyre tem no currículo participações no aclamado disco de Cecil Taylor “Unit Structure” e no “Liberation Orchestra” de Charlie Haden e Carla Bley.

“Hindsight” foi gravado em janeiro de 74 pelo selo SteepleChase na Dinamarca e é um dos poucos com McIntyre como líder. Ele conta com o experiente piano de Kenny Drew mais baixo e bateria. A “cozinha” neste disco tem mais o papel de suporte para o improviso do saxofonista que também toca flauta, oboé, clarone e fagote, mas há alguns solos de piano e baixo.

Destaques para a interessante faixa “Bootsie”, “Lush Life” que é tocada com o fagote e “Body and Soul” tocada com o clarone.

1. Bootsie
2. Lush Life
3. Mercedes
4. Body And Soul
5. Airebil
6. Naima
7. Round About Midnight
8. Sonnymoon For Two
9. Body And Soul

Ken McIntyre –  sax alto (1, 7, – flauta (3) – fagoté (2) – oboé (6) – clarone (4, 5, 9)
Kenny Drew – piano / Bo Stief – baixo / Alex Riel – bateria

With just under three hours to go in our 24-hour blogathon, it’s critical to remember to stretch and move to maintain flexibility and alertness. Whether you have chosen Track A (alcoholic) or Track B (bore) routes to your Blogathon experience, at this point you should be capable of running through several of the following yoga poses as you are waiting for your post to upload.

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

And now for something completely weird:

I love these weird little things psouper posts to YouTube. I don’t understand any of them, but they are visually interesting and smooth out my frontal cortex nicely, like French ambient music. If Goddard by way of Cocteau is too much for you this time of night, try this:

Drunk Eastern European men attempting to put a log on a bicycle. THIS? This is where Borat came from, my friends. And it is documentary.

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

First, there’s this:

After a bit more blogging, I decided to become “internet famous”

And after awhile in the Internet Famous game, I decided to get a real life.

Boy, was I in for a rude surprise.

Notice how the lives are getting smaller and smaller as time goes on? Eventually, I will become a pixel.

But it will be a pixel in The New Yorker!

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

Yes, yet another self-referential blog post. After all, what else is there for me to talk about but…you know…me? I’m an expert on me. I know me backwards and forwards, inside and out (or at least I do since I saw that CAT scan) upside and down.

In Bizarro World, raincoaster falls asleep every night promptly at a reasonable hour, beside one of: Viggo Mortensen, Johnny Depp, Steve Jobs, James Tiberius Kirk, Henry V as played by Kenneth Branagh, Michael Lewis, or Sebastian Junger; the bed is stuffed with fluffy, fluffy Krugerrands, and the nightgown is carved from one solid, flawless diamond. Ah, for a life of ease!

In Bizarro World, raincoaster works for Vanity Fair, or rather VF publishes old blog posts of mine, with the YouTubes embedded right in the glossy pages using special technology developed just for me.

And, most importantly, in Bizarro World raincoaster is profiled by Vanity Fair.

The raincoaster Proust Questionnaire:

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Uh, didn’t you READ the post?

2. What is your greatest fear?

Server problems. If a blog falls in the forest and nobody’s subscribed to the RSS feed…

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Modesty. I’ve almost completely succeeded in eradicating it, but not quite.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

An inability to recognize my awesomenosity

5. Which living person do you most admire?

Besides myself?

6. What is your greatest extravagance?

Gin. My liver has a vested interest in keeping me poor and sober.

7. What is your current state of mind?

Fried. This getting up in the MORNING is for the birds. Right, birds wake up early. Birds eat worms. Therefore, getting up early sucks.

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Getting up early, duh. Haven’t you been reading?

9. On what occasion do you lie?

When the truth would give a falsely modest impression of my awesomenosity. It just wouldn’t be fair.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

My tentacles will NOT stay combed.

11. Which living person do you most despise?

Is Thatcher still alive? Bush? The guy who cancelled M.A.S.H.? WHY MUST THESE QUESTIONS BE SO HARD?

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?

The ability to be Viggo Mortensen.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

The ability not to get between me and Viggo Mortensen.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Me, Myself and I would like you to define “overuse.”

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Again, I am forced to ask haven’t you been reading this?

16. When and where were you happiest?

Any day now.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?

The ability to fake sincerity.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My socks. And if you were sitting beside me, you wouldn’t need to ask why.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Earning the good home-maker badge and the whatchamacallit, housewife emblem, in Girl Guides, thus proving once and for all that I can do ANYTHING.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

The vindictive joke of a malevolent god, that’s what me coming back would be. The fucker.

21. Where would you most like to live?

Olympus. Failing that, Not-Ucluelet.

22. What is your most treasured possession?

My self-possession, obviously!

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

No Followers.

24. What is your favorite occupation?

What are you hiring for, big fella?

25. What is your most marked characteristic?

Did you read this one?

26. What do you most value in your friends?

The ability to buy me drinks at the Heather.

27. Who are your favorite writers?

The ones who buy me drinks, and not just what they’re having.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?

I’d say Caspian the Tenth, King of Narnia, but he’s not fictional.

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Myself.

30. Who are your heroes in real life?

See #27

31. What are your favorite names?

Robin, Anastasia, Skippy the Klingon

32. What is it that you most dislike?

Blogathons

33. What is your greatest regret?

Volunteering to do this blogathon without laying in an adequate supply of gin and/or z’s.

34. How would you like to die?

Vindicated. Stole that one from Fran Lebowitz, but how could I not?

35. What is your motto?

49 degrees latitude, 360 degrees attitude!

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

Sorry, boys. We own you.

Another in our ongoing series of hilarious, sexy, booze-related commercials. Let’s get the Scots (particularly that long-haired one) together with this chick and breed a race of super-drinkers. Imagine if that happened: finally a date that could keep up with me!

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

I don’t care what you’ve got, it’s not as good as this. This is, quite simply, the best commercial ever made. New Zealand vs Scotland, man-mountains vs Abercrombie and Fitch models, two avatars of modern masculinity going head-to-head in a testosterone-sodden war. Who wins?

Watch this, and then you tell me.

Me? I think the audience wins!

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

Have you ever wondered (and if so, were you sober enough to remember it the next morning) what the James Bond movies would be like if they starred, instead of Connery, Brosnan, et al hunkish cohorts, someone whose appeal was not simply the way they fill out a debonair DJ? Someone more cerebral…someone whose appeal is that romantic touchstone, “He makes me laugh”?

Someone like Abbott and Costello?

No, huh? Oh, FINE, here then. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya.

This is a Blogathon post. Don’t just sit there, SPONSOR ME!

Did I mention that on Twitter I’ve talked two rival gin houses into shipping me “care packages?” Now if only it worked as well with men! All the ones that volunteer to give me their packages are ones I wouldn’t care to have, so it seems. But that’s neither here nor there; it is, in fact, nowheresville.

Anyhoodle…

This Saturday (because I am insane) from 6am I’ll be participating in Blogathon 2009, a 24-hour, 48 blog post postathon, to raise money for the Federation of BC Writers, BC’s home grown support system for Left Coast literati, of which I used to be the Lower Mainland representative, back when I had (what do you call that…that thing…where you can do stuff…) TIME! Oh yeah, and if I sleep in (likely) I’m gonna hafta do a post every ten minutes or so until, like, noon. That could get a little crazy.

What are you waiting for, now that this fabulous news has broken? Reach deep into your heart and your wallet (or your neighbor’s; God knows, I’m not fussy). Sign up to sponsor me by selecting “raincoaster.com” from the list of available blogs. Clicky, clicky! You can sponsor me X amount per post or a lump sum for the entire 24 hour slogathon. For a $50 donation, I’ll make an ego-gratifying post entirely about you, You, YOU, and will even include a link to your Facebook Fan Page (if you insist).

If you want to watch this madness live, you can come on down to Workspace at 21 Water Street in Gastown, where the blogerati of Vangroover will be holed up, typing (or napping) away. Vancouver’s own Mojave band will serenade us with a private concert, and April Smith of AHA Media will be taking video (gee, is 6am too early to get my makeup done?), so you need not feel left out.

A word of warning: I will get my 48 posts up, but I will NOT get them up promptly every goddam half-hour. I AM NOT A BLOODY MACHINE and I am also not cheating by pre-posting and scheduling things, tempting though it may be. I may or may not attend Illuminares and liveblog it; depends if I can catch a ride to and fro; forty minutes on the bus each way is a killer. On the other hand, Miss 604 is judging a bartending contest in the middle of everything, so if she can do that, perhaps I can do this (who wants to be my DD?).

After Blogathon wraps, the procedure is simple: you just tote up your donation and send the cheque straight to the Fed, which will put it to good use on behalf of British Columbia’s home-grown literary talent. And, hopefully, buy me a drink. I’m gonna need one if that gin doesn’t get here on time.

I know I’m posting this up everywhere I possibly can (except perhaps at Lolebrity.net) but it deserves repeating. Quite an exclusive gathering this will be.

From a bright-eyed Friday, September 4th through to a groggy, shaken Tuesday the 8th morning, we’ll be closeting ourselves away in a secluded BC resort doing nothing but writing. The goal: to create a novel from start to finish in three straight days.

Every year the 3 Day Novel Contest comes around, and every year, something gets in the way. The purpose of this retreat is to ensure that over those three caffeine and stress-packed days, you have nothing else to do but write. And maybe slam some energy drinks.

You can also join this event on Facebook and you can join the Shebeen Club itself there as well.

Meals, shelter, companionship and isolation as you choose: all are included in the price. We’re still in negotiations, but at this point it looks like the four days (checkout 11am Tuesday) will run us about $500, including your 3 Day Novel Contest registration fee of $50.

There is an absolute maximum of 20 attendees, so express your interest sooner rather than later.

Obviously, we’ve yet to lock all the deets down, so consider this a preliminary announcement and we’ll consider your ATTENDING/MAYBE/NOPE RSVP to be equally tentative until everything is ready for launch. We’ll contact everyone then with the official registration link, where you’ll be able to make your reservation via debit, paypal, or credit card. For now, just drop a comment or email to let us know you’re interested and we’ll keep you informed.

Oh, and by the way, we’re not officially affiliated with the 3 Day Novel Contest, we’re just big fans who’ve been thinking about doing this for years.

Dialogue is hard to get right.  It has to sound like natural speech, when in fact it’s nothing like it.

I like to send my creative-writing students out to cafes and parks with notebooks to transcribe bits of overheard conversations.  Then I ask them to type up these transcripts and turn them into dialogue between characters.

Inevitably their written dialogue little resembles the overheard conversations.  When you write dialogue, you have to eliminate niceties and unnecessary patter and cut to the core of the exchange — unless the patter is crucial to the story, conveying a dissembling, depressed, incoherent, or boring personality.  (The writer George Garrett called this “dovetailing.”)  At the same time, it has to sound natural, like something someone would really say.

Richard Price, in his recent novel Lush Life, allows his characters to talk and talk and talk. Price maintains a delicate balancing act; his characters’ words matter.  What they say changes the direction of the story.  But he never burdens his dialogue with exposition or forces it to convey plot points that don’t come up naturally.  In Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway says, “In order to engage us emotionally in a disagreement, the characters must have an emotional stake in the outcome.”  Price’s characters are nothing if not emotionally invested.

Price’s dialogue is vital to the story because it moves the action forward.  He constantly puts his characters in conflict with each other.  Their conversations are full of surprises – self-revelation, inadvertent admissions, hearsay, evidence.  But it sounds real: his characters’ speech has kinetic energy; it crackles with life. Real life.